Please, sir, can I have another?

Will the media survive 2005? As the feeding frenzy begins in the wake of the CBS-commissioned report on the Rathergate saga, one has to wonder.

And although the panel's report found no political bias by anyone at CBS, it was clearly a setback for the mainstream media against an administration that has often stiff-armed or ignored journalists, whom Bush calls an unreliable "filter" between him and the public.

Of course, Bush wouldn't know whether the press is reliable or not, since he openly admits that he speaks from a position of ignorance.

Bush has often asserted that he does not read newspapers or watch television, preferring to get news from his top aides.

The obvious irony there is that here's a man who gets all his news filtered through republican sychophants and he's claiming that the media is a biased and unreliable filter -- but Bush is nothing if not willfully ignorant.

As for the rest of the story, it's the usual free-for-all. Republicans claim that this vindicates Bush and his "service" record (it doesn't -- everyone knows that he did get preferential treatment and that he did not serve honorably), and proves that the media has an anti-Bush bias (apparently they've never turned on the radio or watched cable news) and the Democrats, backed into a corner, can do nothing but shriek the name "Armstrong Williams" repeatedly. Ugh. When can we put some grown-ups in charge?

UPDATE: The right wing nutjobs continue to howl about the CBS investigation, but they're absolutely silent about the missing WMD. Go figure. For some perspective, check out Rathergate vs. Saddam's WMD (which has been picked up in the mainstream, btw).