Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post attempts to explain to us why Drudge is so influential.
Actually, what he first explains to us is why the great behatted one is stirring up the volcano on Media Island:
The increase in positive McCain stories featured on Drudge has coincided with more skeptical coverage of Obama’s candidacy. In recent weeks, Drudge has featured in his center well spot: A picture of Obama shooting at a far off basketball hoop with a subtitle asking “Will he get his groove back?”; an image of Obama sweating on stage at the Democratic National Convention during the Illinois senator’s acceptance speech; and heavy coverage of the “lipstick on a pig” comments.
What explains the change in tone? It’s easy to lapse into the tired old logic that Drudge is nothing more than a conservative mouthpiece returning to his roots as election day nears.
But, those who follow the news choices that Drudge makes on a day in and day out basis—Democrats and Republicans alike—argue that the shift in focus by Drudge is in keeping with a long time strain of his site: a healthy disdain for the mainstream media and their perceived biases.
Okay, now, here’s the problem with Cillizza’s argument. It’s a subtle distinction - see if you catch it:
(A quick note to preempt the inevitable argument that Drudge’s influence is overblown. Tomorrow morning, take a minute to look at the stories Drudge is highlighting. Then, later in the day, watch a few cable channels to see what stories they are talking about. It will open your eyes.)
The argument, summed up:
Drudge dictates what the news media talks about. He then dictates other things based on counteracting the perceived biases of the news media, which don’t matter, because they all do what he says anyway. Meaning, in the end, that Drudge counteracts a bias he has to know doesn’t exist, because the media simply parrots everything he wrote about earlier in the day.
Matt Drudge is either the world’s most media-savvy idiot savant, entirely incapable of connecting the thing he wrote about thirty minutes ago to the news story that he’s reading about right now, or Chris Cillizza is so deeply in denial about what Drudge is and what he does that he’s looking up at the molten core of Denial Earth. Brendan Fraser says hi.
We then delve into the second part of Cillizza’s apologia for Drudge: