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.
