If you ever needed more reason to support Edwards or Obama -- or Dodd, who has of late led on Constitutional issues -- here's one: the Clinton campaign is utilizing the Drudge Report as a key propaganda outlet.
typical of a campaign with a reputation for exploiting every advantage and trying to neutralize every disadvantage, Mrs. Clinton's communications team, led by Howard Wolfson, is not leaving Mr. Drudge to the Republicans. Five current and former Democratic officials said Mrs. Clinton has on her side the closest thing her party has ever had to Mr. Rhoades in Tracy Sefl, a former Democratic National Committee official, who has established a friendly working relationship with Mr. Drudge — and through whom Mrs. Clinton's campaign often worked quietly to open a line of communication.
Well, hey, this is smart, right? Diplomacy is all about neutralizing your enemies, and even getting them into your camp. From where I sit, though, this is not about bringing Drudge into Camp Hillary. Rather, it's about playing the game on his turf, and not hers -- or ours.
You can damn well bet that Clinton's team knows exactly what Bush's team knows, namely that, in the words of a former Bush campaign aide
[Drudge]'s stuff that speaks to the absurdity of politics, and it's done with devastating effect.
The absurdity of politics. No wonder Al Gore said that politics "requires a level of tolerance for triviality and artifice and nonsense that I have found in short supply." Team Clinton, on the other hand, has an abundant supply of tolerance for Drudge's triviality.
Edwards and Obama and Dodd show little tolerance for this triviality. I do favor one over the others; but it's by a matter of degrees. What each of us who supports these three candidates realize is that it's bullshit that they have in short supply, and Dodd above all is putting his money where his mouth is.
And Clinton? She seeks to work with someone who takes "no apparent effort to determine [the] truth," as the above-linked NY Times report acknowledges. The truth is irrelevant.
One final note, and it's the kicker to the Times story. New York magazine quoted Drudge as saying
I need Hillary Clinton. You don't get it. I need to be part of her world. That's my bank.
In other words, Clinton supporters should realize that Drudge is propping her up in order to knock her down later. She's good for business, as Republican fundraisers have long known.
The final irony is, Clinton said, in saying that she'd refuse to negotiate with enemies without predetermined outcomes, that "I don’t want to be used for propaganda purposes." Sounds to me like she's embodying her accusations against Obama: "irresponsible and frankly naïve."