The imagery isn’t lost on Matt Drudge. He’s a just a plain old pig—no matter how many times Mark Halperin praises him. Take a guess at how he’ll frame Obama next. Might it include a hood of some kind? (h/t Chris)

Steve posted Fri about ABC News’ Jake Tapper’s article that completely misrepresented what Bill Clinton said in a speech delivered in Denver on Wed regarding climate change and the economy. Brad at Sadly No! justifiably raked Jake over the coals for his apparent illiteracy in interpreting what Clinton meant from the transcript, but I must add that after seeing the video which Tapper has posted several links to in his article, I’m inclined to believe there’s just no way anyone could have misinterpreted what he meant. See for yourself.

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Even though Tapper apparently watched that same video, he has since added in an update that he “wasn’t sure just what Clinton meant.” Now whether it is even possible for a journalist at ABC to be that stupid or whether he just continues to be deliberately misleading, I suppose that could be open to debate, but the problem is that now, days after Jake’s misleading piece had been thoroughly debunked and taken to task by blogs on the left and the right, the story unsurprisingly made it into the echo chamber where it was picked up by the likes of Drudge, Rush Limbaugh and now is showing up in publications with titles such as “Bill Clinton Wants An Economic Slowdown” and “Slow The Economy? Chill, Bill.”

I can only shake my head. Churchill was so right.

 Download | Play    Download | Play  (h/t BillW)

Oy.  For reasons known only to them, Hannity & Colmes decided to feature this “rare” interview of internet gossip maven and Republican smear mouthpiece Matt Drudge did with SkyNews in the UK.  Maybe it’s because Drudge didn’t cite FOXNews’ oft-documented issues with accuracy when discussing the importance of getting information from varied sources.  But then again, we all know the issues that the Eggman has with accuracy himself.  

However, my irony meter redlined at this point:

Q: Big election next year. How big a role do you think the internet and websites will play in the way people make their decision of who to vote for?

DRUDGE: Well, it depends what the broadcast outlets do and don’t do. Back in the last Clinton administration, during Lewinsky, for instance, which I had to break on the internet, because the other people wouldn’t. If we’re again faced with a corporations (sic) who don’t want to report real news, the internet will play a very valuable role in the underground, catching real stories that are in spite. (sic)

Is that what you think you’re doing, Drudge?  REAL stories?  Huh.  I would have categorized it as hit-pieces-as-blind-items supplied to you as the useful tool of Republican operatives, but that’s just me.  

Will Bunch has the story.  Do you think this kind of shameless lack of journalistic ethics or integrity will curb the Politico and others from linking to Drudge constantly and finally view him as the hack he is?  Nope, me neither.

George Soros doesn't rule the world…

  Matt Drudge and Bill O'Reilly earn Monday's World's Worst.

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Many right wingers jumped on Drudge's post that Michael Ware heckled John McCain at his presser to you know—paint him as an activist reporter that is lying about his war coverage. Atrios posts:

Matt Drudge Rules His World

Instapundit versus reality.

Reynolds quotes John Tabin to emphasis Drudge's erroneous accusations:

Heckling at a press conference is very rude, and wouldn't be acceptable even from an opinion journalist (I wouldn't dream of laughing in Nancy Pelosi's face during a press conference). That said, isn't it better when guys like Ware let their biases hang out, rather than embedding them in reports that are ostensibly objective?" Wouldn't it be better still if they just did an honest job of doing, you know, their jobs

Michael Ware denied the claims vehemently….Unfortunately for the Eggman's followers, Raw Story has the presser and Ware does no such thing. Now Tabin updates his post simply saying: "Drudge's report is apparently erroneous"

Will Glenn Reynolds apologize to Ware? And will Mike Allen change his tune? And will Drudge apologize since he pulled the story off his front page?

The Cavewoman is in a hissy fight with Drudge. If you're not familiar with The Eggman story—click here. Anyway, Drudge made fun of her Hotair videos…

Just ugh. The things I want to say right now. But we’ve got an FCC. The things I want to say. Maybe we’ll do, uh, uh, a commentary on the Internet like Michelle Malkin. Maybe I’ll stand in front of like a blue screen and hold a banana and start talking into the Internets. (Sneering tone) ‘This is Matt Drudge reporting on Hot Air.’ Agggh. You know. It’s ridiculous. Looks like, you know, Captain Kangaroo time, Michelle. Get real.

The Cavewoman responds:

We at Hot Air certainly don’t have the resources to look like the slicksters at CNN or the dinosaur networks. We don’t have multi-million dollar sets, graphics, and wardrobes like Katie Couric. We put substance first over bells and whistles. (You would think someone with a website design circa 1980 might appreciate our priorities.)

Now why would they be jousting? TRex fills us in with an explanation…

 Calling Mark Halperin—calling Mark Halperin: The conservatives are imploding right in front of our monitors.

Instead, this off-the-wall theory was picked up by one of the most popular sites on the Internet, the Drudge Report — the very same Drudge Report that ABC's Mark Halperin recently compared to Walter Cronkite, writing that "if Drudge has a siren up, people know it's something they have to look at."

In fact, the "Bush in a burqa" story (that was the headline on the top left of the Drudge Report an hour ago) is so ludicrous that even Drudge didn't promo it for very long. However, it was up long enough for Raw Story to catch a screen grab, which we are showing here…read on

 She's right here! You can always count on the "Eggman" to disseminate garbage and his target lately has been Nancy Pelosi. Hey Drudge, she was just on 60 Minutes. I understand you're trying to say she's hiding now so I have a question for you. Where's Coach Denny Hastert? 

Media Matters puts together a post that identifies the lies .A 'How To' Guide for Advancing Conservative Misinformation.

 Noron inserts the misinformation in her interview with Mike Viqueira:

Video-WMP

O'DONNELL: What about Nancy Pelosi? We were just showing pictures. She would be the speaker — likely be the speaker of the House if Democrats win control. Where's she been the last week?

(Read the rest of this story…)

In a revealing comment by Howard Kurtz, we find that the media wanted nothing to do with Allen's desperate attempt to slime Jim Webb, but as soon as Drudge posted portions of his novels–the media went ga-ga.

via CNN's Reliable Sources:

KURTZ:  All right.  No dispute on that. Stephanie Miller, the Virginia Senate race took another strange turn the other day when you had Senator George Allen accusing his Democratic challenger, Jim Webb, of writing steamy sex scenes in novels.  And the press release from the Allen campaign says the women were being portrayed as servile, subordinate,inept, incompetent, promiscuous, perverted, or some combination of these. My question to you is, apparently the Allen campaign had been peddling this line for weeks, reporters had not bit, and suddenly Matt Drudge puts out a big headline about it and everybody jumps on the story. What do you make of that?

I'll tell you what I make out of it. The media prays at the altar of Drudge no matter what sleaze he peddles. Yes–our liberal media in action!

Arthur:

Drudge is now hawking this latest story:

Israel has information that Lebanese guerrillas who captured two Israeli soldiers are trying to transfer them to Iran, the Foreign Ministry spokesman said. Spokesman Mark Regev did not disclose the source of his information.

One more time: They want a wider war. They’ve already decided to attack Iran…read on

Drudge Has To Print Retraction/Smears Gore

Matt Drudge smears Al Gore and then is forced to print a retraction about Howard Dean. Will Howard Kurtz write a story about Drudge tomorrow and ask if he is a credible news source? He certainly couldn’t wait to jump on the Leopold story about Rove. The least he can do is print a fair representation of the liberal bloggers reaction to it. 

Peter Daou says it best:

"Kurtz may get some satisfaction from airing Leopold’s dirty laundry and painting Rove’s team as innocent victims of a hoax, but if he wants to get things straight, he should at least let his readers know that the story behind the story is not that so many bloggers ran with it, but that the vast majority of influential bloggers didn’t…read on"

Matt Drudge appeared on the Hannity and Colmes show with his torch a’ burning for Chris Rock. (This is only part of the interview.)

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He objected to Rock’s particular sense of humor for making jokes about Bush, abortion, and gays, and while calling it humor also cited it as social commentary.( Isn’t that humor?)

Hannity: Did you talk to Chris Rock for this story. Did you get in touch with him?

Drudge: No, because there’s simply enough out there.

When Colmes asked him if he was using his website to try and get Rock removed:

Drudge: Oh, I don’t know….

Colmes: ..do you have an agenda?

Drudge: No, I don’t…I..I..I…

There’s a lot in this interview that I’m not commenting on. What’s appalling is Drudge taking Rock’s statements out of context. This is clearly an orchestrated move. I only hope that the Oscar’s and Rock don’t cave in to the pressure that he and his followers will try and apply.

Talk Left weights in with a huge analysis here