Has Matt Drudge Gone Liberal?

I've always had mixed opinions re. Matt Drudge. On the one hand, he almost single-handedly launched that ghastly episode in U.S. history known as the Monica Lewinsky affair, and he has often used his site to promote dubious organizations like the Minutemen. On the other hand, Drudge has proven over the years to be an equal opportunity poo-flinger, and when Scandal has affected the American political Right (like the Mark Foley Instant Message affair), he has usually been first on the scene.

The bottom line is, when I open my Internet browser every morning, The Drudge Report is the first thing I see.

In any case, Drudge is now being accused of spreading Liberal bias! From the N.Y. Sun's Alicia Colon (yes, that is her real name):

Matt Drudge, who may or may not be a willing accomplice to the distortion of news reporting, must be held responsible for the dissemination of the bias in the liberal press. Studies have shown that the readership of the Times is down — as it is in other liberal publications — and so are the television ratings of the alphabet networks and CNN and MSNBC, while Fox News is up.

Nevertheless, the propaganda of the enemedia — an excellent descriptive term coined by one poster to Lucianne.com — continues to sully news coverage, thanks to Mr. Drudge. A study of press bias by a professor of political science at the University of California-Los Angeles, Tim Groseclose, listed the Drudge Report as one of the most liberal sites on the Web because it consistently posts articles from left-of-center sources.

According to Ms. Colon, Drudge is single-handedly preventing the collapse of the Liberal MSM by linking to their websites! And if you link to a Liberal site, this apparently makes you a Liberal!

(I guess that makes me a SoCon, since my favorite sites for blogging raw material include The Lifesite, the Canada Free Press, and the Blogging Tories. )

But you don't have to look far to see why Ms. Colon is really pissed off:

My patience with the Drudge Report ended when I saw a photo of Frank Rich of the Times posted on the site along with his words: "We are losing in Iraq." It isn't too encouraging to the morale of the nation, but posts like this are common on Drudge.

The site gives top billing to every possible negative statement about the Iraq war and the Bush administration, and it gets about 13 million hits a day. Is it any wonder that President Bush has record low approval ratings?

Drudge is no Liberal, but he isn't stupid either, and as the war goes South, American Conservatives are turning on any of their fellows willing to state this blindingly obvious fact.