DUmmie FUnnies 11-08-05 (Amazon.Com Customer Reviews of Mary Mapes Fiction Book)

The best clue as to whether a new movie is a stinker is if there are NO movie reviews available when it is released. This means the production company has so little confidendence in their own film that they refuse to allow critics get a preview of it so as to have their reviews ready by the release date. Better to keep the public in the dark than to give them advanced warning that the movie is a complete bomb. Likewise a good indicator as to whether a book really stinks is if NO advance book review copies have been sent out. This seems to be the case with Mary Mapes' laughably titled fiction book, "Truth And Duty." Since I have seen no book reviews, with the exception of these three Amazon.Com customer REVIEWS, this means that St. Martin's Press has about ZERO confidence in the credibility of their own book and wish to cut down on the humiliation by making the book unavailable for advance review. Unfortunately for both St. Martin's Press and Mary Mapes, the first chapter of her book was available EXCLUSIVELY until today in the October 4, 2005 EDITION of the DUmmie FUnnies so a few customers of Amazon.Com did not need to waste their money on a book destined for the Dollar Store Shelves. BTW, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND you watch ABC's Good Morning America show tomorrow morning since Miss Mapes will be providing us comedy entertainment by discussing her book at that time. As you can see, there are two coherent and one Kool-Aide drinking reviews below. Let us begin with the liberal Kool-Aide review first in Bolshevik Red while the commentary of your humble correspondent, predicting that the Mapes book will soon be joining Algore's "Joined At The Lips" book at the Dollar Store, is in the [brackets]:

I've been curious about the whole saga behind the Bush-National Guard 60 Minutes story since it aired. It was never clear to me what the underlying evidence for or against the documents and hence the story was, especially since the administration never denied the underlying story. This book does a great job of setting the record straight as I now see the story they tried
to tell was very complicated. The story takes the length of book to tell properly, not 15 minutes on television. Nonetheless, the evidence Ms. Mapes presents in the book is very compelling and completely believable,
especially now that we're seeing more clearly than ever what's behind the smear tactics and lies coming out of this administration. I only wish we had more journalists with the guts to dig for the truth and stand up to this
administration like Ms. Mapes did.

[The most amazing thing about your review is that you actually gave your real name, Robert Ford. Yeah, Mary Mapes gives us a completely "believable" account about the documents. Of course, you have to be as delusional as Mary Mapes who claims the proportional spacing and the superscript occured because of multiple photocopying to make this absurd claim believable. And now on to the RATIONAL reviews of this irrationational book...]

Move over Michael Jackson. With the release of "Truth and Duty" Mary Mapes makes her bid to become America's most publicly visible crunk celebrity artiste. Mapes put CBS News in the toilet with her shoddy reporting, and apparently she's crawled right into the bowl herself and wants to just keep on flushing.

[I wish to differ with Mr. James Ward on one point here. CBS News was ALREADY in the toilet long before the phony TANG report was broadcast. Mary Mapes' contribution was to add the flush that flushed Dan Rather down the bowl. So I guess she can't be all bad. But let us continue with Mr. Ward's review.]

"Truth and Duty" continues on a similar trajectory of bizarre distortions of fact and logic strained beyond credulity that Mapes made infamously operative at CBS. She is in the bottom layer of Plato's cave and digging a hole to find a tree, since absolutely nothing in "Truth and Duty" resembles even a fire shadow of anything known in nature or the mind.

[Keep in mind that Mary Mapes' WHOLE PURPOSE here was to just fill up book pages with any sort of delusion and scam a $250,000 paycheck from St. Martin's Press.]

In "Truth and Duty" Mapes again asserts that the "Killian" documents are genuine and everyone else in the whole wide world is lying. If we don't believe the documents are genuine, we are all lairs. According to Mapes, she isn't crazy or lying herself. No, it is everyone else on the planet.

["EVERYBODY ON THE PLANET IS LYING...EXCEPT MEEEEEE!!!!"]

Forgive me, but here is the ultimate *plot*spoiler* for "Truth and Duty" [warning: DO NOT READ if you want to know the surprise ending of this surprising book]: Mary Mapes was fired by CBS and it is all George W. Bush's fault.

[AND KARL ROVE TOO!!! He's in on the plot!]

Let us pause to consult the dictionary: "Mono*ma*nia: Function: noun. 1: mental illness especially when limited in expression to one idea or area of thought. 2: excessive concentration on a single object or idea."

[Closely related to DUmmieMania.]

In "Truth and Duty" Mapes also argues she was not ideologically motivated and just doing her job. "ideo*logue: Function: noun. 1: an often blindly partisan advocate or adherent of a particular ideology." Whatever her motive, Mapes's arguments about the authenticity of the "Killian" documents are candidates for the "trilemma" challenge made famous by C.S. Lewis. So here it is (with apologies to Clive):

1. Lord: Mapes is the presenter of factual documents, and thus spoke the truth.

2. Liar: Mapes knew the documents were fakes, but she said they were real anyway.

3. Lunatic: Mapes presented fake documents, but she mistakenly believes they are real.

[4. Leftist: Mapes knew the documents were fakes, but she still believes they are real in the Alternate Reality.]

Mapes claims in "Truth and Duty" that she is neither lair nor ideologue, and since everyone on the whole planet, except for Mapes, believes the "Killian" documents were produced on Microsoft Word default settings, Mapes's trilemma case ends in choice three: "Truth and Duty" therefore, is a work comparable to a Looney Tunes romp.

[Not quite everyone on the whole planet. Mary Mapes still has true believers in DUmmieLand.]

"Lun*a*tic: Function: noun. Etymology: Latin. 1: Inordinately desirous; foolishly eager."

[A perfect definition of a DUmmie.]

Well, let's forgive this lapse then, the woman believes in fairy stories and moonmaids and has never heard of William of Ockham. So how good is "Truth and Duty" on other merits? (other than belly laughs, we mean).

[Actually it is quite good for belly laughs. I am looking forward to laughing at liberals who think they have to defend her lunacy.]

Even if Mapes had no agenda to get President Bush she does have an agenda now. And that agenda is cashing in. "Truth and Duty," therefore, as a readable work of fiction, suffers from that agenda. Throughout it is obvious Mapes is hoping "Truth and Duty" sells well enough to option to Hollywood and make her the Erin Brokovitch or Karen Silkwood of her age. Hence, the book is suspiciously filled with dramatic chick flick clichés from page one to page 384.

[I see this book as comedic source material for the same South Park producers who made "Team America."]

Mapes repeats like a Transcendental Mediation mantra that she is a "professional" until you get tried of it ("self-actualization, self affirmation, imagine yourself in the role," we almost hear her chant). By about the 80 millionth time she describes herself as a "professional," you wonder why she herself did not weary of typing the word.

["I am a professional. I am a professional. I am a professional. John Kerry will be inaugurated on Jan. 20. Visualize your own Alternate Reality."]

In addition, we are constantly assaulted with a description of how Mapes "feels" in every other paragraph (would that Mapes ever paused to "think" she may not be in this mess). She slams the telephone in anger (go girl!). We are given frequent locations and descriptions, and ghastly memories of what she was wearing. Other whopper chick flick clichés: Mapes cries in the bathroom (so high school, girlfriend); expresses well-thought-through-righteous-anger at sexist, elitist, corporate hacks *behind*big*desks*; portrays herself as a victim of chilly conversation at *conference*tables*; and as the victim of a male corporate conspiracy during "probing" in *corporate*office*buildings*. With the dripping sinister atmosphere she tries to capture, you'd think the ordinary florescent lit places folks go about their humdrum workdays was the set of a Vincent Price movie.

[Melodrama, thy name is Mapes.]

But the real chick flick item without equal: Mapes also is abandoned by the man she loved (guess who!). You don't even need a film budget for this one, just splice scenes from other movies into Mapes's "girl interrupted" romance and Presto!, instant movie version of "Truth and Duty."

[Mrs. Dan Rather will be "pleased" to read this.]

I began to hear Dolly Parton signing "9 to 5" on about page 200, and half expected Lily Tomlin to show up somehow.

[I'm thinking the chick prisoner singing scene in "Chicago."]

It would be to sad to recount all the well known facts of the CBS meltdown, but let's take a look at some of the fantastic leaps of logic that are revealed from the brains and scrambled eggs of Mary Mapes's worldview in "Truth and Duty":

Howler No. 1: Bill Burkett, the mysterious Lucy Ramirez, and her unnamed "dark complected" agent (both only confirmed to exist by Burkett), are all reliable sources, but dozens of experts and available eye witnesses publicly quoted by Mapes's competitors at the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and The Washington Post, are not (page 50 - 384).

[Hmmm... Would Lucy's "dark complected" agent happen to be Ricky Ricardo?]

Howler No. 2: Mapes and Rather are bravely telling the truth, while the evil Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, other networks, and eventually CBS itself, are not (page 148).

[Update: Even Dan Rather has recently ditched Mapes' delusional scenario.]

Howler No. 3: Mapes's supposed political "liberalism" is simultaneously both why CBS is out to get her, and *not* why CBS is out to get her (see page 312).

[A terminal case of self-contradiction.]

Howler No. 4: Corporate suits at CBS are driven by greed, but Mapes, accepting a check of $250,000 for this book's advance is just pay since she is merely a noble warrior for the truth (page 356).

[If you lie or commit a heinous crime, your "punishment" is a lucrative book deal. Only in America.]

The obvious descriptions are "tedious" and "self serving" for this dreary hash of the CBS debacle, but the more you read, the more horrifying it becomes: for this is not really a journalist documenting her story. No, what made the book fascinating (and why I give it three stars) is the resemblance to a full blown messianic narcissistic delusion. Outside of clinical journals that reproduce excerpts this likely will be the closest a layman will ever come to reading such literature. By page 45 of this whacky wabbit's woeful wegend, wascle Psychiatwist weaders are weaching for prescwiption pads, scwibbling "withium" and dwopping them in the mail to St. Martins.

[Mary Mapes: The Captain Queeg of biased journalism: "Ahh, but the photocopies that's... that's where I had them. They laughed at me and made jokes but I proved beyond the shadow of a doubt and with... geometric logic... that a duplicate key to the document file DID exist, and I'd have produced that key if they hadn't of pulled me out of action. I, I, I know now they were only trying to protect some fellow producers..."]

And by page 384 we are as exhausted as Elmer Fudd after an encounter with Bugs Bunny. We've all had this argument before with a sibling, a friend, a spouse, a parent, or co-worker. An argument where someone is so vewy vewy wrong but nevertheless despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary you cannot get them to admit it and they keep slapping you around. And just like Bugs with Fudd, Mapes claims it is *us* slapping *her* around, as she assaults us with another whopper and claims it is our or GWB's fault. Eventually you just give up and start singing the Looney Tunes theme song yourself, right along with Mapes.

[Mapes hands over ears. Yelling: "NAH! NAH! NAH! NAH! NAH! NOT GOING TO LISTEN TO FACTS! DAMN THOSE WASCALLY WEEPUBLICANS!!! NAH! NAH! NAH! NAH! NAH!" ...And now on to the final RATIONAL book review.]

Since the book is not out yet, I have only read the exerpted first chapter. It does not bode well for the rest of the book. It is filled with inaccuracies. I'll list just a couple of examples. She claims that Buckhead, the lawyer who nailed the documents as fakes, posted before the show was even off the air. Not true. She claims that faxing or photocopying a document that does not have proportional spacing or superscripts can make those things appear to be present. I would like to see her take any authentic 1970's document and produce those changes.




[I've seen the Tooth Fairy perform this trick but no one else.]