Posted on 08/10/2005 2:14:50 PM PDT by bobbarker27
Open letter to Drudge By Albert Eisele
Dear Matt:
Just wanted to say thanks for my 15 minutes of fame.
Leading off the Drudge Report two days running with my story about Helen Thomas saying she’d kill herself if Vice President Cheney runs for president meant that your 8 million-plus daily readers now know my name. My relatives in Iowa and Minnesota were impressed, even if my wife wasn’t.
But I have to tell you: If this is fame, who needs it? A lot of your readers — the count was over 400 the last time I checked — reacted with varying degrees of outrage as they blamed “arrogant and self-important” journalists like Ms. Thomas and me for screwing up the country. And they rightly accused me of misspelling “scatological” when I stood up to some of them who attacked me anonymously with language you wouldn’t hear in a biker bar.
Seems a lot of your readers hate Ms. Thomas because they think she’s a liberal apologist who asks “mean-spirited” and “disrespectful” questions of Republican presidents but not of Democratic ones. And they hate me because I defended her as a “great journalist,” which anyone who’s survived in Washington as long as she and Robert Novak have deserves to be called. And Matt, I have to tell you, a lot of your readers castigated me — I think I spelled that right — for calling you a cybergossip and describing them as Drudgoids. Actually, the First Amendment allows political commentators like me and Ms. Thomas, and even conservative apologists like Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh, to say outrageous things from time to time.
But I learned long ago that when you write something that touches a nerve with people and they come down hard on you, you have to remember that it’s like when a mafioso orders a rival rubbed out — don’t take it personally; it’s just business.
I have to say, though, I was surprised by how you triggered so many vicious and hateful attacks on Ms. Thomas. C’mon, an 85-year-old former White House reporter-turned-opinionated columnist is a threat to President Bush and the Republican Party? Alert the Secret Service. Helen Thomas is approaching the West Wing. Code Red! Code Red! To be fair, I did hear from some thoughtful and intelligent people, like William R. Barker of Harriman, N.Y., who said it wasn’t “fair or professional” for me “to take pot shots at those of us who follow the Drudge Report. … Anyone interested in news should make the Drudge Report his or her homepage. Sure, some ‘reports’ don’t pan out, but that’s the nature of reporting. The fact is, the Drudge Report is 99 percent links and it’s one heck of a resource.”
I told him he has a point but explained that I wasn’t criticizing you or those who get their news from you. I also told him that if he wants to read something serious instead of this ridiculous flap over l’affaire Helen Thomas he could read this former Army officer’s reports from a recent two-week trip to Iraq, which are on our website www.thehill.com under the heading “Iraq dispatches.”
I interviewed brave young Americans in places like Baghdad and Fallujah and Mosul who are putting their lives on the line, and too often tragically losing them, as some 20 Marines did last week, to protect the right of journalists to criticize the politicians who sent them to war, and the right of your readers to criticize those of us who cover them.
Now that’s something worth getting worked up about.
He's entitled to his opinion and we're entitled to our opinion of him and his good friend Helen the Horrible.
Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh are not conservative apologists. There is nothing to apologize for.
Why repost it? Most of us just bump up our threads when they get stale.
I was going to read this but I checked the guy who wrote this letter 15 minutes of fame clock and it was at 16 minutes. His time is up.
Why repost it? Most of us just bump up our threads when they get stale.
I'm a free republic rookie. How do you bump up a thread? Thanks
This idiot fails to make the distinction between folks pretending to be "reporters" (e.g. Helen Thomas and himself) and folks openly identifying themselves as conservative commentators (e.g. Rush and Ann Coulter.).
apologist
a·pol·o·gist ( P ) Pronunciation Key (a-pol-a-jst)
n.
A person who argues in defense or justification of something, such as a doctrine, policy, or institution.
;^D
I didn't ask for the anal probe.
He's a "columnist" but Coulter and Rush are GOP "apologists?"
It's funny how he thinks Helen Thomas is a great journalist because she has survived in Washington for this long. How tough is it for a left wing journalist like Thomas to survive in a town dominated by left wing media types? Comparing Helen Thomas to Robert Novak was a joke too, Novak actually reports news in his columns, Thomas just rants about how "evil" Bush and republicans are.
"C’mon, an 85-year-old former White House reporter-turned-opinionated columnist..."
Mr. Eisele, there is an old saying: "With age comes wisdom." My 6-year old grandson has more wisdom than Helen Thomas. It's time for her to retire.
They don't hate you, they think you are as dumb as a bag of hammers.
What self-serving pap. This guy would be the first to demand that prayer be banned in public school, despite his beloved First Amendment. Don't ask him about the Second Amendment...
How would this clown know what goes on in a biker bar? He probably wouldn't be caught dead in one!
Helen Thomas. A carbuncle on the backside of "responsible" journalism.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.