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Junkie
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dredge report
As most of you probably know, Matt Drudge dedicated lots of space over the last couple of weeks to a non-story about an affair that Kerry didn't have.
Here's an interesting story on Drudge and the politics of the right-wing smear.
Quote:
Dredge Report
The cyberhack jumps the gun.
I happen to know that several major news organizations have for some time been looking into claims about portly conservative moralizer William Bennett and a leather-bound dominatrix bodybuilder in Las Vegas, a woman who has some very interesting narratives to recount. What news organizations? The top five that come to your mind are on the list. Some reporters have even traveled far and wide on this story.
Does this mean the story is true? No. It is "developing," as our favorite cybergossip character assassin likes to say, and it may go nowhere. Every day reporters track down leads and follow up on tips. Sometimes this goes on for a while and they may never nail down the leads. And that’s certainly true if there’s no truth to them.
It’s interesting, though, that Matt Drudge, whose standards are far lower than even those of the Weekly World News, hasn’t run a blaring headline like, "Bill Bennett in Grip of Imminent Dominatrix Scandal." I say that, of course, because last week Drudge ran a breathless "world exclusive" report of his own claiming that news organizations were chasing down "recent alleged infidelity" on the part of Democratic front-runner John Kerry.
Now, with regard to the Bennett rumor, take my word for it (and don’t ask any more questions right now, okay?) that several reporters have communicated directly with first-hand sources–as have I. But what Drudge claimed about Kerry was so ridiculously far removed from the supposed source that you’d have better luck using a Ouija board to determine if there’s any scandal in his future. The Washington Post and several other news organizations, Drudge claimed, had been looking into the allegations based on the rantings of a "friend" of a woman who supposedly had an affair with Kerry but who "fled the country" and conveniently couldn’t be reached.
In other words, neither Drudge himself nor apparently any of the supposed reporters he claimed were looking into it seem to have spoken to the alleged expatriate mistress–and Drudge hadn’t even spoken to the woman’s frantic friend himself.
It’s interesting that this unsubstantiated, un-sourced, non-story about the Democratic front-runner–which soon dominated right-wing radio–came as George W. Bush was whirling in the center of an increasingly well-sourced story regarding his past military service and his having gone AWOL. Loyal soldier Drudge, who delighted in exposing Bill Clinton’s sex life, seemed to spin into action to try to save Bush, perhaps fed information from Karl Rove’s right-wing smear machine.
"Was the Drudge item a late hit by an angry Democrat seeking revenge, or a plant by desperate Republicans hoping to distract attention from the president’s problems?" asked Joe Conason, writing in Salon, looking at the possibilities before concluding that it looked like a smear from the right. "Lacking proof, the most pertinent questions are the standards of forensic inquiry: Cui bono (who benefits)? And who had the motive, method and opportunity?"
Even conservative pundit Andrew Sullivan went off the reservation–momentarily–entertaining the notion that the rumor was coming from his side.
"I’m beginning to worry that the Republicans might be behind this smear job on Kerry," he wrote on his blog.
Kerry was forced to flatly deny the claims on Imus a day after Drudge ran his report.
"Well, there is nothing to report. So there is nothing to talk about. I’m not worried about it," Kerry stated.
Usually the denial itself elevates the story dramatically, which is the plan of the right-wing smear artists all along–landing it all over television and in newspapers across the country. But the Drudge smear, so far, has pretty much bombed big time. The British tabloids and Rupert Murdoch-owned papers like the New York Post–and its direct competition, the Daily News–picked it up, as well a few third-rate local tv affiliates down South. This was pretty laughable, but Drudge nonetheless touted these breaks of the story on his site, desperate for attention and validation.
Maybe a lot of media so far haven’t picked up the story not because they’re getting more scruples–I’m not that hopeful–but because Drudge is even more unreliable and wrong than he used to be (and he was pretty bad to begin with). Leonard Downie Jr., the editor of the Washington Post, one of the papers Drudge claimed was working on the story, told Editor and Publisher that no one there was investigating Kerry for any infidelity (though now they probably are). Drudge had also said that Wesley Clark told "dozens" of reporters off the record that Kerry had an "intern issue." Yet, if Clark knew Kerry was about to implode, why did he pull out of the race and why did he then give his endorsement to Kerry?
The allegations, not surprisingly, did get linked up across the right-wing web. Andrew Sullivan perfunctorily attacked the rumor as politically motivated–without actually criticizing his good buddy Drudge. Perhaps Sullivan, who is clearly still incensed over my having exposed his online "bareback" sexcapades two years ago, had to come out against the invasion of privacy if he wanted to remain indignant about the past stories about him and his own behavior.
But soon enough, he was slapped down by fellow right-wing blatherers Jonah Goldberg (writing on National Review online and criticizing Sullivan for saying the smear came from the Republicans) and Jonah’s infamous mother Lucianne, one of the cretins at the center of the Lewinsky affair, who wrote a letter to Sullivan’s site. Like a good little beagle, Sullivan fell back in line and soon began excitedly speculating on how far Drudge’s Kerry smear would get in the mainstream press, hoping it would prove how influential he and his fellow right-wing bloggers have become. Some on the right even began linking to the National Enquirer’s coverage, so hard-up were they to get this story going.
Perhaps by the time you read this they’ll have been more successful. At any rate, they’ve now alerted more reporters to get cracking on looking through Kerry’s personal life, which is perhaps exactly what they wanted, even if they didn’t knock Bush’s AWOL story off the front pages. Then again, maybe Drudge shot his wad with a dubious story and now his further sleaze stories on Kerry–surely "developing" as we speak–will get less and less attention. We can only hope.
Oh, and about Bill Bennett: It’s developing…
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http://nypress.com/print.cfm?content_id=9636 |