By which I mean, both very nutty and liable to damage your bridgework if you’re not cautious. RWNJ ‘documentarian’ John Ziegler talks to the always-reliable Mediaite about Matt Drudge’s crucial long-term support for… Barack Obama?:
… Most conservatives would be shocked to know just how helpful Drudge was to Obama’s election in 2008. It is my very strong view (based on close observation and extensive contemporaneous communication with the late, great Andrew Breitbart, who was Drudge’s right-hand man at the time) that the news aggregator purposely took a dive on Obama during the Democratic primary and played a key role in how “The One” was able to swipe the nomination away from Clinton….
As for why Drudge took a pass on several stories which could have torpedoed Obama’s 2008 campaign (most notably, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright fiasco), Breitbart and I differed on that. It was my opinion that his obvious animus towards the Clintons, combined with his (very accurate) view that an Obama candidacy and presidency would be great for his business, were the primary factors which led him to give the future president a giant pass.
For those who question how Drudge, an alleged conservative (I would submit that he is far more of a capitalist than a conservative), could have possibly influenced a Democratic primary, I suggest you lack a deep comprehension of how this media game now works.
The real power of the Drudge Report is not based in impacting the views of its right-leaning readership. It is instead its ability to create a “market” for stories which fit the desired narrative of the webpage, as well as its influence over other media members who help create the mainstream media narrative.
In the case of Obama’s 2008 campaign (and specifically with regard to Rev. Wright), when it became very clear that Drudge was not interested in negative stories on “The One,” two things immediately happened. First, the market for these stories quickly dried up because there was very little traffic “reward” for those who published them. Secondly, mainstream outlets struggling with what to do with the Rev. Wright story (and desperate for an excuse to be able to downplay it) were easily able to rationalize that if even right-winger Matt Drudge isn’t doing the story, it was perfectly appropriate for them to also let Obama slide.
Early on in the 2016 cycle it is already very obvious that Drudge will not be giving Hillary Clinton the same kid-glove treatment he gave Obama before his election (from which, it should be pointed out, Drudge has probably made more money than anyone in the media other than Fox News Channel). He has given huge play to the Clinton email scandal, her botched campaign rollout, and even seems to be on Martin O’Malley’s campaign staff…
But perhaps the way the Drudge Report’s remarkable ability to manipulate the rest of the media can be best seen is through the events surrounding the soon-to-be-released book, Clinton Cash.
Drudge played up Sen. Rand Paul’s promises of a coming bombshell regarding donations to the Clinton Foundation. Then The New York Times took the extraordinary step of blessing the book while using Paul’s promises in their first paragraph. Drudge immediately linked that story very prominently. This gave whoever made the surely controversial call inside The Times political “cover” because it insured that their story was a huge traffic magnet. It also assured massive mainstream coverage for the book when it comes out as well as a place on the best-seller list. All of this not only allows the story to seep into the permanent mainstream narrative of “Hillary momentum,” but it also makes it clear that a fertile landscape exists for future anti-Clinton stories to grow and flourish…
It’s a measure of how well the Media Village Idiots have done their job (not) that, even though Ziegler is obviously three sandwiches short of a picnic, you read his description of the media’s puke funnel and think, well, he’s not wrong about that…
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Apart from contemplating President Obama and Matt Drudge for once in agreement (that these people are crazy), what’s on the agenda for the day?
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