Will Press Pounce on Drudge's Kerry Rumor?
Published: February 12, 2004 Updated at 1:30 PM EST
NEW YORK Matt Drudge's Web site, which first broke allegations about President Bill Clinton's dalliance with a White House intern in 1998, is at it again.
Late this morning, DrudgeReport.com alleged that a new scandal was about to rock the campaign of Democratic frontrunner John Kerry: some sort of purported recent marital "infidelity" that involved a woman who once worked for the Associated Press, and has now supposedly "fled the country." According to the site, this story was being investigated by the AP, The Washington Post, Time magazine and ABC network.
Reached by E&P for comment, AP spokesman Jack Stokes said, "We simply don't comment on stories we are pursuing or not pursuing."
Leonard Downie Jr., executive editor of The Washington Post, acknowledged that his staff had begun to dig deeper into the life and career of Kerry, but said he had not heard anything about an alleged infidelity. "What we're finding, I don't know," he said. "This is the first we are looking into him this way."
The Drudge site also declared that General Wesley Clark, in an off-the-record chat with reporters earlier this week, predicted that the Kerry campaign would soon implode due to an "intern." It would seem strange, however, if he really believed that, that he would drop out of the race, as he did yesterday.
The site added, however, that the Kerry rumor helped explain why Howard Dean did stay in the race and has been increasingly aggressive in his attacks on Kerry this week.
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