Matt Drudge
Encyclopedia
Matthew Nathan Drudge (born October 27, 1966) is the American creator and editor of the Drudge Report
Drudge Report
The Drudge Report is a news aggregation website. Run by Matt Drudge with the help of Joseph Curl and Charles Hurt, the site consists mainly of links to stories from the United States and international mainstream media about politics, entertainment, and current events as well as links to many...

, a news aggregation website. Drudge is self-described as being conservative and populist
Populism
Populism can be defined as an ideology, political philosophy, or type of discourse. Generally, a common theme compares "the people" against "the elite", and urges social and political system changes. It can also be defined as a rhetorical style employed by members of various political or social...

. Drudge has also authored a book and hosted a radio show and a television show.

Early years

Matthew Drudge was raised in Takoma Park
Takoma Park, Maryland
Takoma Park is a city in Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. It is a suburb of Washington, D.C., and part of the Washington Metropolitan Area. Founded in 1883 and incorporated in 1890, Takoma Park, informally called "Azalea City," is a Tree City USA and a nuclear-free zone...

, Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...

, near Washington, DC. His parents are Reform Jewish
Reform Judaism (North America)
Reform Judaism is the largest denomination of American Jews today. With an estimated 1.5 million members, it also accounts for the largest number of Jews affiliated with Progressive Judaism worldwide.- Reform Jewish theology :Rabbi W...

 Democrats who both worked for the federal government, and he is their only child. His father, Robert Drudge, a former social work
Social work
Social Work is a professional and academic discipline that seeks to improve the quality of life and wellbeing of an individual, group, or community by intervening through research, policy, community organizing, direct practice, and teaching on behalf of those afflicted with poverty or any real or...

er who owns the reference site www.refdesk.com and his mother, a former staff attorney for U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy
Ted Kennedy
Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy was a United States Senator from Massachusetts and a member of the Democratic Party. Serving almost 47 years, he was the second most senior member of the Senate when he died and is the fourth-longest-serving senator in United States history...

, divorced when he was six. Drudge went to live with his mother. He had few friends and was an avid news reader and radio talk show fan. In his book Drudge Manifesto, Drudge reports that he "failed his Bar Mitzvah", and graduated 341st out of a class of 355 from Northwood High School
Northwood High School (Silver Spring, Maryland)
Northwood High School is located in Silver Spring, Maryland, and is part of Montgomery County Public Schools. Northwood originally opened in 1956. In 1985 it was closed in a contested decision by the Montgomery County School Board in an effort to alleviate the concentration of minorities enrolling...

 in 1984, thus giving himself, in his words, a "more than adequate curriculum vitae
Résumé
A résumé is a document used by individuals to present their background and skillsets. Résumés can be used for a variety of reasons but most often to secure new employment. A typical résumé contains a summary of relevant job experience and education...

 for a post at 7-Eleven
7-Eleven
7-Eleven is part of an international chain of convenience stores, operating under Seven-Eleven Japan Co. Ltd, which in turn is owned by Seven & I Holdings Co...

".

In an article for New York Magazine, Philip Weiss
Philip Weiss
Philip Weiss is an American journalist who co-edits Mondoweiss, which he describes as a "news website devoted to covering American foreign policy in the Middle East, chiefly from a progressive Jewish perspective," with Adam Horowitz...

 says Drudge was arrested on June 18, 1981, for making harassing telephone calls., and that Drudge went to live with his father on a farm on the eastern shore of Maryland. Weiss adds Drudge's father sent him back to Washington to live with his mother, who was unemployed at the time. Drudge was placed in psychiatric
Psychiatry
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...

 treatment with Jewish Social Services and it was recommended that he be sent to a boarding school
Boarding school
A boarding school is a school where some or all pupils study and live during the school year with their fellow students and possibly teachers and/or administrators. The word 'boarding' is used in the sense of "bed and board," i.e., lodging and meals...

, "and if not the last choice will be a foster home" (from court papers).

In the 1980s, Drudge worked as a telemarketer
Telemarketing
Telemarketing is a method of direct marketing in which a salesperson solicits prospective customers to buy products or services, either over the phone or through a subsequent face to face or Web conferencing appointment scheduled during the call.Telemarketing can also include recorded sales pitches...

 for Time-Life Books
Time-Life
Time–Life is a creator and direct marketer of books, music, video/DVD, and multimedia products. Its products are sold throughout North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia through television, print, retail, the Internet, telemarketing, and direct sales....

 with his friend Craig Seymour
Craig Seymour
Craig Seymour is an American writer, photographer, celebrity interviewer, music critic and former stripper. He was born in Washington, D.C.. He has written for The Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, Vibe, and Spin, among other publications, and has served as pop music critic for The Buffalo...

. Seymour wrote in his autobiography
Autobiography
An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...

 that Drudge loved Whitney Houston
Whitney Houston
Whitney Elizabeth Houston is an American singer, actress, producer and a former model. Houston is the most awarded female act of all time, according to Guinness World Records, and her list of awards include 1 Emmy Award, 6 Grammy Awards, 30 Billboard Music Awards, 22 American Music Awards, among...

, Chaka Khan
Chaka Khan
Chaka Khan , frequently known as the Queen of Funk, is a 10-time Grammy Award winning American singer-songwriter who gained fame in the 1970s as the frontwoman and focal point of the funk band Rufus. While still a member of the group in 1978, Khan embarked on a successful solo career...

 and The Young and the Restless
The Young and the Restless
The Young and the Restless is an American television soap opera created by William J. Bell and Lee Phillip Bell for CBS. The show is set in a fictional Wisconsin town called Genoa City, which is unlike and unrelated to the real life village of the same name, Genoa City, Wisconsin...

.

Drudge Report

Drudge was unknown before he began the news aggregation site, the Drudge Report
Drudge Report
The Drudge Report is a news aggregation website. Run by Matt Drudge with the help of Joseph Curl and Charles Hurt, the site consists mainly of links to stories from the United States and international mainstream media about politics, entertainment, and current events as well as links to many...

. For many years, he took odd jobs such as night counterman at a 7-Eleven
7-Eleven
7-Eleven is part of an international chain of convenience stores, operating under Seven-Eleven Japan Co. Ltd, which in turn is owned by Seven & I Holdings Co...

 convenience store, telemarketer
Telemarketing
Telemarketing is a method of direct marketing in which a salesperson solicits prospective customers to buy products or services, either over the phone or through a subsequent face to face or Web conferencing appointment scheduled during the call.Telemarketing can also include recorded sales pitches...

 for Time-Life
Time-Life
Time–Life is a creator and direct marketer of books, music, video/DVD, and multimedia products. Its products are sold throughout North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia through television, print, retail, the Internet, telemarketing, and direct sales....

 books, McDonald's manager, and sales assistant at a New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 grocery store. In 1989, he moved to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

, where he took up residence in a small Hollywood apartment. He took a job in the gift shop of CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

 studios, eventually working his way up to manager. Here, he was apparently privy to some inside gossip, part of the inspiration for founding the Drudge Report. Worried about his son’s aimlessness, Drudge's father insisted on buying him a Packard Bell
Packard Bell
Packard Bell is a Dutch computer manufacturer and a subsidiary of Acer. The name was previously used by Packard Bell, an American radio manufacturer founded in 1926. In 1986, Israeli investors bought the name for a newly formed personal computer manufacturer. Originally the company produced...

 computer in 1994. The Drudge Report began as an e-mail sent out to a few friends.

The original issues were part gossip and part opinion. They were distributed as an e-mail newsletter and posted to alt.showbiz.gossip Usenet
Usenet
Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...

 forum. In 1996, the newsletter transitioned slowly from entertainment gossip to political gossip and moved from e-mail to the Web
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...

 as its primary distribution mechanism.
In March 1995, the Drudge Report had 1,000 e-mail subscribers; By 1997, Drudge had 85,000 subscribers to his e-mail service. Drudge's website gained in popularity in the late 1990s after a number of stories which he reported before the mainstream media. Drudge first received national attention in 1996 when he broke the news that Jack Kemp
Jack Kemp
Jack French Kemp was an American politician and a collegiate and professional football player. A Republican, he served as Housing Secretary in the administration of President George H. W. Bush from 1989 to 1993, having previously served nine terms as a congressman for Western New York's 31st...

 would be Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

 Bob Dole
Bob Dole
Robert Joseph "Bob" Dole is an American attorney and politician. Dole represented Kansas in the United States Senate from 1969 to 1996, was Gerald Ford's Vice Presidential running mate in the 1976 presidential election, and was Senate Majority Leader from 1985 to 1987 and in 1995 and 1996...

's running mate in the 1996 presidential election. In 1998, Drudge gained popularity when he was the first outlet to break the news that later became the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

Andrew Breitbart
Andrew Breitbart
Andrew Breitbart is an American publisher, commentator for the Washington Times, author, an occasional guest commentator on various news programs who has served as an editor for the Drudge Report website...

 helps run the Drudge Report website. Breitbart met Drudge in Los Angeles during the 1990s when Drudge was a self-described "untrained D student." Drudge mentored Breitbart until 2005. Breitbart stated that he was "amicably leaving the Drudge Report after a long and close working relationship with Matt Drudge." He now runs Breitbart.com, but still helps run Drudge's website from Los Angeles. Breitbart, who describes himself as "Matt Drudge’s bitch", works the afternoon shift at the Drudge Report. Drudge frequently links to Breitbart's site, but does not get paid for this service. Drudge has said that he holds no financial stake in Breitbart.com nor does he receive any compensation from its founder.

Fox News television show

From June 1998 to November 1999, Drudge hosted a Saturday night television show called Drudge
Drudge (TV series)
Drudge is a television series on Fox News Channel hosted by Matt Drudge. Drudge left the show in 1999 after network executives refused to let him show a picture of Samuel Armas....

on the Fox News Channel. The show ended when the two parties agreed to part ways. Drudge had refused to go on air, charging Fox News with censorship
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...

 when the network prevented him from showing photos of surgery on Samuel Armas
Samuel Armas
Samuel Alexander Armas is the child shown in a famous photograph by Michael Clancy of his surgeon holding his hand from out of a hole in his mother's uterus during open fetal surgery for spina bifida.-Story behind the photo:...

. Drudge, who is pro-life
Pro-life
Opposition to the legalization of abortion is centered around the pro-life, or anti-abortion, movement, a social and political movement opposing elective abortion on moral grounds and supporting its legal prohibition or restriction...

, wanted to use a picture of a tiny hand reaching out from the womb to dramatize his argument against late-term abortion
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...

, but Fox's John Moody
John Moody (journalist)
John Moody is Chief Executive Officer of NewsCore, the internal wire service of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. He was previously Senior Vice President, News Editorial for the Fox News Channel.-Early life, education and career:...

 decided that that would be misleading because the photo was not of an abortion but an emergency operation on the fetus for spina bifida
Spina bifida
Spina bifida is a developmental congenital disorder caused by the incomplete closing of the embryonic neural tube. Some vertebrae overlying the spinal cord are not fully formed and remain unfused and open. If the opening is large enough, this allows a portion of the spinal cord to protrude through...

. Fox News charged him with breach of contract but, after Drudge issued an apology, Fox issued a statement calling the parting "amicable". His contract was originally set to run through February 2001.

Radio talk show

Drudge hosted a Sunday night talk radio
Talk radio
Talk radio is a radio format containing discussion about topical issues. Most shows are regularly hosted by a single individual, and often feature interviews with a number of different guests. Talk radio typically includes an element of listener participation, usually by broadcasting live...

 show — "The only time anyone will let me on the air," he claimed. The show, which was also named the Drudge Report, was syndicated by Premiere Radio Networks
Premiere Radio Networks
Premiere Networks is an American radio network. It is the largest syndication company in the United States based on popularity of programming...

. He guest hosted for the conservative radio talk
Conservative talk
Conservative talk radio is a talk radio format in the United States and Canada devoted to expressing conservative viewpoints of issues, as opposed to progressive talk radio...

 show host Rush Limbaugh
Rush Limbaugh
Rush Hudson Limbaugh III is an American radio talk show host, conservative political commentator, and an opinion leader in American conservatism. He hosts The Rush Limbaugh Show which is aired throughout the U.S. on Premiere Radio Networks and is the highest-rated talk-radio program in the United...

. Drudge gained radio notoriety in the early 2000s by becoming a constant reference for news material on Limbaugh's, Sean Hannity
Sean Hannity
Sean Hannity is an American radio and television host, author, and conservative political commentator. He is the host of The Sean Hannity Show, a nationally syndicated talk radio show that airs throughout the United States on Premiere Radio Networks. Hannity also hosts a cable news show, Hannity,...

's, and Mark Levin
Mark Levin
Mark Reed Levin is a lawyer, author and the host of American syndicated radio show The Mark Levin Show. Levin served in the cabinet of President Ronald Reagan and was a chief of staff for Attorney General Edwin Meese...

's radio shows. He was often acknowledged by Michael Savage
Michael Savage (commentator)
Michael Savage is a conservative American radio host, author, and political commentator. He is the host of The Savage Nation, a nationally syndicated talk show that airs throughout the United States on Talk Radio Network...

 as a source of topics for The Savage Nation
The Savage Nation
The Savage Nation is an American radio show hosted by conservative commentator Michael Savage on Talk Radio Network. His show is heard by 8-10 million listeners a week and syndicated across the U.S. in over 300 markets, making it the 3rd most listened to radio show in the country...

.

Drudge left his position as radio host with Premiere effective September 30, 2007. He was replaced by Cincinnati, Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...

, radio station WLW
WLW
WLW is a clear channel talk radio station located in Cincinnati, Ohio, run by Clear Channel Communications. The station broadcasts locally on 700 kHz AM...

's Bill Cunningham
Bill Cunningham
Bill Cunningham is an American talk radio host. His full-time job is hosting The Big Show with Bill Cunningham, a local show on 700 WLW in Cincinnati, Ohio. Cunningham now hosts Live on Sunday Night, it's Bill Cunningham, which is syndicated to over 300 stations by Premiere Radio Networks. He is...

 on the network and in most markets, though in a few larger markets, John Batchelor
John Batchelor
John Calvin Batchelor is an author and host of The John Batchelor Show radio news magazine. Based at WABC radio in New York for five years from early 2001 to September, 2006; the show was syndicated nationally on the ABC radio network. On October 7, 2007, Batchelor returned to radio on WABC New...

 replaced him instead.

Book

Drudge wrote a book with Julia Phillips
Julia Phillips
Julia Phillips was a film producer and author. She is remembered for being the first woman to win an Academy Award as a film's producer, and for a best selling tell-all memoir.-Early life:...

 in 2000 titled Drudge Manifesto. The book features a transcript of a Q&A session conducted at the National Press Club on June 2, 1998, which lays out Drudge's
raison d'être. It also contains copies of e-mails sent to Drudge by his readers, dialogues between Drudge and his cat, and extensive descriptions of parties Drudge has attended and how the celebrities there reacted to him. A review in the Washington Post summarised the book as follows:
Indeed, while Drudge Manifesto runs 247 pages, it takes a lot of filler to reach that length: 40 blank pages; 31 pages of fan mail; 24 pages of Drudge Report reruns; 13 pages of a Q & A that Drudge did at the National Press Club three years ago; 10 pages of titles and other book boilerplate; six pages of quotes from Drudge's favorite philosophers (Monica, Madonna, etc.); four pages of a chat transcript; three pages that include nothing but a large zero; two pages that include nothing but a large numeral 1; one page that includes nothing but a tiny zero; and one page that includes Drudge's favorite Web sites. Which leaves, in the end, 112 pages of new material, including nine pages of poetry.


Another review, this time from the Columbia Journalism Review
Columbia Journalism Review
The Columbia Journalism Review is an American magazine for professional journalists published bimonthly by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism since 1961....

, stated:

... the publication of Drudge's very odd memoir, Drudge Manifesto, a book described even by ardent admirer Andrew Sullivan
Andrew Sullivan
Andrew Michael Sullivan is an English author, editor, political commentator and blogger. He describes himself as a political conservative. He has focused on American political life....

 as "subliterate." By any standard, Drudge's book is padded. Of its 247 pages, forty-one are entirely blank. Another seventeen contain just a number or a name ("George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....

") or a phrase ("you're boring"). It is a weird, stream-of-conscious mixture of telling readers how he got his stories and mocking his critics.

Influence

In their 2006 book The Way To Win, Mark Halperin
Mark Halperin
Mark E. Halperin is the senior political analyst for Time magazine, Time.com, and MSNBC and serves as a board member on the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College. He is the co-author of Game Change.-Personal:Mark Halperin is the son of Morton Halperin and Ina Young. He has...

 and John Harris
John F. Harris
John F. Harris is an American political journalist and the editor in chief for Politico, an Arlington, Virginia based political news organization. With Politico executive editor, Jim VandeHei, Harris founded Politico for its launch on January 23, 2007...

 report that Republican National Convention
Republican National Convention
The Republican National Convention is the presidential nominating convention of the Republican Party of the United States. Convened by the Republican National Committee, the stated purpose of the convocation is to nominate an official candidate in an upcoming U.S...

 chairman Ken Mehlman
Ken Mehlman
Kenneth Brian Mehlman is an American businessman, attorney, and political figure who served as the campaign manager for the 2004 re-election campaign of George W. Bush and Chairman of the Republican National Committee from 2005 to 2007. In 2007, President Bush appointed Mehlman to the U.S...

 "kind of brags" (as CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...

 host Howard Kurtz
Howard Kurtz
Howard "Howie" Alan Kurtz is an American journalist and author with a special focus on the media. He is host of CNN's Reliable Sources program, and Washington bureau chief for The Daily Beast. He is the former media writer for The Washington Post. He has written five books about the media...

 puts it) about utilizing the Drudge channel. They also write that:

"Drudge, with his droll Dickensian
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...

 name, was not the only media or political agent whose actions led to John Kerry
John Kerry
John Forbes Kerry is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, the 10th most senior U.S. Senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2004 presidential election, but lost to former President George W...

's defeat. But his role placed him at the center of the game -- a New Media World Order in which Drudge was the most potent player in the process and a personification of the dynamic that did Kerry in."


In 2006, TIME Magazine named Drudge one of the 100 most influential people in the world, describing the Drudge Report as:
"A ludicrous combination of gossip, political intrigue and extreme weather reports ... still put together mostly by the guy who started out as a convenience-store clerk."


ABC News
ABC News
ABC News is the news gathering and broadcasting division of American broadcast television network ABC, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company...

 concluded that the Drudge Report sets the tone for national political coverage. The article states that:
"Republican operatives keep an open line to Drudge, often using him to attack their opponents."


In October 2006, Washington Post editor Len Downie, speaking at the Online News Association
Online News Association
The Online News Association , founded in 1999, is a 501 non-profit organization made up of more than 1,800 members. Its mission: Inspiring innovation and excellence among digital journalists to better serve the public....

's annual convention in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

, stated "Our largest driver of traffic is Matt Drudge."

On October 22, 2007, New York Times reporter Jim Rutenberg wrote that Republican and Democratic presidential candidates, including Hillary Clinton, were cooperating with Drudge and "working harder than ever to get favorable coverage for their candidates — or unfavorable coverage of competitors — onto the Drudge Report’s home page, knowing that television producers, radio talk show hosts and newspaper reporters view it as a bulletin board for the latest news and gossip." Rutenberg stated that Nielsen/NetRatings shows that the Drudge Report gets three million unique visitors over the course of a month, or approximately one percent of the population of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

.

Income and lifestyle

A story by Business 2.0
Business 2.0
Business 2.0 was a monthly magazine publication founded by magazine entrepreneur Chris Anderson, Mark Gross, and journalist James Daly in order to chronicle the rise of the "New Economy"...

magazine from April 2003 estimated that Drudge's website received $3,500 a day (almost $1.3 million a year) in advertising
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...

 revenues. Subtracting his relatively minor server costs, the magazine estimated that The Drudge Report website netted $800,000 a year. An article in The Miami Herald from September 2003 said Drudge estimated he earns $1.2 million a year from his website and radio show. During an April 30, 2004 appearance on C-SPAN
C-SPAN
C-SPAN , an acronym for Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network, is an American cable television network that offers coverage of federal government proceedings and other public affairs programming via its three television channels , one radio station and a group of websites that provide streaming...

, Drudge confirmed that he earns over $1 million. For many years, Drudge was based out of his one-bedroom apartment in Hollywood. Today, Drudge maintains the website from his two properties in Miami — his $1.4 million Mediterranean-style stucco house on Rivo Alto Island, and his $1-million-plus condominium in Miami's Four Seasons hotel
Four Seasons Hotel Miami
The Four Seasons Hotel and Tower, also known as the Four Seasons Hotel Miami or simply the Four Seasons Tower, is a skyscraper in Miami, Florida, United States. It is located in Downtown Miami's Brickell Financial District. The tower contains a Four Seasons Hotel, office space and several...

. In updating the site, he reportedly monitors multiple television news channels and a number of websites on several computers in his home office. By early 2009, Drudge earned millions of dollars a year, travelled extensively (Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

, Las Vegas
Las Vegas metropolitan area
The Las Vegas Valley is the heart of the Las Vegas-Paradise, NV MSA also known as the Las Vegas–Paradise–Henderson MSA which includes all of Clark County, Nevada, and is a metropolitan area in the southern part of the U.S. state of Nevada. The Valley is defined by the Las Vegas Valley landform, a ...

, Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...

), had moved to another property in Miami and become reclusive, communicating regularly only with a select group that included Rush Limbaugh
Rush Limbaugh
Rush Hudson Limbaugh III is an American radio talk show host, conservative political commentator, and an opinion leader in American conservatism. He hosts The Rush Limbaugh Show which is aired throughout the U.S. on Premiere Radio Networks and is the highest-rated talk-radio program in the United...

, Ann Coulter
Ann Coulter
Ann Hart Coulter is an American lawyer, conservative social and political commentator, author, and syndicated columnist. She frequently appears on television, radio, and as a speaker at public events and private events...

, and Andrew Breitbart
Andrew Breitbart
Andrew Breitbart is an American publisher, commentator for the Washington Times, author, an occasional guest commentator on various news programs who has served as an editor for the Drudge Report website...

. In 2003 he named his one indulgence, apart from travel, as his Corvette
Chevrolet Corvette
The Chevrolet Corvette is a sports car by the Chevrolet division of General Motors that has been produced in six generations. The first model, a convertible, was designed by Harley Earl and introduced at the GM Motorama in 1953 as a concept show car. Myron Scott is credited for naming the car after...

.

Political views

Drudge, described as a conservative populist
Populism
Populism can be defined as an ideology, political philosophy, or type of discourse. Generally, a common theme compares "the people" against "the elite", and urges social and political system changes. It can also be defined as a rhetorical style employed by members of various political or social...

 by The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...

, champions himself as free from corporate influences.

In 2001, Drudge told the Miami New Times
Miami New Times
The Miami New Times is a free weekly newspaper published in Miami and distributed every Thursday. It primarily serves the Miami area and is headquartered near Miami's Design District.-Overview:...

that:

Drudge pointed out differences between his political beliefs and those of the Republican party, arguing that his politics more accurately reflect libertarianism
Libertarianism
Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...

. In a 2005 interview with The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times (UK)
The Sunday Times is a Sunday broadsheet newspaper, distributed in the United Kingdom. The Sunday Times is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News International, which is in turn owned by News Corporation. Times Newspapers also owns The Times, but the two papers were founded...

Drudge described his politics:

Comments by journalists

Drudge has been called "the Walter Cronkite
Walter Cronkite
Walter Leland Cronkite, Jr. was an American broadcast journalist, best known as anchorman for the CBS Evening News for 19 years . During the heyday of CBS News in the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as "the most trusted man in America" after being so named in an opinion poll...

 of his era" by Mark Halperin
Mark Halperin
Mark E. Halperin is the senior political analyst for Time magazine, Time.com, and MSNBC and serves as a board member on the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College. He is the co-author of Game Change.-Personal:Mark Halperin is the son of Morton Halperin and Ina Young. He has...

 and John F. Harris
John F. Harris
John F. Harris is an American political journalist and the editor in chief for Politico, an Arlington, Virginia based political news organization. With Politico executive editor, Jim VandeHei, Harris founded Politico for its launch on January 23, 2007...

, "an idiot with a modem
Modem
A modem is a device that modulates an analog carrier signal to encode digital information, and also demodulates such a carrier signal to decode the transmitted information. The goal is to produce a signal that can be transmitted easily and decoded to reproduce the original digital data...

" by Keith Olbermann
Keith Olbermann
Keith Theodore Olbermann is an American political commentator and writer. He has been the chief news officer of the Current TV network and the host of Current TV's weeknight political commentary program, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, since June 20, 2011...

, "the country's reigning mischief-maker" by Todd Purdum
Todd Purdum
Todd Stanley Purdum is a national editor and political correspondent for Vanity Fair magazine.-Early life and education:Purdum is a son of Jerry S. Purdum, a Macomb, Illinois insurance broker, investor, and realtor, and Connie Purdum. He was graduated from St...

 of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

, and Michael Isikoff
Michael Isikoff
Michael Isikoff is an investigative journalist for NBC News, formerly with the United States magazine Newsweek. He joined Newsweek as an investigative correspondent in June, 1994, and has written extensively on the U.S...

 of Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...

said "Drudge is a menace to honest, responsible journalism. And to the extent that he's read and people believe what they read, he's dangerous." According to Camille Paglia
Camille Paglia
Camille Anna Paglia , is an American author, teacher, and social critic. Paglia, a self-described dissident feminist, has been a Professor at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania since 1984...

, he is "the kind of bold, entrepreneurial, free-wheeling, information-oriented outsider we need far more of in this country." David McClintick described him as, "a modern Tom Paine
Thomas Paine
Thomas "Tom" Paine was an English author, pamphleteer, radical, inventor, intellectual, revolutionary, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States...

, a possible precursor to millions of town criers using the Internet to invade the turf of bigfoot journalists."

External links

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