White House Takes on Drudge, Others "with a Computer and a Lot of Free Time"
BY Nancy Scola | Tuesday, August 4 2009
The White House's going after the Drudge Report over its health care reform coverage might strike some as a case of the chief executive punching below his weight. But on Internet's level playing field, Matt Drudge and crew still have a sometimes breathtaking ability to set the national agenda. We saw that most recently where Drudge highlighted a somewhat dated video of Delaware Republican Representative Mike Castle being confronted by "birthers" at a town hall meeting, which pushed the issue almost immediately onto the national stage. By targeting Drudge, the White House is demonstrating that it gets how this ecosystem works. And it's going to use its might to shape it.
In a new three-minute web video, White House Office of Health Reform communications director Linda Douglass calls out those who are in the practice of "taking sentences and phrases out of context and cobbling them together to leave a very false impression." Douglass never utters the word "Drudge." She needn't. The "drudgereport.com" in the URL box she pulls up on her computer monitor leaves no doubt of who's the target. Douglass takes particular issues with a recent Drudge entry titled "Uncovered Video: Obama Explains How His Health Care Plan Will 'Eliminate' Private Insurance."
Douglass concedes that Obama's barnstorming on behalf of health care reform creates a rich record of public remarks that makes him somewhat vulnerable. "Because he's talking to the American people so much," says Douglass, "there are people out there with a computer and a lot of free time...they take a phrase here and there, they simply cherry pick and put it together and make it sound like he's saying something that he didn't really say." In a bit of jiujutsu, Douglass than uses the video record from a recent AARP forum where, contra Drudge, Obama stresses that "nobody is trying to change what works in the system."
While the well-known Matt Drudge and the Drudge Report make a useful targets, the White House is also clearly concerned with what's flowing farther beneath the political radar. Both the "birther" controversy and rumors about Obama being of Muslim faith, for example, percolated out of site for a long while before leaping up to the national stage. The White House would rather know about that sort of thing sooner than later. On the White House blog, new media director Macon Phillips asks for help spotting what's out there. "These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation," blogs Phillips. "Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov."