Cenk Uygur: Mary Mapes, former producer for Dan Rather on 60 Minutes, and author of the new book, Truth and Duty. Mary, your story of course, caused a lot of controversy about the National Guard service of George Bush. I want to get into a little bit more detail, Mary, about why you think CBS reacted the way they did.
Mary Mapes: It was interesting this week, watching the McCain story play out in the New York Times. I mean, I almost have a kind of, post traumatic stress disorder when I see a news organization run a story and you start hearing all this vitriol in the right and how they're liberals and they shouldn't have done it, and it was hateful, and ignorant, and dumb, and mean, and deceitful, and all those things. It literally gives me flashbacks.
Cenk Uygur: Were you proud of the New York Times for running that story on McCain, and having the courage to run that story?
Mary Mapes: Well the relationship between money and politics is complicated and dirty, and one of the biggest stories, you know, that nobody covers. I don't know. I think everybody as usual in American, everybody got really hung up on, "did McCain have an affair?" And I have sort of taken a personal vow not to think about John McCain naked for the rest of my life. So I'm not paying any attention to that. But the story told me a few things. It told me about divisions within McCain's camp. It told me that sometimes McCain thinks he is so ethical that anything he does can't be challenged. And it also frankly really troubles me that here he was lobbying on behalf of some folks like Sinclair Media, who are that real far right media outlet that were, you know, part of, they ran that dummied up John Kerry documentary, you know, "stolen honor," or something in 2004. So all that stuff deserves a big examination.
Cenk Uygur: Finally, Mary one last question for you. You know, you said that everybody, to some degree is intimidated by the Republican attack machine, if you go after the Republicans they're going to come to get you. Is there any concern about attacking a Democrat in the media?
Mary Mapes: No. No. No.
(Both Laugh)
Mary Mapes: But let me think about that. No. No because...
Cenk Uygur: So you have an unbalanced playing field then, where you gotta be real careful if you're going to go after the Republicans. But the Democrats are open season?
Mary Mapes: Well that's absolutely true. But what has happened is that over the years the Republicans have called...you know...if you think of the media reported as being referees who are supposed to point out problems and things like that...it's like one team is, you know, accusing the referees of cheating on behalf of the other. And when that happens, you know, accusing people of bias all the time, you start bending over backwards to keep from being bias. And I think for a number of reasons, I think the media is much more careful about what they say about Republicans, and that becomes a problem. And Democrats, frankly, don't have all those Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, you know, the crazy people to start screaming and stirring things up.
posted by yturks 
