Matt Drudge

Drudge is preparing a big story:

I can’t wait to see what this one’s about.

Time for special investigations! Obama is wanting to spend $30,000 of *gasp* his money to buy a ring for his lady. This is an impeachment level crime. Doesn’t the President-elect know that the party is supposed to buy this stuff? Just ask Sarah Palin and the RNC.

Matt Drudge will never change, and is still at it when it comes to trying to misinterpret headlines into something that might enrage the right wing. Here’s the latest example:

So HuffPo is getting a “bailout”? Is she part of the financial sector or auto industry? The answer to both is of course “no”. Instead the article Drudge links to says this:

The Times has learnt that the Huffington Post, her influential political website, will confirm within the next week that it has completed a $15 million (£10 million) fundraising from investors.

The money will finance the expansion of HuffPo, as it is known, into the provision of local news across the United States and into more investigative journalism. And it will ensure that Ms Huffington's influence continues to spread across the US political scene.

So in Drudge’s mind, investing is a “bailout”. Let’s look at the definition of bailout:

A rescue from financial difficulties

The article makes no mention of HuffPo going through “financial difficulties”. On the contrary, it sounds like HuffPo is doing great and people now want more stock in it by investing. Maybe Drudge could start competing with HuffPo again, if he reported truths instead of a bunch of lies and misconceptions. True that would go against his very soul

Drudge is really digging now. Here is his latest:

Here's the video Drudge is linking to:

Sorry Matt, elections are for adults, not children going "ohhhh look what he did". Guess you are about to become very lonely.

But in a good way - by making fun of Drudge's crazy headline last week:

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Break out the big font - here's Drudge's headline:

ZOGBY: MCCAIN MOVES INTO LEAD 48-47 IN ONE DAY POLLING

And then here is what he says about it:

ZOGBY SATURDAY: Republican John McCain has pulled back within the margin of error... The three-day average holds steady, but McCain outpolled Obama 48% to 47% in Friday, one day, polling. He is beginning to cut into Obama's lead among independents, is now leading among blue collar voters, has strengthened his lead among investors and among men, and is walloping Obama among NASCAR voters. Joe the Plumber may get his license after all...

Of course these one day polls are always so unreliable and that's why you never see them out there. Nate Silver has already busted Drudge's latest wet dream with his awesome analysis.

Here's his latest headline and all the wingnuts are following suit.

Makes you think that Obama wants to steal the millions and billions of the rich and give it to the poor in some modern day Robin Hood sense - doesn't it? Well if you check out what Obama was actually talking about, you would soon find out that isn't the case. In essence what he was saying is the tragedy was the people made millions off of slavery and that wealth was never shared with the victims of that time - the slaves. It also talks about the inequality that was benefited by numerous whites over the years from blacks receiving far less than normal wages.

In other words - it is a tragedy. It's a tragedy still going on today. A strong middle class makes America's economy that much stronger. Currently our middle class is struggling and you see how our economy is doing. Think about it for a minute. A lot of it is from the housing market. If people could afford to pay their mortgages then we might not be in this economic disaster now, so we have proof of this philosophy occupying our headlines today.

Likewise, Palin, Bush and McCain all support policies that further widen the gap between the middle and upper classes. This has been a very dangerous path for American economics, and something we are seeing the ill-effects of today. The "American dream" has become next to impossible to obtain. With all the focus on Joe the Plumber, perhaps people should be asked if they see a clear path to become a successful business owner in this climate.

The Republicans want us to think that the more profits a company makes the more money the employees make. This is not the case. Since 1980 the gap between CEO salaries and employee salaries has widened exponentially. Companies have also been shipping jobs overseas, a practice that has cost our economy 3/4 of a million job this year alone. This helps increase their profit margins, yet does nothing for the middle class.

In other words, Matt Drudge is pushing a headline that exemplifies the exact problems with our economy today. The right wing is jumping on board with this also. It shows that they have either a serious lack of understanding or a serious lack of care for the future of America. We saw their philosophies hurt us in the 80's and early 90's. We were able to do damage control on this, but now the Republicans have put us back into those dire straits and the Republican base wants to continue down that very path of despair for a majority of the population. Widening the gap between upper class and middle class is change you can believe in. You can believe it will further destroy our nation.

Just last week he pushed the story of Ashley Todd, the McCain volunteer who claimed being mugged then having a B carved in her face, only to find out the whole story was a lie. Todd isn't the only story Drudge got flat wrong this year. There has been countless, but most famously his pushing out highly flawed polls to show a tightening race.

Yes - a bad year for Drudge in deed. So bad that he apparently wants the year to be over:


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Notice the title at the top of my browser window? Drudge has his page copyright 2009 now. Perhaps he just wants the election to be over.

OMG! Obama is ahead by only 2! That's the news you get hit in the face with if you go to Drudge. It's been his top headline since yesterday and the below that was the infamous "developing" he always puts on stories he knows are false. Nate Silver has totally dismantled Drudge's bogus news and shows how he went dumpster diving for this poll.

All weekend Matt Drudge touted a closing gap in the Diageo/Hotline tracking poll. As Drudge usually does, he tried to create his own news cycle, one that would be good for McCain. Well today's Diageo/Hotline tracking poll now has Obama leading 49%-41%. Sorry Matt, as the Republican influence fades away so does your influence on our news cycles.

This currently appears on Drudge's homepage:

Approving roar? That roar was made by people revving the engines on their motorcycles. It's not like the roar of thousands Obama is greeted by at his campaign stops.

Also - with our oil supply problem, shouldn't McCain be a leader and explain that revving engines like that is wasting gas?

This is currently appearing on Drudge:

What it reads:

5-year-old actress who plays Hanna Montana for DISNEY posses seminude for VANITY FAIR

Only problem? Miley Cyrus, who plays Hanna Montana, is 15, not 5. Some could write that off as a typo, but we are talking about Matt Drudge.

The right wing blogosphere had to post retraction's yesterday to the Matt Drudge claim that Michael Ware heckled during the McCain press conference on Sunday. Well all except one. That would be Malkin's Hot Air blog, which is of course no shock. They started to set the record straight with this:

Update: Raw Story’s got two videos of the presser, one of the introductory remarks and another of the Q&A. Ware is visible in the right foreground, in the white shirt, in the second video when the camera cuts to a shot of the full room. Assuming RS hasn’t played games with the clip, I don’t see anything that looks like heckling or laughing. McCain and Graham are unperturbed and there are no interruptions. The second clip does cut out immediately after the press conference ends, with Ware still sitting in his seat and trying to ask a question, so it’s possible he did something then. But in that case, Drudge’s report is still wrong — he said the heckling happened “during” the presser, while McCain and Graham were speaking.

And then this update:

Update: As of 1:50 p.m., the McCain/Ware items have disappeared entirely from Drudge’s front page. Let’s see if Raw Story forces them back on.

Sounds like they are on the right track, until you read this update:

Update: A reader e-mails with a point worth noting: the Raw Story article credits a Michael Ware fan site with providing the video

Ahh so here we go. The wingnuts got their conspiracy hats on again. If you read through the comments people are conspiring that the video may have been edited. There is a problem with that though. This is the exact video that came from CNN's own pipeline pay service. In that video there is no heckling going on.

Something else is worth noting here. All other news outlets were in on this press conference and had the cameras running non-stop. That includes FOX news. Now if Ware was doing this, then wouldn't FOX be plastering the video all over to show what "liberal loons" CNN is? Hell yeah they would. O'Reilly and Hannity would have dedicated their entire shows to it. Hell Scarborough would have devoted a big part of his show to it last night.

The fact is that Drudge either lied or got wrong information. Now if he received the wrong information, who was his source? I doubt anyone in the media would have made this bogus claim to him. I also doubt anyone in the military would have. I got a strong feeling someone from the McCain campaign decided to make an anonymous tip in order to discredit the reporter who made their boss look like an idiot last week.

Again - why do people hold Drudge as a reliable source? You keep doing that and you end up looking like a fool at the end. Drudge also has this habit of having his stories debunked and then the story just vanishes into the infinite black-hole of the internet. That appears to have happened with this story also. Of course I did save a screen capture of his post so it is preserved forever.

Note to reporters - DRUDGE IS A PARTISAN LIAR! Do not listen to him and you won't have to waste time on his idiotic claims.

Drudge posted yesterday that CNN's Michael Ware was heckling and laughing during McCain's press conference in Baghdad yesterday. This morning Soledad O'Brien asked Ware about this:

If you go to Mick Ware and click on news, you can see the entire video of the press conference, where no heckling was taking place. As matter of fact the closest thing to a disruption was the bombs exploding near the location of the press conference about 1/2 hour after it was over.

Think Progress, Crooks and Liars and Cliff Schecter have much more on this latest smear by liar Drudge.