The Drudge Retort

On Tuesday, as Wall Street was reeling and the humongous AIG bailout was being assembled, Drudge ran a picture of Barbra Streisand.

By calling attention to a $28,000-a-head Obama fundraiser headlined by the singer in Beverly Hills, Drudge again used his Zeitgeist-spotting ability to make some campaign mischief. McCain mocked Obama for hanging out with the Hollywood crowd, and a new zinger was born.

Or was it?

Does Matt Drudge, an unabashed conservative, still have huge clout in shaping the media's coverage? Or is his influence overstated by those seeking a simple explanation for why MSM types do what they do?

Even worse, do cable producers and others use Drudge as an excuse to chase pointless, lipstick-type stories rather than grapple with such serious matters as the candidates' record on financial deregulation?

In 2000 or so, Drudge was king of the Net. His gossip column was unique and lots of people--especially journalists--read it. He still has tremendous traffic, but he also has plenty of competition from the likes of the Huffington Post, National Review Online, Daily Kos, Pajamas Media and on and on, not to mention such mainstream blogs as the Caucus (NYT), the Trail (WP), Swampland (Time), First Read (NBC) and many others. So he's no longer the only guy who can drive a story. Far from it.

Sometimes the Miami-based Drudge has got his finger on the pulse in a way that editors locked in story meetings do not. Other times, he pumps up something trivial for sheer entertainment value. And while he certainly leans right, he'll post items damaging to Republicans if they're juicy enough. In the end, it's all about the number of clicks.

I do think journalists lean on Drudge as a way of indulging their id. "We've got to do this," they tell each other, "because it's on Drudge." Or: "The cable networks are running with this because it's on Drudge, so it's really out there." Whatever happened to independent judgment? Or are we all just digital dittoheads now?

My colleague Chris Cillizza is delving into Drudge-ology:

"In the banner headline spot for most of the day was a picture of entertainer Barbra Streisand touting a Beverly Hills fundraiser for Barack Obama -- not exactly the sort of headline that the Illinois senator wants as chum for the cable channels 49 days before the election.

"Two other stories never merited attention from Drudge: a claim by a senior aide to John McCain that the Arizona senator had invented the BlackBerry and a statement by McCain surrogate Carly Fiorina that neither McCain nor Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin would be equipped to serve as CEO of a major U.S. company ...

"The emphasis on Obama's Hollywood ties and the omission of two negative McCain items is consistent with a broader trend over the past month (or so) that has seen the Arizona senator receive far better treatment from Drudge than he had during the primary season when, as several other acute political observers noted at the time, a number of tough stories for McCain regularly appeared on Drudge."