Should Dan Rather be fired?

by
Casey Flynn

Republicans are demanding that there be an investigation of Dan Rather and CBS regarding the forged documents used in the 60 Minutes II report, including an investigation to see whether there was coordination between the DNC and Kerry campaign, regarding the use of these forged documents.

Everyone is asking how this could have happened to such a reputable organization as CBS? It turns out that CBS was using the same organization to authenticate these documents that the Bush administration used to authenticate the forged documents, which claimed that Niger attempted to sell uranium to Iraq. This claim of course found its way into President Bush's 'State of the Union' speech, numerous CIA briefings to members of Congress before their vote on the Iraqi resolution, Secretary of State Colin Powell's address before a closed hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and was part of the evidence and necessity for our invasion of Iraq.

Everyone is further asking how Bill Burkett - the source for the forged documents, who has been considered potentially mentally unstable even by West Texas standards, could have duped such a reputable organization as CBS. It turns out that CBS was using the same organization to verify Bill Burkett's story that the Bush administration used to verify the prewar intelligence information from Ahmed Chalabi and other Iraqi exiles, who claimed, for example, that Iraq had obtained aluminum tubes, which the administration advertised insistently as components for the manufacture of nuclear weapons fuel and that Iraq had obtained mobile chemical- or biological-weapons laboratories. It turns out the aluminum tubes were actually for household gutters and the mobile chemical- or biological-weapons laboratories was actually the EM-50 Urban Assault Vehicle, aka a GMC motor home, made famous in the Bill Murray-Harold Ramis movie, 'Stripes', but now militarily outdated, used mostly for tailgating at Iraqi soccer games.

Republicans are suggesting that Dan Rather should be fired; well as they say in the folksy sayings of West Texas, what is good for the goose is good for the gander.