I sent the following email to Matt Drudge, but got no reply:
Matt, I do not begrudge you the right to support Romney. That’s fine. But there are honorable and dishonorable ways of supporting a candidate.
I always thought you would choose the honorable ways. I’ve always respected you, and never expected that you would misrepresent the truth.
But that’s what you did today, with your deceptive headline, “Santorum snaps: Obama preferable to Romney.”
That’s not what Santorum meant, that’s Romney’s ridiculous attempt to spin what Santorum said into something he obviously didn’t mean. Anyone who reads what Rick said can see that he was talking about how the voters will view the race. He wasn’t saying that he thinks Obama would be preferable to Romney, he’s saying that voters will think that, if there’s little contrast between the candidates. He was talking about how the GOP can win - or lose. If the GOP candidate is only a little different from Obama, voters will think, “better the devil I know than the one I don’t,” and the GOP will lose again, just like we did with McCain and Dole. Santorum said:
“You win by giving people a choice, you win by giving people the opportunity to see a different vision for our country, not someone who’s just going to be a little different than the person in there.”
I think Santorum’s right, and that’s why I believe he would be a stronger candidate against Obama than Romney would be.
I don’t ask that you agree with that, but I do ask that you not misrepresent what Rick said, as meaning something different from what he obviously meant.
I’m confident that Romney knows perfectly well what Rick meant. It doesn’t surprise me that Romney misrepresented it, but I’d thought better of you, Matt.
Please, Matt, make it right: apologize to your readers for misrepresenting what Santorum said and meant.
Sincerely, but sadly, yours,
Dave Burton
Cary, NC
Rush is right.