Jump Spin

Drudge points out a pretty good way of making sure that something turns out all right in the end. Here's CNN:

Two out of three Americans who watched President Barack Obama's health care reform speech Wednesday night favor his health care plans — a 14-point gain among speech-watchers, according to a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation national poll of people who tuned into Obama's address Wednesday night to a joint session of Congress.

14 points in one night? That's a hell of jump. Must have been a killer speech. But wait. What's this fine print at the bottom of the page...

The sample of speech-watchers in this poll was 45 percent Democratic and 18 percent Republican.

Oh.

It's been a while since I had fun with pollsters, and so, some more Poll Vaulting:

The Drudge Pandemic II

Vis-a-vis my post that Drudge got bored and drove the flu pandemic story. He was the story's Patient Zero and he played it for all he was worth.

He's now grown bored with it, as I knew he would. Last night he flipped his bright red headlines to the US Supreme Court vacancy. His flu pandemic? It's been relegated to a couple of small headlines further down the page, beside a story on Michelle Obama's shoes.

In his wake he's left a WHO on high alert, Dr. Phil telling people not to worry about eating pork, a Vice President telling his family not to ride the subway, a President answering questions at news conferences, Tamiflu rich, schools closed, parents freaked out, Mexican tourism in the toilet, the Egyptian government ordering a swine cull, the EU considering a ban on flights from Mexico, and paranoid people all over the world wearing surgical masks.

This is essentially the biggest hoax in years, perpetrated by a reclusive man with a keyboard and time on his hands.

And you know what? I have to admire him for it.

Lovely Day For a Protest

Drudge is having a chuckle over this next story, posting it as his headline-of-the-hour.

I don't mind playing along. The enviro-boobs are always good for a laugh:

CNSNews: Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) had to cancel an appearance Monday at a global warming rally in Washington, D.C., that was hit by a snowstorm because her flight was delayed, her office told CNSNews.com.

(AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Drudge Outs Harry

Prince Harry was pulled out of Afghanistan and sent home yesterday, after the Drudge Report outed the fact that he was there in the first place.

There. I said it. The Drudge Report.

I've been having a good chuckle at the hypocrisy of the mainstream media. They call the war on terror a sham, and demand that the troops come home. In Britain, Tony Blair is dubbed as "Bush's poodle" for putting British troops into action. Then Prince Harry goes to war and suddenly he is a hero, with photos of a gun-wielding Prince gracing the front pages of all the major papers.

So which is it? Prince Harry the hero, but Blair the warmonger? How does that work?

The press's hypocrisy continues. It's no secret that they hate Drudge (he broke the Lewinsky scandal, and they haven't forgiven him since), but what is the Drudge Report really? It's a link site. Drudge makes the headlines, but 99.9% of those headlines lead to other sources. Due to a media blackout on the "Prince Harry Goes to War" story, the papers were mum. Then Drudge links to an Australian news piece that says Harry is in Afghanistan, and all bets are off. The mainstream press didn't wait five seconds to plaster the news all over their front pages.

I scoured the papers and the news services and found one that named Drudge as the source. For the rest, it was "a foreign website," or "an American website."

Well, that's not exactly how you learn to quote sources in Journalism 101, is it? Drudge is not some secret source that they met in an underground parking lot. With one click of the mouse, anyone on the planet can see what he's up to. For them not to quote Drudge by name is like saying, "According to a Washington official," after talking to the President.

But that's the media. The war is a sham, but Harry's a hero, and Drudge is a jerk for running the story, but now we'll make a whole weekend edition out of it without saying his name.

The plummeting ratings and newspaper sales of the mainstream press are not shocking. The arrogant fools are being outscooped all the time by people that own a laptop and a cell phone. For them not to quote Drudge as the source of their lastest windfall is not only arrogant, it's petty. It also shows how frightened these crusanders of hard journalism really are.

Photo taken from the Drudge Report