Obsession - (Drudge and Government)

Powerline ^ | March 9, 2010 | John

[opentalk]

Matt Drudge is trumpeting the fact that Senate staffers have been warned to stay away from the Drudge Report on the theory that it may be spreading computer viruses. (If the old rules apply, that is libel per se, isn't it?) What I thought was even more entertaining was the Drudge Report's traffic totals:

The [Drudge Report] was seen 149,967 times since March 1st from users at senate.gov and 244,347 times at house.gov. [There were] 10,825 visits from the White House, eop.gov," the Drudge Report wrote.

These numbers appeared on March 8; do the math: 18,750 times a day, Senators and their staffers visit the Drudge Report--187.5 times a day for each Senator; 30,543 times a day Congressmen and their staffers check in on Drudge--70 times a day for each Congressional office; and, most comical of all, 1,353 times a day President Obama's White House staffers log on to the Report. The war is over. Drudge won it.

[Bean Counter]

Wouldn’t it be great to know how often the same group is tuning into Fox News...??

[opentalk]

Matt Drudge is the founder of the popular online news site The Drudge Report, which has been charged by the Senate with spreading computer viruses. (AP)

[Diogenesis]

FOX News works for Leftists, nonAmericans and RINOs.
It is biased beyond belief right up to their quivering thighs.

Anyone who wants UNBIASED news will find it at
FReeRepublic, and DRUDGE a little bit later.

[decisis]

This is actaully an attempt to try to censor senate staffers (something more like you would see in China) a laughable attempt that’s true, but why don’t they just order their people not to go to Drudge rather than making up the false accusation about viruses? It seems Drudge is handling this in a lighthearted manner so far but I think he could have a case here for slander or libel if he wanted to pursue it. And there should be an investigation into what senate leaders made this false claim about viruses and ordered this censorship. Of course they would probably say “just kidding” but they’re not kidding, they’re serious in that they do not want their people to access the Drudge Report. And it’s funny because Drudge does not even do world exclusives anymore, all the Drudge Report is is links to news stories from around the world. So the left’s hatred of the Drudge Report is nothing more than a “kill the messenger” attitude.

[opentalk]

I think he could have a case here for slander or libel if he wanted to pursue it. And there should be an investigation into what senate leaders made this false claim about viruses and ordered this censorship

Probably, Drudge can fight back with his headlines. This administration needs push back especially on censorship and free speech. The supreme court recently said the State of the Union attack was troubling

This was from link in article:

The Drudge Report noted that it served more than 29 million pages Monday without an e-mail complaint about "'pop ups,' or the site serving 'viruses.'"

[AuntB]

Sen. Jim Inhofe has exposed the story about Drudge.

CNSNews.com
Sen. Inhofe: Basis for Senate’s Ban on Drudge Report Was Bogus, We Encourage People to Visit Drudge

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/62538

[opentalk]

Thanks, from your link:

You have to remember, it was Drudge who started the whole Monica Lewinsky thing and that ended up being right,” Inhofe told CNSNews.com.

“I can name a lot of things that Drudge found out about first, so let’s just give him the opportunity to keep working and that way we learn a lot quicker by having access to the Drudge Report. However, the liberals, the extremists, they don’t want the information that he has because he’s a man of truth and most of them don’t want the truth.”