Observing the way Mark Halperin and Matt Drudge act around each other is like watching two people at the office who think they're doing a fantastic job of concealing the fact that they're sleeping together ... when, in fact, all of their co-workers know. Here's Halperin today (via Taegan Goddard):
Another danger for the President: the media freak show. Stalking that circus' center ring is Matt Drudge, whose caustic website continues to help drive the news cycle with an emphasis on negative, mocking items about Obama and Vice President Joe Biden and their wives. The latest sign of Drudge's potency: Ed Klein, the author of the virulently anti-Obama book The Amateur, was barred from major TV appearances and mostly ignored by the mainstream media, but the book's prominence on Drudge's website propelled it to the No. 1 slot on the New York Times nonfiction list.
You realize, of course, that this is ridiculous. Yes, Klein's book was featured prominently at the Drudge Report. It was also excerpted not once but three times in print and online by the New York Post. Sean Hannity did a two-part, 16-minute interview with Klein on his Fox News TV show. Klein was on Hannity's radio show for a solid hour, and Hannity posted tapes of Klein's interview with Jeremiah Wright at Hannity.com. Klein was on Fox & Friends. Klein was on Mike Huckabee's Fox TV show. Klein was on Brian Kilmeade's show on Fox News Radio. Klein was on Glenn Beck's radio show. And that's very much a partial list of his media appearances.
But Halperin says the success of Klein's book was all Drudge's doing. And flattery gets Halperin everywhere:
It's a silly thing for me to bring up, I suppose -- but I wonder how many people, especially older pre-Internet journalists, actually believe Halperin's narrative (Drudge: plucky David taking on the mainstream media Goliath all by his lonesome!), which is a grotesque distortion of the right-wing noise machine's vastness, interconnectedness, and big-money clout.
Drudge is no David -- he's a VP in charge of a key "new media" subsidiary of Goliath, Inc. But I think some Beltway insiders still don't understand that.
3 comments:
That we are now still having to deal with this guy, after his having been debunked and proven wrong so many times . . .
as you say . . . Jesus wept
On top of my usual complaints about our MSM being cowardly, compliant, and complicit, I need to add obtuse - and too many of them are insipid.
Halperin's a rightie asshole, and always was. And I never understood why he's constantly on TV - it's not his sunny personality, his keen insight into things, or his way with words. He's another example of a person who's on TV all the time, 'cause he's on TV all the time. He has nothing to offer, and certainly nothing new - and I suspect THAT'S his appeal. He's safe.
But Drudge is downright nasty and evil. And another example of a soulless sellout, out for nothing but money and influence. I couldn't live with myself if I was like him.
But then, I may be an agnostic bordering on atheism, but I'm not soulless - or, maybe a better term is without a conscience.
Drudge's day will come, though.
Karma's a feckin' bitch!
I see meth, a young male hooker, a trampoline, a scuba suit, an O2 tank, whips and chains, a blowtorch, and Drudge, asphyxiated to death, hanging by some barbed-wire from the shower rail at some hourly No-Tell Motel.
Drudge alone doesn't bother me much. He's just a current example of a type with a long, seamy history - the revanchist, mob-stirring scribbler-for-sale - and odds are that suchlike will be around as long as mass communication exists in whatever form(s). What's bothersome is the at least tacit acceptance of his shtick by supposedly more professional journalists, which cloaks a Drudge in semi-respectability and thus multiplies his influence. (Kindly place "supposedly" above in italics.)
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