start the day with a smile..

hey, someone's still got brains and that old enlightenment crap going for them:

Dan Rather’s conspiracy theories about CBS make about as much sense as a two-story outhouse, the network says.

Rather and his old bosses were facing off in Manhattan Supreme Court yesterday, where the former Evening News anchor was seeking documents he says will prove his storied career there was sacrificed to appease the Bush administration. ...

“We allege this was a sham investigation on be half of CBS so they could mollify the right” and get rid of Rather, who’d been a thorn in Bush’s side, Gold said.

In their court filings, CBS states, “Rather’s position defies logic and common sense.”

“Rather’s theory is that CBS News commissioned a costly panel, in order to criticize itself, exonerate Dan Rather, and give themselves cover for doing something that it had a contractual right to do anyway,” which is remove Rather from his anchor seat, the filing says. CBS lawyer Jim Quinn said that while the report found Rather did nothing wrong, it “excoriated CBS.”

“If that’s a sham, it’s the dumbest sham I’ve ever heard of,” Quinn said.

just to remind folks of the backstory, this goes back to a 60 minutes ii episode about president bush's national guard service that was all well and good.. modulo the fact that it was based on completely (and rather obviously) fradulent documents supplied by a democratic party operative.

now, if folks would only apply the same sort of argument-ad-absurdum from the self-interest perspective w.r.t. iraq, we might have more intellectually honest dialogue about the history there..

good day!