“Drudge was both revolutionary Tom Paine and dreamy populist. ‘I used to walk these streets as an aimless teen, young adult. Walk by ABC News over on DeSales. Daydream. Stare up at the Washington Post newsroom over on 15th Street, look up longingly, knowing I’d never get in. Didn’t go to the right schools. Never enjoyed any school, as a matter of fact. Didn’t come from a well-known family — nor was I even remotely connected to a powerful publishing dynasty … I would never be granted any access, obtain any credentials … There wasn’t a likelihood for upward mobility in my swing-shift position at 7-11.’
“The best line in that speech was Drudge’s statement that ‘It’s more fun to talk about Godzilla than watch it.’ He was introducing the reporters to the new hierarchies of the information age, when events, from Putin to Godzilla, would collapse into so much spectacle for a surfer on the Net. Seriousness doesn’t interest Drudge; phenomena do. As he wrote in his book, ‘Politics is as Important as Hollywood. Is as Important as Science.’ Drudge flattens all hard news into collage, and it is this, more than anything, that angers the old guard.”
