CBS producer "on thin ice"

My Way News: "Mary Mapes, a veteran producer at CBS News, reported most of the National Guard story, including obtaining the documents CBS now says it can't authenticate. She also passed on the phone number of her source, former Texas National Guard officer Bill Burkett, to the Kerry campaign.

Mapes, 48, was described by colleagues on Tuesday as a dogged and talented journalist who made no secret of her liberal political beliefs.

John Carlson, a former commentator at KIRO-TV who is host of a conservative radio talk show in Seattle, remembers Mapes as a talented producer with whom he often argued politics in the newsroom.

Mapes was "quite liberal" and disliked the current President Bush's father, he said.

"She definitely was someone who was motivated by what she cared about and definitely went into journalism to make a difference," Carlson said. "She's not the sort of person who went into journalism to report the news and offer an array of commentary."

Carlson spoke with Mapes about the National Guard story a week ago, and said that he believes she "put so much time into it that she wanted something to come of it."

"This was a woman with a good reputation," he said. "The mistakes she made were so obvious. This was a story that was rushed because they clearly believed it was true. They wanted it to be true."