Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com

Most certainly, the press
will pretend to be above it all ("this is not something that we, the
sophisticated political journalists, care about, of course"). But they
yammer about Drudge-promoted gossip endlessly, and then insist that their own
chattering is proof that it is an important story that people care about. And
because they conclude that "people" (i.e., them) are concerned with
the story, they keep chirping about it, which in turn fuels their belief that
the story is important. It is an endless loop of self-referential narcissism --
whatever they endlessly sputter is what "the people" care about, and
therefore they must keep harping on it, because their chatter is proof of its
importance.

They don't need Drudge to
rule their world any longer because they are Matt Drudge now.

Every day, it becomes more difficult to blame George
Bush, Dick Cheney and comrades for their seven years (and counting) of crimes,
corruption and destruction of our political values. Think about it this way: if
you were a high government official and watched as -- all in a couple of weeks
time -- it is revealed, right out in the open, that you suspended the Fourth
Amendment, authorized torture, proclaimed yourself empowered to break the law,
and sent the nation's top law enforcement officer to lie blatantly about how
and why the 9/11 attacks happened so that you could acquire still more
unchecked spying power and get rid of lawsuits that would expose what you did,
and the political press in this country basically ignored all of that and
blathered on about Obama's bowling score and how he eats chocolate, wouldn't
you also conclude that you could do anything you want, without limits, and know
there will be no consequences? What would be the incentive to stop doing all of
that?