The CBS thing is, at least to me, a lot more about the sea change in the way news is handled today than it is about elections. What makes this particularly interesting is that CBS is one of the archtypes of the old media, and 60 Minutes and Dan Rather are among the main pillars. They have been for years.

In the pre-internet days, if you got on 60 Minutes' shitlist, you might as well kiss your ass goodbye. You could duck them, but it only worked so long. Guilt was declared a certainty if you did this.

The camera interviews would be held, the editing would be done by CBS, and the story would be told their way. Your side might end up on the cutting room floor. In fact it almost certainly would. Tough. It's not like you had any real alternative to get your side out, is it? Take out an ad in the paper? If 50 Minutes decided to kill you, you were dead.

60 Minutes was the centerpiece of the control of the mainstream media over information flow. And the politics of those who ran 60 Minutes were the politics of what people heard on TV. And sure as hell they have never matched my politics.

Imagine this same kind of issue done without the internet. The memos would have been seen, if at all, in fleeting low-res camera shots. Certainly there would have been no way for the public to examine them at leisure. And even if somehow the images were released, and some typing expert noticed the problems, who would he tell? A letter to 60 Minutes would be spiked. A letter to the editor of his home paper? Who would read it?

To me may be more important than the election in certain ways. God knows how many industries were ruined, people destroyed, and agendas pursued on this show on evidence with no more foundation than those memos have. But who would know?

The key to this issue is that Dan Rather doesn't run things any more.