Posted 8:09 AM by steve

CBS executives want to know why Mapes, one of Rather's most trusted producers, repeatedly assured them that both Bill Burkett and the documents he gave her could be trusted.

Let's see, maybe it was because she was a desperate liberal! Her man (Kerry, not Rather) was behind in the polls and seemingly incapable of doing anything himself to improve his position. Time was running out. Sitting on the story (actually, without documents there is no story, which is the story) wouldn't hurt Bush. There's no appeal process after November 2nd for 'newly discovered evidence' that wasn't presented to the jury - so if she was going to do something to influence the election, it had to be done now.

I recently had a friend ask what I would be willing to give up in order to have my candidate (you know who) win. My answer was golf: as much as I love playing (and, by the way, I'm not that good), I would be willing to give it up if doing so guaranteed keeping Kerry out of the White House.

Well, we've just seen what Mapes, Rather and the other liberal true believers at CBS were willing to give up to see Bush denied a second term. I doubt they saw this coming, the risk of losing their jobs. But I'm not sure it would have mattered to them. Moving on to retirement, in Rather's case, or on to something else, for Mapes and whoever else gets tossed onto the street, would have been a worthwhile sacrifice to the cause. They wouldn't have minded being martyrs. But their plan to help Kerry didn't work. They never envisioned getting caught, least of all by the rabid right wing blogosphere, the pajamhadeen. They never envisioned having their story fall apart so quickly. They never foresaw blowback on the Kerry campaign. And, that is what they are the most upset about... that it just didn't work out.




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