Mary Mapes Live Chat

Update: The chat is ended, opening up sunny new vistas in life. Below, as blogged:

Is online now. I'll come back later, but for now contemplate this gem:

Omaha, Neb.: In Appendix 4 of the Independent Review Panel, Peter Tytell, a widely acknowledged typewriter and document examination expert concluded that "the Killian documents were generated on a computer" and that they "were not produced on a typewriter in the 1970s and therefore not authentic." Given his indisputable expertise, wouldn't this end the debate as to whether or not they were forgeries?

Mary Mapes: Not at all. Document analysts disagree all the time. That is the point of the profession. They serve as expert witnesses in cases all the time. It is an art and science that is more akin to hair analysis than to DNA testing.
Besides, there is no one typeface or document analysis God. They are many people with experience.

The point of the document analysis profession is that they disagree all the time? And Mapes' belief that document analysts disagree all the time--handicapped by the absence of a "document analysis God"--is supposed to strenghten her attempt to prove the documents were valid?

Update: The weakness of this argument is illustrated in another exchange. Early in the chat, Mapes says she has discovered another cache of documents that will buttress her case against Bush:

Cincinnati, Ohio: Do you have evidence that the new cache of documents are authentic?

Mary Mapes: I have the word of the archivist who pulled them and his long record of splendid work on historial archive materials. His name is Steve Jones and he heads Lyon Research in Virginia.

Well why should we believe him? Is Jones some kind of document analyst God? The point of this profession is that they disagree all the time!

Update: Paging Charles Johnson--

Fort Walton Beach, Fl.: Can you please address the issue posed by the bloggers concerning the National Guard documents? That is the typeface, fonts, etc., that didn't even exist in the early 70s, and are in fact an exact dupication of that produced using Microsoft Word.

Mary Mapes: Proportional spacing was developed int eh 1940s and fine tuned in the 50s. The Texas National Guard had many machines capable of it in 1972. Superscripts were available. There is no doubt about this in research books or evidence.
  There wasn't time or interest in reaching a reasoned conclusion int he overheated political atmosphere in 2004.

Mapes also says she'll be putting up evidence on her website along these lines, which should be entertaining. All of these claims have been demolished on various grounds by Little Green Football's Johnson and others. And will be again.

Update: So's your mother...

Bowie, Md.: Ms. Mapes, based on your comments and your demeanor as evidenced by the tone of your responses, I am much less confident of the content that I see on news programming.

Mary Mapes: I guess I don't like your tone either.

Update: A major obvious crystal-clear defect in Mapes' argument:

Medford, N.J.: You described your critics as un-American?  Isn't dissent patriotic?

Mary Mapes: Criticism is all American. Anonymous name calling is not.

Most of the people who criticized Mapes and Rather to any effect--and certainly the ones that closed the deal--are named. She keeps talking about anonymous critics, but their names include Charles Johnson, the Powerline boys, the carefee disagreeing document analysts, Dick Thornburgh and Louis Baccardi,... it's a long list, some of those names should be penetrating her consciousness by now.

Update: Done. In more ways than one.