Mary Mapes Strikes Again, Conjures Up Fictional Limbaugh Interview While Promoting Truth

Part of the Monday morning routine here is to check the weekend box office numbers to see what shined and what bombed. And on this October 19th, it is a pleasure to share the news that Truth, the fairy tale disguised as non-fiction on Dan Rather and Mary Mapes’ discredited report on George W. Bush’s military service record, performed poorly in its opening weekend.

Per The Hollywood Reporter:

One high-profile title that’s off to a poor start is Truth, starring Robert Redford as ousted CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather and Cate Blanchett as disgraced 60 Minutes producer Mary Mapes. The Sony Pictures Classics release opened to $76,646 from six locations in New York and Los Angeles for a theater average of $12,774.

Let’s just cut right to the chase: I believe Ms. Mapes is liar. She was in 2004 when she went ahead with a report that only could have altered a presidential election and that was based on forged documents. The end. There is no further explanation needed. No movie worth filming. No overacting (and boy, that’s not in short supply here) from the otherwise-reliable Blanchett as Mapes or the victim treatment from Redford playing Rather, who is a long way from the classic and infinitely more accurate All the President’s Men with this one.

But here’s where things really get comical. A few days ago here in Manhattan, The New York Times hosted another session of Times Talk, which is a very cool series that has long-form conversations with actors primarily promoting an upcoming movie.

Here’s the Times Talk transcript of the portion in question with Mapes:

Moderator Susan Dominus: “Mary, when you watched the movie, was there anything that either made you cringe personally, like that was painful to relive that, that moment, or obviously there were some very intimate emotional scenes involving, you know, your — well, maybe you can talk a little bit about your family life that, you know, Cate portrays in the movie, like, you know, the scene with your father.”

Mary Mapes: “One of the sort of subtexts in the movie is this cascading series of events that where everything is just raining down and every time I turned around or Dan turned around there was something new and newly hideous happening to us. I have an estranged father, and we have not had contact for many years, but a right-wing radio show got in touch with my father and talked to him about his relationship with me, and then suddenly I’m driving down the road and there’s my father on Rush Limbaugh talking about me, about how I always had a radical feminist agenda, you know, “(bleep), you haven’t talked me for 15 years, how do you even know that –” but that was the level of personal attack and personal pain.”

So here we are 11 years after Mapes sabotaged her own career at CBS (she was fired after at least parts of the report were deemed to be false while Rather was demoted before leaving the network). There is no debate in any reasonable person’s mind over the documents being forged. Even a judge threw out a Rather wrongful termination suit against CBS years later. No matter… here’s Mapes telling a story in vivid detail about her father’s guest appearance on Limbaugh’s program, which already is an odd memory considering Rush is almost-always — as in 99.9 percent of the time — a one-man show devoid of any guests.

And therein lies the rub: According to official show transcripts, Mapes’ father never appeared on Limbaugh’s program. Never. It didn’t happen. Yet she claims it did and even evokes “personal pain” over it.

So if you’re keeping score at home, Mary Mapes lost her job over incompetence and poor judgment, but somehow gets Hollywood to make a revisionist movie that is so far removed from truth, CBS won’t even run ads promoting it. Here’s the official statement from the network:

It’s astounding how little truth there is in “Truth.” There are, in fact, too many distortions, evasions and baseless conspiracy theories to enumerate them all. The film tries to turn gross errors of journalism and judgment into acts of heroism and martyrdom. That’s a disservice not just to the public but to journalists across the world who go out every day and do everything within their power, sometimes at great risk to themselves, to get the story right.

And then to add insult to self-inflicted injury, Mapes conjures up a story about her mean father saying mean things on Rush Limbaugh’s radio program. Except there’s no record of that happening whatsoever.

Mary Mapes certainly is accomplished at creating something out of nothing. Fabricated military records, interviews her father never gave about her… doesn’t really matter. She’s now also the owner of a movie that bombed at the box office this weekend.

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. But in this case, Truth simply is fiction.

— —

Follow Joe Concha on Twitter @JoeConchaTV

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.