Mapes Plans Rathergate Book

Fired CBS Rathergate producer Mary Mapes is planning a tell-all book that could blow the lid off the scandal that ended Dan Rather's tenure as "CBS Evening News" anchorman and destroyed the credibility of the once-golden "Tiffany" network.

Mapes, who obtained documents on President Bush's National Guard record that turned out to be forged, "is preparing to shop a book proposal offering an inside account of what happened at CBS News during the memo scandal," reports the New York Observer.

"The book will constitute Ms. Mapes’ defense against charges of journalistic misconduct," the paper says.

Mapes' literary agent explained that she "plans to argue for the veracity of the four memos supposedly typed by President Bush’s former National Guard squadron commander, Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, in the early 1970s," where Killian complained that Bush's Guard records had been "sugarcoated."

"Now that the other people have copped a plea ... she’s the only one who can tell this story," said Wesley Neff, president of the agency that is representing Mapes.

After being asked to resign, CBS producers Betsy West and Mary Murphy, who also worked on the Bush segment, have negotiated settlements with the network. A third producer, Josh Howard, is still working out the terms of his departure.

But with no such settlement to cushion her fall from grace, Mapes is undoubtedly looking for vindication. She is said to have put together 40 pages of analysis and documentation to back up her claims.

And if Mapes' comments after being thrown under the bus by her former employers are any indication, her book may point the finger at higher-ups at the network.

"If there was a journalistic crime committed here, it was not by me," the one-time CBS goldern girl complained after getting the ax. "I vetted all aspects of the story with my editors."