As always. Rest in Peace.

Earlier this week, Eric Boelhert at Media Matters examined the declining influence of Matt Drudge:

[T]here's no question that Drudge's Web traffic remains strong and continues to grow, thanks to a burgeoning international audience. But in terms of setting the ground rules -- in terms of setting the campaign agenda -- Drudge has been AWOL since mid-September when the credit crisis erupted....

Four years ago, Drudge and the right-wing bloggers were at the peak of their political power. Today, they're pretty much watching the election pass them by, reduced to the role of frustrated sideline hecklers.

Boelhert argues that it's the economic meltdown that has primarily contributed to Drudge's reduced ability to control the narrative:

[I]t's obvious that since Wall Street's meltdown commenced five weeks ago, and since America's economic crisis became a tsunami of a news story that's not only dominated the media landscape, but also irrevocably altered the course of the campaign, the Drudge Report has become largely irrelevant in terms of the setting the news agenda for the White House run.

Boelhert makes some good points about how Drudge's laundering of conservative talking points has failed to move the Washington press corps this cycle, as it has in the past.

In part, this is because the talking points themselves are vacuous and desperate at this point. Consider, for example, the headline Drudge has been blaring all day today:

JOE THE PLUMBER 'SCARED FOR AMERICA' IF OBAMA PREZ

What sort of reaction does Drudge expect this to elicit other than: so fucking what?

Nobody cares what Joe the Plumber thinks -- except for Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, and the junkies who shoot up in the conservative media echo chamber.

If Drudge has lost his influence, it is in no small part because he hasn't realized that the noise in the conservative echo chamber is making him tone deaf to the actual zeitgeist.

But it's not just his laundering of GOP talking points that is causing Drudge to lose influence, in my opinion.

While he's always been a partisan hack, he's always been a partisan hack with some pretty good news instincts, and who utilized those instincts to consistently beat others to the story.

And despite what some would say, that story wasn't always colored by his politics.

From 1996 to about 2006, he had a knack for being a good twenty minutes ahead of cable TV and other sources, even when the story was as non-political as an earthquake.

But those news instincts seem to be failing him lately, and he has become laconically slow at a time when the monopoly he once held on breaking news has been, erm, broken by the growth of the blogosphere and other internet news sources.

Nowadays, everyone knows the value of speed -- yet Drudge himself is getting consistently beaten to the break with even the most obvious of stories.

For example: when Paul Newman passed away a few weeks ago, the story first appeared early in the morning on the blogs, where it lingered for several hours before it was confirmed by reporters.

But not only did the blogs beat Drudge to posting the story: so too did CBSNews.com, the BBC, MSNBC, Huffington Post, and Yahoo! News.

Even when the headline was blaring across the net, it took another full hour for it to appear on Drudge.

Such slowness is unforgivable for a site that wants to set the news agenda.

But not only is he slow at picking up on news nowadays -- he's agonizingly slow at letting it go.

I've checked Drudge perhaps six times today, as I do most days. And the problem is not that his Joe the Plumber headline is laughably transparent and meaningless, though it is.

The problem is that, in six hours, he has neither added to the story (not that there is anything to add) nor replaced it. It just sits there, seeping in its own irrelevance.

So too have the links about the Jennifer Hudson tragedy remained equally static.

I've never cared for Drudge's politics, but anyone interested in how news travels across the Internet -- and, from there, onto TV screens and into newspapers -- has to recognize the contribution he made to Internet news and to the accelerated news cycle.

That Drudge now seems to be falling behind in the very media landscape that he helped to create -- that, to me, is the story.

Monstrous imbecile.

Buried at the bottom of Maureen Dowd's column today (which, surprisingly, is itself tolerable for a change) was this little line:

Thomas L. Friedman is off today.

Which explains the contented, at-peace-with-the-world feeling in the air today.

Last night's presidential "debate" truly was a low point in American politics.

I'm sure I wasn't the only one who turned it off in disgust after watching 40 nauseating minutes in which not a single issue -- not the war, not the economy, not gas prices, not global warming, not health care, not the collapsing dollar -- was brought up.

Apparently, in the minds of Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, such issues are of less import than a flag lapel pin or whatever the latest specious complaint making the rounds of the idiotnet happen to be.

Of course, it seems pointless to add to the braying chorus of complaints about our media -- which, if there is an objective behind the vapidness, one sometimes suspects must be exactly the point.

Watching Gibson and Stephanopoulos, it was clear that the template for modern journalism has been set by what Matt Yglesias has called the Unbearable Inanity of Tim Russert:

[T]he balls Russert favors may be hard, but the pitches he throws aren't curveballs, which go someplace useful. They're sillyballs, which go somewhere pointless. Russert has created a strike zone of his own where toughness meets irrelevance.

Substitute Gibson and Stephanopoulos ("who's more patriotic?") for Russert, and you've pretty well captured last night's debate -- not to mention most of modern punditry.

Check out these comments on the ABC News website to get a sense of the depth of betrayal felt by many Americans who tuned in last night. Or watch this video of the audience jeering Charlie Gibson at the end.

By far, one of the most depressing things I have ever witnessed in this hollow farce we now call politics.

It's quite amazing that when a President issues only his 4th veto in six and a half years, it doesn't even warrant a headline -- never mind a red font or a siren -- on Drudge.

But I guess that's in line with the marching orders:

The White House sought as little attention, with Bush casting his veto behind closed doors without any fanfare or news coverage. He was discussing it later Wednesday during a budget speech in Lancaster, Pa.

Now that Rupert Murdoch owns the Wall Street Journal, you can rely on sound, current financial advice like this:

This is mendacious even by FOX News standards.

Reporter Courtney Keely reports from Baghdad to tell us that the surge is working. "It is exciting to be walking through a marketplace in Baghdad, something I've never been able to do!" she says, with all the vacuity of a tourist. Never mind the phalanx of American troops guarding her, the Blackhawk helicopters providing cover overhead, or the fact that the Iraqis she speaks to tell her that the market itself has too few people as is a total failure. What matters is that she's able to walk through Baghdad wearing a flak jacket and helmet! Just like a stroll at any American farmer's market! And it's exciting!

(Via Crooks and Liars).

Greenwald gets it right:

Washington Post National Political Reporter Shailagh Murray opined on Monday:

Washington: What can possibly be gained by congressional hearings into the Libby commutation? Clearly Bush had the authority to do this, and he did it. Q.E.D. I'm old enough to remember when President Ford appeared before a congressional committee to explain his pardon of Richard Nixon. But Bush is no Ford, and unlike the Ford pardon, I don't think this action is going to look better over time.

Shailagh Murray: YAAWWN. That's my view of the Libby flap. What on earth did people expect Bush to do?

YAAWWN. What could possibly be more boring or irrelevant than the President of the United States protecting one of his most powerful aides, now a convicted felon, from going to prison, thereby ensuring that that aide has no incentive to disclose what he knows? Can we get back to what really matters to Americans, like John Edwards' haircut and probing investigations of his stylist?

From the latest USA Today/Gallup Poll:

5. From what you have heard or read, do you think President Bush was right to commute Libby's sentence, do you think he should have gone further and granted him a full pardon, or do you think he should not have intervened at all on Libby's behalf?

Right to commute sentence - 13%

Should have granted full pardon - 6%

Should not have intervened at all - 66%

No opinion - 15%

As usual, the true "fringe" in our country are Bush followers and their establishment media allies.