Most of Tuesday on his always popular Web site, Matt Drudge had his usual assortment of links to stories, including provocative political reports, entertainment and sport stories as well.
Drudge is incredibly influential, especially for those who like to hang out in the echo chamber that is conservative talk radio.
If you don't think so, tune in one morning to Ted and Jack on WFLA 970 for their morning program, and listen while looking at the site to see if they're talking about stories posted overnight by the mysterious Drudge, who has become somewhat of a hermit socially in recent years.
Last week, in the Washington D.C. paper and Web site The Hill, Brent Bodowsky wrote that Drudge's power "may turn out to be more of a curse than a blessing for Republicans and conservatives because in my view, it fosters delusions that can lead to defeat. "
Budowsky then went on to write about how Drudge was ignoring mainstream media stories about where the discussion about Democrats and Republicans was headed, and how by only highlighting stories and polls that reflected negatively on the Dems, he was providing for his readers a one-sided perspective.
Of course, there's nothing really revelatory in making such a comment, since it's been a winning formula for the fedora hatted blogger for the past decade. And there's nothing stunning in writing on how he appears to go out of his way to find negative articles that attack Barack Obama. Again, all part of the conservative media machine.
But today it was just downright tacky when he published a photo of Malia Obama yawning, as she sat next to her mother, First Lady Michelle Obama, while reading at an Easter Egg Roll ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House .
He showed the photo with the title: BEING BORING...
But then he got rudely personal, posting a link underneath the first link with a little advise for the 11-year-old Malia that read:
Covering Your Mouth When You Yawn in Public
For one who hits that link, one can read an answer to a question about yawning.
So the Obamas can get parenting advise from noted bachelor Matt Drudge. That's rich. And just a tad tacky.
This article appears in Mar 31 – Apr 6, 2010.