It is a scandal that CBS didn't find out if the documents were real BEFORE they went on the air, as Jon Stewart noted last night on his Comedy Central show.

What interests me is that the Bush administration has decided to turn CBS into a punching bag. But why not? There's no downside. The media are rated next to IRS agents in popularity with the American people. Dan Rather is hated by the rightwing. (He not only had the temerity to taunt Nixon but also Bush pere.) And Rather has the third rated TV news show among the Big Three.

In the last half century or so only one president has benefited from good relations with the media: Kennedy, who turned supposedly independent journalists like Charles Bartlet into Democratic Party hacks. (Bartlett famously said he would do anything to help Jack succeed.)

Even Kennedy would rage at the press when it didn't do his bidding. And if he felt that way, imagine what Nixon and Reagan and Bush I felt.

Even though I consider myself a member of the press, I am also wary of its power. Since the party bosses left the scene, it's the media bosses who decide who is up and who is down, who they should cover and not cover, and who has made a gaffe. In all these ways they control the process to an extraordinary degree. They deserve scrutiny. And Rather deserves to be punished for going on the air with a story that had not been properly vetted. Of course, mistakes happen, as they say. Rather has to admit his mistakes. It might even set a nice example for President Bush.