I found mention of FR on the alt.impeach.clinton newsgroup in 1998.
As for Drudge, the only thing I have against him is his website design that automatically refreshes the page every few minutes. That artificially boosts his click count, and he uses those numbers to market himself to advertisers.
To me, that is fundamentally dishonest, so I don’t feel the least bit guilty about blocking all of his ads.
That automatic refresh thing drives me nuts.