Allen learns how to leak

October 28, 2006

The Washington Post ran a front-page piece today on the Virginia Senate race, and Sen. George Allen’s (R-Va.) new cudgel against Jim Webb (D) — some racy text from Webb’s fictional novels written many years ago. We talked yesterday about the merit of the charge, but there was a small tidbit in the WaPo piece that jumped out at me.

Allen campaign officials provided excerpts from the books — some of them depicting acts of incest and graphic sexuality — to the Drudge Report Web site Thursday night. Matt Drudge’s Internet blog often breaks or promotes stories with sensational angles, most recently the scandal involving former Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.). Allen’s aides, who have been trying to get other news organizations to write about the excerpts for weeks, issued statements saying the fictional scenes in Webb’s novels reflect poorly on Webb’s character and fitness for office.

Apparently, real reporters didn’t care that Webb’s novels included sexual content. The Allen campaign kept pitching the story, but journalists kept blowing it off. Who cares about a few paragraphs from a 20-year-old novel, especially a novel embraced by conservative Republicans?

Left with no other avenues, Allen’s team turned to Drudge, who apparently didn’t hesitate. The online world reacted to Drudge, the political world reacted to the online world, and the mainstream media responded in turn. Now, it’s on the front page.

I don’t have an overarching point here, but I think it’s an interesting case study on how to use the web politically. It’s also a twist on how to use Drudge.

During the Clinton impeachment saga, reporters would have some juicy-but-dubious tidbit that they wanted to report on, but it didn’t meet any journalistic standards. So, the reporters would give it to Drudge, it would cause a stir, and the same reporters would then write stories saying, “Look at the latest rumors buzzing online.”

The Allen campaign has learned the game.

Want to get dirty? Let’s unseal the divorce settlement. Better than fiction probably.

  • Internet rumours? Some think that Allen might be “spitting into the wind” with this attempt to smear Webb.

  • During the Clinton impeachment saga, reporters would have some juicy-but-dubious tidbit that they wanted to report on, but it didn’t meat any journalistic standards. So, the reporters would give it to Drudge, it would cause a stir, and the same reporters would then write stories saying, “Look at the latest rumors buzzing online.”-CB

    While such behavior on the part of MSM reporters doesn’t surprise me, I’ve never heard about this before. How about naming names.

  • Has anyone asked Drudge how Allen knows about the spicy tidbits in that particular novel—and how long he’s known about them? He actually employs people who have nothing better to do than go around and find dirt in a twenty-year-old book? He can find the time to play out exerpts from an old book, when the nation is at war?

    Where was “Felix” during Viet Nam? Playing “dodge” with his buddies Bush and Cheney? Funny how those who wouldn’t serve have a particular penchant for badmouthing those who would—and did. Bungie sticks for Felix!!!

  • Kind of the MSM’s version of “renditioning”.

    Don’t want to compromise your “journalistic credentials” (tongue in cheek, ready to break through mouth wall)?
    Just dump your story on Drudge, the Jerry Springer of internet news

  • Failed Hollywood wannabee Matt Drudge has certainly discovered how far you go when you have no morals or a conscience.

    God I’d love to see this twisted little piece of shit lying in a ditch, bleeding out from a large-caliber exit wound.

    What really pisses me off as a writer is that this idea that Webb’s writing of explicit scenes reflects his “real morals,” and how this is being taken up by the halfwits as being true. Further proof if proof was necessary of just how many furless bipeds are “homo sap” not “homo sapiens.”

    Drudge proves Mencken was right: nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.

    I really hope he dies alone in the dark and the cold of a socially-unacceptable and very painful disease.

  • From the WaPo article:

    Margaret R. Soltan, an English professor at George Washington University, said voters should not regard Webb’s novels as indicative of his views, any more than voters in England should have been deterred by some of Winston Churchill’s more shocking writing.

    “To think along those lines exposes you as a person who has no culture,” she said.

    “Republican” – a synonym for “a person who has no culture.”

  • “juicy ……. but it didn’t meat any journalistic standards”

    Freudian slip or deliberate pun? – inquiring minds want to know.

    More seriously, this could Webb a bit, given this country’s ability to put aside most Republican shortcomings while magnifying shortcomings when a Democrat is to blame, and the media’s love of “balancing” things out (so that the now-somewhat-embarassing writings by Webb can somehow be deemed to balance out Allen’s macaca incident).

  • if the novel was written twenty years ago, wasnt Webb a republican then ? just wondering

  • Americablog has an interesting post on Allen… talking about his sealed divorce papers… quoted a young reporter who had her shoe nearly spat upon (tobacco-laced spit) by Allen when she asked him a softball question. And no, he didn’t answer the question. What a dickwad. How could any thinking person even consider voting for him? Oh, that’s right… the ones who will vote for him have no brains.

  • ” What a dickwad.” –Hannah, @14

    Well… His campaign manager is one Dick Wadham. “Dickwad” for short :-^)

    Re unsealing his divorce records: takes two to tango and, so far, his ex-wife has been no more forthcoming than he is. Probably her alimony depends on staying mum and, from all I’ve heard she’s a nice-enough woman who’s had enough Allen trouble in her life and doesn’t need any more.

    Let’s just say she didn’t come out to stump for Allen the way Webb’s first wife did

  • Read Allen’s sister’s book about him (sorry, I haven’t).

    That’s a non-fiction book about a real character.

    Or lack there of. 😉

  • “Read Allen’s sister’s book about him (sorry, I haven’t).
    That’s a non-fiction book about a real character.” — Lance, @16

    Jennifer now claims her book is not biography, but “fictionalized biography”. She’s been saying that ever since Webb began to look like a serious challenger to Allen. Family closing ranks, I guess

  • #15 Ahhh, I remember that now… maybe why I came up with that description for Allen.

    Americablog now has a story that James Webb’s book (or one of them) is on the Marine Corps recommended reading list. Take that George Allen and Lynne Cheney. :-p

  • More info re my comment #18. Webb has seven books listed on his website. Fields of Fire (one of the three that Allen has a problem with) is on the recommended reading list for Marines, plus the Commandant of the Marines put it on the US Marine Corps official reading list.

  • What’s disgraceful is that Webb rebutted the charge that that was an incest scene and a blogger found evidence that Webb was describing a known non-sexual Southeast Asian custom hours before the WaPo parroted Allen and called the scene an incest scene. Note that that first link is audio from an interview with the Post. Yet the Post story went out anyway without the clarification (and was syndicated that way to a number of papers across the country).

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