If this turns out to be as bad as it looks like it will, Rather-gate will accelerate the collapse of the MSM as we now know it.

The advent of Cable TV and the Blogosphere has shortened the shelf life of the MSM already, and the, ahem, advancing age of the Big Three anchors for ABC, NBC, and CBS was already going to leave a huge hole when they were gone.

The NYTimes continues to wrap itself into a deeper cocoon, and the Laphams of the world have been outed.

Assuming a comfortable Bush victory in November, the biggest scapegoat after Kerry just might be Rather and gang. And the amazing thing is that a large share of the responsibility will be a bunch of what they will call “amateur bloggers.”

How righteous is that?