Results tagged “drudgereport”

The Drudge Report says Senator John McCain submitted an op-ed to the NY Times, hoping for some equal time as Senator Barack Obama's "Plan for Iraq" was published last week, but the Times turned it down. Apparently NYT Op-Ed editor David Shipley emailed the McCain campaign, "It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama's piece. I'm not going to be able to accept this piece as currently written." Drudge Report has McCain's editorial submission, as does Politico, which headlines it "McCain camp continues Drudge courtship."

It's weird when a Reuters story seems like something on Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update:

Kenyan elders may impose a fine on U.S. presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, payable in livestock, after a photo of her rival Barack Obama in robes dragged their people into the race for the White House.

Apprently Wajir elders are very upset about the photograph rumored to have originated from the Hillary Clinton campaign (though the photo is over a year old and was publicized on The Drudge Report) and say they will file an official complaint with the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi. And not only that: "They said they would also convene a traditional Somali court to investigate the matter. It can impose fines that are payable in cattle, goats or camels."

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama march into tonight's Ohio debate with their arms swinging over a 2006 photograph of Obama visiting Kenya. The Obama campaign blamed the Clinton campaign for "shameful" tactics, while the Clinton campaign denied responsibility and said the Obama campaign should be "ashamed" of thinking the photo would be controversial.

The headline for the above-the-fold NY Times story about presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain, For McCain, Self-Confidence on Ethics Poses Its Own Risk, doesn't quite prepare readers for the juicy insinuations waiting for them in the second paragraph. The first sentence notes that during McCain's 2000 presidential campaign advisers were worried because...

A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, visiting his offices and accompanying him on a client’s corporate jet. Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself — instructing staff members to block the woman’s access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity.

Um, what? The story is, on the surface, about ethics, but the hint of a possible close relationship with lobbyist Vicki Iseman - especially when McCain and Iseman deny any romantic relationship - makes this the kind of thing news pundits blow a gasket over. (Keith Olbermann was literally freaking out during Countdown last night while reporting about it.) And since the article appeared online last night, they've been bloviating about this for hours now.

Just what the world was waiting for! The NY Times reports that Arianna Huffington is starting a celebrity group blog with people like "Walter Cronkite, David Mamet, Nora Ephron, Warren Beatty, James Fallows, Vernon E. Jordan Jr., Maggie Gyllenhaal, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., Diane Keaton, Norman Mailer and Mortimer B. Zuckerman." Huh. Did Huffington read the Businessweek article about blogs changing business and decide, "It's on"? It'll be called Huffington Post, the NY Times article positions it as a competitor to The Drudge Report, but it seems less that than a celebrity vanity project like, oh, we don't know...maybe like an episode of The Love Boat with more street cred and an ability for readers to comments. Huffington says it's "an affirmation of [blogs'/the blogosphere's] success and will only enrich and strengthen its impact on the national conversation," but Sure, it'll be cool to read what Walter Cronkite thinks, but we fear he'll get bogged down with despamming the system. And don't get us started on wondering if certain celebrities are actually posting or making a minion post for them.

Michele Zipp, Writer, ex-Editor-in-Chief, Playgirl