Using Drudge; being used by Drudge

It's not a reputation most of us would want to take to our grave, but Matt Drudge may believe he's immortal and not subject to any particular standard.

Michael Scherer traces Drudge's role in maintaining a wide-open cloaca for political dirt known as "oppo dump."

Take the McCain "bomb bomb bomb Iran" story.

Someone -- we don't know whom [sic], exactly -- sent a carefully edited video of the joke to Matt Drudge, who runs the most popular news blog in America and the premier outlet for anonymous political leaks from Republican insiders.

The next day, the Drudge Report headline blared, "McCain Sings: 'Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran.'" Hours later, the Associated Press echoed Drudge by sending a new story over the wire, headlined "McCain Jokes About Bombing." By then the news was everywhere. Leno, Jon Stewart, each major television network and the big newspapers eventually mentioned the clip. That afternoon, McCain was caught on defense at a campaign appearance in Las Vegas, telling reporters to "lighten up and get a life."

...As the accompanying video showed, McCain never uttered those exact words. As the Associated Press correctly reported, he said the following, before declining to directly answer a question about whether he would attack Iran: "That old, eh, that old Beach Boys song, 'Bomb Iran.'"

And then McCain hummed the Beach Boy's tune. 

It was, in the lingo of the campaign trail, an "oppo dump," apparently compiled with the help of one of the vast, secretive propaganda machines housed in each of the major campaigns. In recent months, such invisible releases of information have often dominated the news cycle and have become ubiquitous for reporters covering the candidates. Official e-mails from campaigns regularly arrive in reporter in boxes with subject lines like "n/a," or "not for attribution." Unsigned white papers are delivered with damning facts about opponents' fundraising reports. Information is passed along by senior campaign officials in hushed tones on the telephone, only after the reporter has sworn never to reveal the source.

What it came down to -- in the matter of "bomb, bomb, bomb" is the relationship between a member of Mitt Romney's campaign staff and Matt Drudge.  The "carefully edited video" probably came from Romney.

These relationships exist throughout the world of politics and the media.  Limbaugh and Drudge do it.  Their imitators wish they could get on the same gravy train. 

Of course, the gravy is provided by all of us, and all of us are getting a lot smarter about not adding to these guys' ratings.  Aren't we?  After all, this stuff is probably even more effective in skewing the democratic process than, say, going after "voter fraud" in New Mexico.

Comments

[Jay]

Have to say that the way your story reads is that McCain never said "lighten up and get a life" to the reporters questioning him about the song. Reading the original link clarifies that McCain seemed not to have sung "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran" as the Drudge headline asserts.

Watching the video, two things seemed clear. McCain was being McCain, witty but silly, and he paid the price because of the videotape. That he went on to answer the questioner more seriously is lost in translation.

The second, but more important aspect of this story, is the questioner who seems to be arguing for military action against Iran by saying, "It's well documented that we have known ... where the real problem is in the region..." This questioner is asking a leading question of McCain, implying his belief that we should take military action against Iran. By responding in the way he did, McCain briefly undercut the dead-sure attitude of the questioner by conflating the question with the Beach Boy song. After all, it was "well documented" that Iraq had WMD's which placed us and our allies in "imminent danger" and, thus, bolstered the case for our Iraq adventure.

[PW]

Is that what you took from what I wrote? Odd!

[Phil]

Your "probably came from Romney" comment is very Drudgesque. Don't let facts get in the way of your smear.

[PW]

Phil, I think if you read Scherer's piece, you'll find it would be hard to believe otherwise. Of course, with stuff like this, it's hard to get a confirmation. In case you didn't read the original article, let me quote this for you:

"'It stems back to what many people believe is a very good relationship between the Romney team and Matt Drudge.'

"In particular, Matt Rhoades, Romney's communications director, has a long history as the source for Drudge headlines, having previously served as the research director for the Republican National Committee during the 2006 campaign. In their book 'The Way to Win,' Time's Mark Halperin and the Politico's John Harris recount that Rhoades traveled to Florida for a friendly steakhouse dinner with Drudge when he took the research director job in 2005. Attempts by e-mail and telephone to ask Drudge about the allegations of favoritism were not successful."

How about "the implication is that it came from Romney"?