The Drudge Distort

By Matt Barber, CP Op-Ed Contributor Friday, January 27, 2012

You're being manipulated. A well respected, highly influential news source has cast aside all journalistic integrity to shill for the liberal, GOP establishment candidate in this presidential race.

The New York Times, you say? MSNBC? The Washington Post? No. We all gave up on those "progressive" rags a long time ago.

Regrettably, the latest media outlet to assume a decidedly yellow hue during this heated primary cycle is the Drudge Report. It pains me to even write this. Drudge has always been both my first and last internet news stops of the day.

It's often said, "Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel." Well, Drudge deals in pixels instead of ink, but the same principle applies.

Still, this is a fight worth having.

In past years, Matt Drudge has done a fair job of playing it down the middle during presidential primaries. Not this time. In the game of "Washington insider hold 'em," the Drudge Report is "all in" for Willard Mitt Romney. It's not even subtle.

As the Politico reports: "Newt Gingrich better hope voters who lapped up his delicious hits on the 'elite media' and liberals don't read the Drudge Report this morning … If they do, Gingrich comes off looking like a dangerous, anti-Reagan, Clintonian fraud."

This, of course, is utter pablum. Gingrich is the last Reagan conservative standing in this race; or, as the venerable Nancy Reagan said of "the distinguished speaker, Newt Gingrich" in 1995: "The dramatic [conservative] movement of 1995 is an outgrowth of a much earlier crusade that goes back half a century. Barry Goldwater handed the torch to Ronnie, and in turn Ronnie turned that torch over to Newt and the Republican members of Congress to keep that dream alive."

To this day, Newt Gingrich is keeping that conservative dream alive and that Reagan torch aflame. America is beginning to get this, and it has the "Republican in Name Only" (RINO) establishment tied in knots.

Politico summarizes Drudge's hit job on Gingrich: "The overnight Drudge Report banner: 'Insider: Gingrich repeatedly Insulted Reagan.' The headline linked to a devastating takedown by Elliott Abrams in the National Review, who wrote, among other things, that Gingrich had a long record of criticizing and undermining Reagan's most transformative policies."

Baloney. Sorry, Matt Drudge, but Mrs. Reagan's vote of confidence carries considerably more weight than your shameless smear on behalf of the Massachusetts moderate.

Cherry picked quotes, biased headlines and hyperlinks to Newt-hating op-eds in order to patch together an ugly and distorted mosaic of the former House speaker is not journalism. It's mercenary-style political prostitution.

At the top of Thursday's Drudge was linked an opinion piece by another Romney surrogate, Ann Coulter, headlined "Re-elect Obama: Vote Newt!" In it, she skewers Mr. Gingrich and claims, "Romney is the most electable candidate."

Odd when you consider that, less than one year ago, Coulter told a packed house at CPAC the exact opposite: "If you don't run Chris Christie, Romney will be the nominee and we'll lose," she said. "By the way, I warned you about McCain." (I don't know, maybe Ann's now angling for a gig as Romney's Secretary of Snark. Look for her next book: "Moderate: An Autobiography.")

But Coulter's exactly right about that whole McCain thing. He recently endorsed Romney too. So did Bob Dole. Interesting. And they're both vehemently opposed to a Gingrich nomination as well.

See where this is going? What do Bob Dole and John McCain have in common? Is this really who we think is going to unseat Barack Obama? Mitt Romney: the ideo-political love child – figuratively speaking – of Bob Dole and John McCain?

The RINO is a slow, lumbering beast. It is foolishly and predictably drawn, over and again, toward that "moderate" watering hole. There, it hopes to attract that equally perplexing animal, the "independent." From this liaison, it is believed a bevy of voting offspring will be produced.

Never happens. In fact, the mushy middle is exactly where that fierce predator – The Democrat – wants its Republican prey corralled. Ever seen Wild Kingdom? Not pretty.

RINO Republicans and liberal Democrats have something in common: they both mistakenly assert that conservative candidates are unelectable. Ronald Reagan proved them wrong and so will Newt Gingrich.

No, I've got news for Matt Drudge, Ann Coulter and the rest of the establishment GOP: As 2010 proved and as I believe 2012 will show again, conservatives don't shine to being told who our nominee is going to be.

We'll pick him ourselves, thank you very much.