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June 15, 2004
What's the Deal With Drudge?I've been wondering. Are we sure that Drudge is actually any kind of conservative? We all assume he is; but is he? How do we know he just doesn't cater a bit to the only audience who admits to reading him, i.e., us? Or is he maybe just against the war? Maybe a Pat Buchanan conservative? I ask because he seems less-than-eager to promote genuinely huge stories that cut in favor of Bush, like the fact that UNMOVIC says that Saddam smuggled WMD's out of the country before and during the war. He gave that a small little blurb and only for 24 hours. Meanwhile, he gives this useless NYT liberal-puff-piece (the only thing I like about the piece is that it's so ineffective at achieving its goal of promoting Kerry) a big banner headline for two days. This isn't the first time I've wondered about this. All the stuff we complain about in the mainstream media -- constantly screaming over the set-backs in Iraq while never reporting the progress -- is something Drudge is equally guilty of. Not that that necessarily diminished Drudge. I think he's got a good thing going there, and liberal or conservative, he makes the news kinda fun. But I'm just wondering about his actual politics. Don't bother mentioning the aborted-fetus pics he wanted to run on his Fox show. That doesn't prove he's a conservative. That just proves he wanted ratings and/or to get sprung from his Fox contract. And yeah, I know he's buds with Ann Coulter. But friendship doesn't require harmonious political views. posted by Ace at 03:48 AM
CommentsA recent study rated Drudge as "Centrist". Middle O' the Road. Posted by: nathan on June 15, 2004 04:12 AM
Also, calling him "conservative" is mainly a left/liberal method of pre-emptively ignoring any news from him that puts lefts/liberals in a bad light, since he is willing to push some stories that the mainstream leftist/liberal news media tries to bury, like Monica. Posted by: nathan on June 15, 2004 04:14 AM
He's just balancing coverage. He has mentioned this before, about all the shit he's taken from Liberals whenever he links to something negative about their politicans and figures. But when he links to negative stories about Republicans, he never gets credit for that or praise for balancing his coverage. All he gets is perplexed Liberals who wonder why he's willing to run bad press about Republicans if he's conservative. They're so partisan they can't imagine anyone doing something like bad-mouthing the team in the name of objectivity, integrity, fairness or principle. Not that Drudge is a paragon of those things. It's just that he's more fair-minded than, say, the NY Times. If you go on democraticunderground.com you see those idiots screaming one minute about how much they hate Drudge, then scratching their heads over negative stories about the Bush administration. As for Drudge's personal politics, I don't like them. He's really prudish, sneering and sanctimonious towards pop culture. Posted by: Moonbat_One on June 15, 2004 04:44 AM
Drudge is really a chick. A liberal one at that. That's as logical as any other theory about anyone on the Internet. Posted by: Da Goddess on June 15, 2004 05:11 AM
What's with the fedora? What is he, Sam Spade? Anyway, I think he's a puppet blog along the same vein as Rance edited by none other than..."Who's the Boss's?" Danny Pintauro. Posted by: sentinel on June 15, 2004 07:55 AM
Ace, Moonbat_One comes closest to answering your questions - in the part of his comment not intended to be an answer, but just an afterthought. Like any of us, Drudge posts about what interests him and what he has insight into - though in his case, he can get real news from his contacts. He's primarily a social conservative, so he's not going to dwell on fiscal or foreign policy issues much. What he's best at is gossip about people in the beltway, which really just lets the rest of us hear the yammering that's been humming around that swamp for two centuries now. And since pop culture and the beltway have intertwined so much, you're going to get lots of gossip from the tar pits of the left coast, too. And for the record, pop culture needs more people sneering sanctimonious prudism at it. Posted by: The Black Republican on June 15, 2004 08:27 AM
Great blog, Ace! Do you have an RSS feed? Or is that a no-go for mu-nu? Posted by: The Commissar on June 15, 2004 09:02 AM
I remember when Drudge first came out in the 90's, I dismissed him entirely because all he seemed concerned about was outlandish conspiracy theories (Vince Foster, etc). He came across as a National Enquirer for the internet. I still don't take him seriously, and he's primarily useful for being good at getting breaking stories before anyone else. Posted by: Beck on June 15, 2004 09:27 AM
Here's an example of what I mean. The Fox News movie reviewer gave Fahrenheit 9/11 a good review. Result ? Massive cognitive dissonance among DU, where they think Roger Ailes takes direction from the White House and the RNC to brainwash the masses. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=1791948&mesg_id=1791948 Never mind the publishing arm of NewsCorps published one or two of Michael Moore's books. Posted by: Moonbat_One on June 15, 2004 10:05 AM
Drudge's coverage isn't ruled so much by his political ideology as it is by his desire for sensationalism and traffic. That's the short answer to your question. Posted by: Bill from INDC Journal on June 15, 2004 10:48 AM
I've noticed the same thing, Ace. When I first found Drudge Report, it wasn't long after that I heard liberals screaming that he's a partisan hack, a mere tool of the Republican party. That's part of what kept me reading. But I kept noticing that he never shied away from stories that hurt Bush or the administration. And when I realized that, I had even more reason to keep coming back. If the only news I ever got was from conservative outlets, I'd be no better than a liberal, as far as educating myself about politics. Posted by: Aaron on June 15, 2004 11:31 AM
"But friendship doesn't require harmonious political views."
Posted by: Sailor Kenshin on June 15, 2004 12:49 PM
Thanks for the input. Responding here and there... recent study rated Drudge as "Centrist". Middle O' the Road. I didn't see that, but he does strike me as approximately centrist. But I do think that he skews a little to the left. Less so than the general media, because he's always willing to pounce on a big, juicy story that hurts Democrats. Which the media, of course, are not so willing to do. Also, calling him "conservative" is mainly a left/liberal method of pre-emptively ignoring any news from him that puts lefts/liberals in a bad light, since he is willing to push some stories that the mainstream leftist/liberal news media tries to bury, like Monica. Hey! I just sort of said that. Except you said it first. He's just balancing coverage. He has mentioned this before, about all the shit he's taken from Liberals whenever he links to something negative about their politicans and figures. But when he links to negative stories about Republicans, he never gets credit for that or praise for balancing his coverage. I agree. And he does seem a little prudish. Drudge's coverage isn't ruled so much by his political ideology as it is by his desire for sensationalism and traffic. That's the short answer to your question. Um, well, Yeah. That's a given. Still, one can have a slant in one's sensationalism. See Wonkette. I'm asking about the slant. I've noticed the same thing, Ace. When I first found Drudge Report, it wasn't long after that I heard liberals screaming that he's a partisan hack, a mere tool of the Republican party. That's part of what kept me reading. But I kept noticing that he never shied away from stories that hurt Bush or the administration. Sometimes he seems almost to relish such stories. Posted by: ace on June 15, 2004 02:52 PM
He's also just a bit plain nuts. That transcends political alignment. This became clear to me when he spent a good chunk of his radio show once ranting about the evil influence of Harry Potter on our recious children. In the process it became clear that he had only the vaguest concept of what the seroes was about. He just knew that some characters who practiced magic were depicted as the good guys and that was surely part of indoctrinating our children and surely J.K. Rowling was the daughter of Anton LeVey. Posted by: Eric Pobirs on June 15, 2004 09:28 PM
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What? Skeleton of the most famous Musketeer, D'Artagnan, possibly discovered in Dutch church closet.
Dumas picked four names of real musketeers out of a history book, D'Artagnan, Athos, Aramis, and Porthos. So there was an actual D'Artagnan, though he made most of the story up. (Or, you know, all of it.) Charles de Batz de Castelmore, known as d'Artagnan, the famous musketeer of Kings Louis XIII and Louis XIV, spent his life in the service of the French crown. A lot of Dumas's stories are based on bits of real history. The plot of the >Three Musketeers, about trying to recover lost diamonds from the queen's necklace, was cribbed from the then-almost-contemporaneous Affair of the Queen's Necklace. And the Man in the Iron Mask is based on real accounts of a prisoner forced to wear a mask (though I think it was a velvet mask).
A commenter asked which should be read first, The Hobbit of LOTR?
Easy, no question -- read The Hobbit first. It's actually the start of the story and comes first chronologically. It sets up some major characters and major pieces in play in LOTR. Also, the Hobbit is Beginner-Friendly, which LOTR isn't. The Hobbit really is a delightful book, and a fast read. It's chatty, it's casual, it's exciting, and it's funny. In that dry cheeky British humor way. I love that the narrator is constantly making little asides and commentary, like he's just sitting next to you telling you this story as it occurs to him. LOTR is a very long story. Fifteen hundred pages or so. The Hobbit is relatively short and very punchy and easy to read. If you don't like The Hobbit, you can skip out on LOTR. If you do like it, you'll be primed to read LOTR. Oh, I should say: The Hobbit is written as if it's for children, but one of those smart children's stories that are also for adults. Don't worry, there's also real fighting and violence and horror in it, too. LOTR is written for adults. (It's said that Tolkien wrote both for his children, but LOTR was written 17 years later, when his children were adults.) Some might not like The Hobbit due to its sometimes frivolous tone. Me, I love it. I find it constantly amusing. Both are really good but there is a starkly different tone to both. LOTR is epic, grand, and serious, about a world war, The Hobbit is light and breezy, and about a heist. Though a heist that culminates in a war for the spoils.
The Hobbit Challenge: Read two more chapters. I didn't have much time. Bilbo got the ring.
I noticed a continuity problem. Maybe. Now, as of the time of The Hobbit, it was unknown that this magic ring was in fact a Ring of Power, and it was doubly unknown that it was the Ring of Power, the Master Ring that controlled the others. But the narrator -- who we will learn in LOTR was none of than Bilbo himself, who wrote the book as "There and Back Again" -- says this about Gollum's ring: "But who knows how Gollum had come by that present [the Ring], ages ago in the old days when such rings were still at large in the world? Perhaps even the Master who ruled them could not have said." In another passage, the ring is identified as a "ring of power." I don't know, I always thought there was a distinction between mere magic rings and the Rings of Power created by Sauron. But this suggests that Bilbo knew this was a ring of power created by Sauron. Now I don't remember when Bilbo wrote the Hobbit. In the movie, he shows Frodo the book in Rivendell, and I guess he wrote it after he left the Shire. I guess he might have added in the part about the ring being a ring of power created by "the Master" after Gandalf appraised him of his research into the ring. I never noticed this before. I know Tolkien re-wrote this chapter while he was writing LOTR to make the ring important from the start. And also to make Gollum more sinister and evil, and also to remove the part where Gollum actually offers Bilbo the ring as a "present" -- Bilbo had already found it on his own, but Gollum was wiling to give it away, which obviously is not something the rewritten Gollum would ever do. But I had no memory of the ring being suggested to be The Ring so early in the tale.
Finish the job, Mr. President!
Melanie Phillips lays out the case for the total destruction of the Iranian government and armed forces. [CBD]
Oh, I forgot to mention this quote from Pete Hegseth, reported by Roger Kimball: "We are sharing the ocean with the Iranian Navy. We're giving them the bottom half."
Batman fires The Batman
Batman is disgusted by the Joachim Phoenix version of Joker Batman tries to fire Superman Batman is still workshopping his Bat-Voice
Forgotten 80s Mystery Click: Red Leather Suit and Sweatband Edition
And I was here to please I'm even on knees Makin' love to whoever I please I gotta do it my way Or no way at all
Tomorrow is March 25th, "Tolkien Reading Day," because March 25th is the day when the Ring is destroyed in the book. I think I'm going to start the Hobbit tomorrow and read all four books this time.
The only bad part of the trilogy are the Frodo/Sam chapters in The Two Towers. They're repetitive, slow, and mostly about the weather and terrain. But most everything else is good. Weirdly, the Frodo-Sam chapters in Return of the King are exciting and action-packed and among the best in the trilogy. (Though the chapters with everyone else in Return of the King get pretty slow again. Mostly people talking about marching towards war, and then marching towards war.)
Sec. Army recognizes ODU Army ROTC cadets for their bravery and sacrifice in private ceremony
[Hat Tip: Diogenes] [CBD]
Forgotten 80s Mystery Click
One day I'm gonna write a poem in a letter One day I'm gonna get that faculty together Remember that everybody has to wait in line Oh, [Song Title], look out world, oh, you know I've got mine
US decimation of Iran's ICBM forces is due to Space Force's instant detection of launches -- and the launchers' hiding places -- and rapid counter-attack via missiles
AI is doing a lot of the work in analyzing images to find the exact hiding place of the launchers. Counter-strikes are now coming in four hours after a launch, whereas previously it might have taken days for humans to go over the imagery and data.
Robert Mueller, Former Special Counsel Who Probed Trump, Dies
“robert mueller just died,” trump wrote in a truth social post on march 21. “good, i’m glad he’s dead. he can no longer hurt innocent people! president donald j. trump.”
Canadian School Designates Cafeteria And Lunchroom As "No Food Zones" For Ramadan
Canada and the UK are neck and neck in the race to become the first western country to fall to Islam [CBD] Recent Comments
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