Dan Rather pictures

Mary Mapes has just released a book telling her side of the whole “Memogate” affair. I think it’s safe to say that her book bears an uncanny resemblance to another blockbuster work of fantasy-fiction released earlier this year.

For those of you who don’t know the story...

Shortly before the 2004 election, CBS 60 Minutes aired a report on letters supposedly written by Bush's former CO at the Texas Air National Guard which indicated that Bush had gotten into the guard by exploiting connections, and that he essentially just walked out on his service obligation.

Within 30 minutes of the broadcast, internet bloggers discovered that simply typing the letter’s contents into Word for Windows using the default font created an output which was identical, pixel-for-pixel, with the putative 1973 memo (which featured open and close quotes, superscript letters, as well as proportional spacing).

Mary Mapes maintains that she believes the documents are authentic, since no one has proven to her that they are fakes. Even if they are fake, she maintains that the story they tell is still true.

The source of the documents is somewhat murky, but they appear to have originated from a fellow named Bill Burket, a mentally unstable Democrat Activist who served in the Texas Air National Guard with Bush and appears to have nursed a grudge against him for years.