A Critical Warning: How Drudge has Betrayed Andrew Breitbart – and You

The Red Side of Life Conservative Musings from New York ^ | 3/9/12 | RedInNewYork

[jmstein7]

Andrew Breitbart was one of us, a “Bulldog for the conservative cause,” as Rush Limbaugh put it. And that is why I was furious when I learned that Matt Drudge callously betrayed him – the facts follow below. Andrew Breitbart tried to vet Obama in 2008 – and Matt Drudge blocked his efforts. One might consider, after reading this article, that Drudge, in fact, helped elect Obama! How do you feel about President Obama? Me too, and that’s why Drudge’s betrayal of Andrew Breitbart infuriates me. Drudge betrayed Andrew Breitbart – and you, because you trusted Drudge too. Back to that in a minute – I want to discuss the severity of Drudge’s betrayal.

Think about how you feel when someone you trust betrays you. I certainly feel extremely angry. You may feel violated. Now, magnify that feeling by the millions of conservatives who have put their trust in the Drudge Report. I want you to feel the magnitude and depth of that massive betrayal.

Before moving on, I want to issue a disclaimer. Just note that fact that Matt Drudge is a homosexual is irrelevant to me, and I don’t believe that his homosexuality affects his character or judgment, or makes him a liberal, or is per se a reason to distrust him and question his motives. But, I digress.

The Drudge Report’s betrayal of conservatives became evident to me a long time ago. Think back to 2004. Do you remember the CBS Air National Guard controversy (TANG), engineered to damage President Bush and detract from the Swift Boat Vets, who put their Honor on the line to tell the truth about John Kerry? Did the Drudge Report investigate the claims of Dan Rather and company? No! What did Drudge do? Right – he put up a big siren on his site, drawing maximum attention to the CBS story. The result was a magnification of the false charges against President Bush, and a distraction from the pleas of the Swift Boat Vets, who served their country with honor. Drudge caused the “Swiftees” to be marginalized and ridiculed by the left, under the radar, while the Drudge Report focused all eyes on the TANG story! That story was false and that is why Drudge cannot be considered an investigative journalist or trusted. It took “We the Breitbarts,” the “pajama media,” to investigate the CBS documents and report that they were a forged fraud. Matt Drudge could have done the same – but he did not. Instead, he perpetuated a false story that hurt the Republicans and Vietnam Veterans.

We don’t need the Drudge Report anymore. Do you need Drudge to tell you what headlines are important, or are you capable of making your own decisions? Do you need an out-dated, one-page website to dictate to you what is and is not news? Did you know that Drudge hired two Romney operatives, Joe Curl and Charles Hurt, to help run his site? How does that makes you feel you Perry, Paul, Santorum, and Gingrich supporters? Rage.

I’ve learned to live without Drudge – it’s quite easy. I haven’t looked at the Drudge Report since January, and I still know what’s going on in the world. In fact, I believe I know more, because I’m no longer relying on a website that is censored and twisted to not just “report” the news, but to subconsciously dictate how I feel about it. The blinders are off, and I feel great. I personally enjoy Jim Robinson’s Patriotic “Free Republic.”

Drudge betrayed Andrew Breitbart in 2008. John Zeigler, a Conservative filmmaker, was recently interviewed by Chris Daniel on California’s KMJ 580 AM. Breitbart confided that “Matt Drudge was totally in the tank for Obama, and he blocked [Andrew Breitbart] from doing anything about it.” Every time Breitbart put something up that was anti-Obama, Matt Drudge would at least move it down, if not take it off entirely, which he hardly ever did to Andrew. On some occasions, Drudge even totally cut off his [Andrew's] ability to update the web page and completely stopped linking to Breitbart’s site.

Ziegler states as follows:

There were many examples of this remarkable pro-Obama bias, but I will offer up just a few here as proof.

On February 18, 2008, Michelle Obama famously told two different crowds that Barack’s success running for president was the first time in her “adult life” that she was “really proud” of her country. When Breitbart ended his shift that evening the story dramatically led the Drudge Report. However, just a few minutes later when Drudge himself stepped in, the link (along with two others charging Obama with plagiarism) was suddenly nowhere to be found. The story quickly died and never reached the level of “common knowledge.”

Then, on March 13, 2008, ABC’s Good Morning America “broke” the story of Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s controversial sermons and close ties to Obama. Almost exactly twenty fours later, while most of the media was feverishly building a firestorm which would require Obama to do three emergency damage-control network interviews that night, the story was somehow completely absent from Drudge’s incredibly influential news site. Instead, the headline was inexplicably about how the Super Delegates were starting to break towards Obama.

This was not some sort of fluke. The Rev. Wright story was barely ever seen on Drudge and, on the rare occasions when it did get posted, it was astonishingly muted. Andrew and I both felt strongly at the time that Drudge was providing “cover” for the mainstream media to downplay this bombshell. After all, if even the “right wing” narrative maker Drudge felt the story wasn’t a big deal, then why should they aggressively cover a story for which they clearly had no appetite?

Any doubt that Drudge was heavily favoring Obama ended in May around the critical Indiana primary.

The week before, on May 1st, Obama was tanking in the polls there thanks to Rev. Wright’s explosive National Press Club event. I sent Andrew a link to a story on this phenomenon (moments after he had sent me an article about how Drudge “hearts” Obama) and he linked it on Drudge. Literally moments, later Drudge stepped into the website and took the link off the page, keeping its extremely pro-Obama narrative strong. (For the record, this exchange is documented in one of many instant message sessions with Andrew, which I kept at that time because I was starting to sense the profound implications of what was happening here.)

When Obama ended up losing a very tight race in Indiana (despite the best efforts of Gary Indiana’s pro-Obama mayor who, as the Drudge archive indicates, did his very best to pretend that Obama may have actually won the crucial state until deep into the night), Drudge declared the future president to be “The Nominee” just hours later. The mainstream media quickly followed suit, and the rest is obviously history.

And it is. You should now have no doubt that the Drudge Report is a tumor. And we must not let it grow any larger.

[RinaseaofDs]

I have been looking for an aggegator substitute for Drudge since I dropped him.

Yeah, it’s pretty clear the pod people got to him, Ann, and several others we used to count on as thought leaders.

What may have happened to Drudge is that he went from the ‘Manifesto’ guy railing against the MSM to being one of the MSM. He has been consistently outdrawing MSM competitors for a good long while now.

He won’t get my clicks anymore. I can’t get my head around GOP-E support of Romney. They are carrying the water for Romney like Rush admitted doing for the Republicans some years back. Rush actually got on the air and was relieved that he no longer felt obligated to do it.

[mylife]

FR is linked to Drudge and Drudge is linked to FR.

[rarestia]

Give Patriot Post a try. It took me a few days to get used to the format, but it’s much more news-oriented. Less entertainment and garbage, more pure news.

[Thorliveshere]

I’ve stopped going to Drudge’s site for some time now. Others just need to do the same.

[KTM rider]

Drudge is an A-Hoe , I merely tolerate his blog to catch obscure news

[Prospero]

Drudge is a news aggregator, and anyone who "trusts" any news source, even a second hand link list make like Matt Drudge, is behaving foolishly.

In the days before telegraphy, and for years afterward, when every town of 5000 had two or three newspapers, people knew this. The automatic caution shown people like H.V. Kaltenborn and other radio news readers and presenters shows the healthy cynicism lasted through the beginnings of the Television age, at least through the rapid decline in literacy on the domestic front between World War II and the Korean War years.

Anyone who utilized Drudge beginning in 1996 has to know Matt's never been a Conservative.

[Do Not Make Fun Of His Ears]

>>Most people on the street don’t even know who Matt Drudge is, I bet.<<

Plenty do.

[jmstein7]

That’s the problem.

[FreeAtlanta]

The statement that Drudge had on his page the day of Andrew's death was strangely homosexual sounding. I read it and said, WTH?

I remember thinking I sure hope he and Breitbart never had anything going. (I am ashamed to type anything negative about Andrew, but that was my thought at the time.) Maybe, Drudge just was in love with Andrew. Breitbart served the conservative cause well. Drudge, at one time, did the same. Drudge is useless now.

[righttackle44]

Thank you. Finally, a voice who agrees with me. Sometimes, the political correctness at FR is appalling.

[diamond6]

Between Bill O’Reilly’s constant big hands waving and constantly interupting who he is interviewing, I could no longer stand him.

The waving hands drives me nuts. (I know...I’m being petty).

[mo]

Obama was elected to loot the US Treasury...and the loot was spread far, wide and deep into every nook and cranny of the country, up and down both sides of the aisle, throughout the legislative and judicial branches in the Federal,and many states.

[mo]

Obama was elected to loot the US Treasury...and the loot was spread far, wide and deep into every nook and cranny of the country, up and down both sides of the aisle, throughout the legislative and judicial branches in the Federal,and many states’ governments.

[FreeAtlanta]

I am really afraid the only way to recover all the massive stolen loot would be just to zero out the dollar and make a new dollar. Almost like a Biblical year of jubilee.

I hate that so many crooked, filthy dirt bags have screwed with our economy and country and are now living high on the hog with ours and our children’s future.

[GoDuke]

“The statement that Drudge had on his page the day of Andrew’s death was strangely homosexual sounding. I read it and said, WTH?”

You weren’t the only one.

[Linda Frances]

Thanks for the link!

[rockinqsranch]

We’ve never been a Drudge Report attendee. Other than a handful of occasions following a story that was linked to Drudge’s site, we’ve never desired to go there. Everything we need is right here at FR. Even before FR when we were L-dotters we were’nt into the Drudge Report.

[beandog]

Just how is being critical of Drudge politically correct? I don’t like Drudge, won’t go to his site and, I can assure you, I’m not “politically correct”. If you like it that’s fine but other people may have a different opinion. That doesn’t make them appalling.

[2CAVTrooper]

Thank you for sharing the link.

[Jedidah]

I don’t know if it’s right-sided political correctness, or just ignorance.

But it is discouraging.