Yes, you can have legitimate journalistic concerns over whether they should have run the one document they did not have enough verification on. But the heart of the story stands, even after a thorough CBS investigation into the report led by Republican stalwart Dick Thornburgh. But after this 60 Minutes story, no one ever dared to challenge Bush on whether he showed up to the National Guard in Alabama, although it appears he almost certainly did not.

But that's not why I bring this up. After I asked about how cowed the media is by Republican attacks, I asked one more question: Does the media ever give any pause before doing a similar story on Democrats?

The answer: "No, no, no." (You can get the transcript and the interview here or the short version on You Tube)

When it's Republicans, you better be prepared for a blistering counter-attack. When it's Democrats, unload on them because they never hold you accountable.

Now, to Hillary Clinton's credit, she doesn't accept this paradigm. She is fully aware of this game and knows how to play it with the best of them. And I say this with utter ambivalence. On the one hand, I like that she has successfully adapted Republican political tactics that work. On the other hand, I am uncomfortable with the idea that the media is getting played by her as much as they do by the Republicans.

Look at what she has done in these primaries. Every time she has been attacked, she plays the victim card. She says the media is biased against her. So, now when a news organization goes to cover Senator Clinton, they think twice.

Now, I think there have been times when her claims of bias have been justified (I've written about Chris Matthews in regards to this before). But the media has to be able to discern the difference between legitimate problems in their coverage and political gamesmanship. Of course, the media won't be perfect in covering every candidate (not by a long shot, see Al Gore). They have to be open to criticism without getting bullied.

The Clinton team went from having legitimate concerns about their treatment in the press to aggressively intimidating the media into favorable coverage a long time ago. I thought her references to the Saturday Night Live skit in one of the debates was silly. But I was wrong. It was awkward at the time, but it got the job done. That marked a turning point when the press got gun shy in going after Hillary. They didn't want to get stuck with the anti-Hillary bias tag. They got scared of what SNL or the Clinton team was going to say about them.

What's going through the head of everyone from MSNBC all the way down to the local paper is, "If I say that about Hillary Clinton, am I going to get in trouble? Will her campaign accuse me of having an anti-Hillary bias?"

Do they have similar pause when they are about to ask Barack Obama to apologize for Louis Farrakhan, a man he has no connection to (let alone when Tim Russert asked him about comments made by Harry Belafonte, presumably because they are both black - what's next, asking him to reject and denounce OJ)?

Did they have similar pause when they couldn't stop talking about John Edwards's haircut (was there a dumber "issue" in this whole campaign)? Did any of the other candidates put out this talking point that the media better be careful what they say about them because they will cry and whine about it?

Now you can say, maybe they should have. And I hear you on that. If I was running a campaign, I wouldn't unilaterally disarm. I would complain bitterly about anti-Cenk bias until I made every press outlet think eight times before they ran a negative story about me. One of the advantages of this strategy is that many stories don't run based on this line of attack simply because people and organizations don't want to go through the hassle and work of jumping through all these hoops to run a simple story. Hence, you have less stories against the candidate who complains more.

Until the press catches on to what the Republicans have been doing for so long and what Senator Clinton has been doing of late, I would whine to the refs like all the rest of them to balance out the playing field. The media has to recognize this and learn how to ignore this kind of BS whining (without being close-minded about legitimate criticism).

When Sam Donaldson was on our show, he said that whenever either party complained to his boss, Roone Arledge, about how he was covering the Reagan or Clinton White House, Arledge would give him a raise. That's the spirit of watchdog journalism we have to get back to (and we probably will - as soon as there is another Democrat in office (man, that's frustrating; but I'll take it if they at least cover the Republicans in Congress and the right-wing media with the same scrutiny)).

Why do I point this out now? Because I think there is a very specific issue that the press is not covering nearly enough at this point because of exactly this kind of intimidation. This primary race is over. Hillary Clinton cannot possibly catch Obama in pledged delegates. So, in order to win, she would have to overturn the will of the voters through superdelegates or some other form of political machinations.

So, why isn't the press reporting that it's over, that she can't possibly make a comeback in the remaining elections? Because they don't want to say it's over and have the wrath of Senator Clinton come down on their heads. The Clinton camp would whine about a story like that forever. They would charge that the press is trying to short-circuit the process, have always been biased against Hillary, yada, yada, yada.

But it's time to get real. She won't catch him on pledged delegates - that's an enormous story everyone should run with. And then the question must be posed to the Clinton camp everyday - how do you plan to win when you will be trailing (significantly) in pledged delegates? How do you think the convention would play out if Senator Clinton went in trailing significantly in the delegate count and then found a way to take the nomination anyway?

Wouldn't it seem undemocratic and un-Democratic? Wouldn't there be a huge cry of injustice by more than half the Democratic voters at that point (and this time, it would be perfectly legitimate and not some sort of political gamesmanship)? Isn't this the biggest story out there? Who cares what Geraldine Ferraro or Barack Obama's pastor said? What's the math, who's going to win?

Or more accurately - who has already won? That's the big story and the one the press would be talking about if they weren't at least somewhat intimidated by charges of anti-Hillary bias.