Will the Bush administration's daily harangue of the "liberal press" help Republicans in their mid-term reelection bid in November? We doubt it, especially since we now know the architect of modern day liberal press bashing, Rush Limbaugh, needs Viagra to get it up these days.

Here are a couple of pieces to flesh out the debate for the initiated and uninitiated alike. Don't be fooled people. This is nothing but politics.

Bush administration officials have been lining up to condemn The New York Times for revealing a program to track financial transactions as part of the war on terrorism. But if the Times' revelation about a program to monitor international exchanges is so damaging, why has the administration been chattering about efforts to monitor domestic transactions for nearly five years?

White House NYT Bashers Hypocrites

President Bush calls the conduct of the New York Times "disgraceful." Vice President Cheney objects to the paper having won a Pulitzer Prize. A Republican congressman wants the Times prosecuted. National Review says its press credentials should be yanked. Radio commentator Tammy Bruce likens the paper to Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

Even by modern standards of media-bashing, the volume of vitriol being heaped upon the editors on Manhattan's West 43rd Street is remarkable - especially considering that the Los Angeles Times and Wall Street Journal also published accounts Friday of a secret administration program to monitor the financial transactions of terror suspects. So, in its later editions, did The Washington Post.

Piling On the Liberal Press for Story on Secret Program

Need we say more?