What’s Wrong With Matt Drudge?
I understand the urge to scoop the world, and the frustration of not getting a story out there before someone else beats you to the punch. If you look at the front page of American Street today, there are at least two stories I thought about covering that I won’t now. This is of course a testament to the quality of work the stable of fine contributors Kevin Hayden has brought together — a group I feel privileged to be with.
But Drudge outing Prince Harry’s deployment to Afghanistan is no mere scandal he exposed or some kind of nefarious cover-up of wrong-doing. There’s no salacious information that anyone, anywhere needed to know — and no doubt lives were put at risk due to Matt Drudge.
As a direct result of Drudge’s irresponsible actions, something described with typical understatement as “regrettable” by the British Government, ongoing operations against the very organizations that perpetrated 9/11 were disrupted.
I won’t hold my breath for Drudge to be accused of Treason by the usual suspects (or some other obscure “illiterature[sic]” wingnut).
February 29th, 2008 at 8:46 am
Better question: what’s right with Matt Drudge?
February 29th, 2008 at 10:40 am
It is more than unfortunate for Prince Harry that he cannot eke out a normal life. The fault, however, is not with Matt Drudge, but with the monarchy itself, and with all those who support it.
As an institution, the monarchy sacrifices its very children on the altar of ritualized state ceremony. From Day One, neither Harry nor William had any hope of being ordinary fellows: no dreams of being a doctor, a computer technician, and investor, a soldier, or indeed having any meaningful work. Other than being a ceremonial figure, all other options are mere stopgaps or hobbies, in the eyes of others and per force in their own eyes. As children they could not dream of escape to a world different from their parents’ world. As adults, they cannot engage in “real” work, because they are cursed to be Royals, and that just isn’t done.
I find this sacrifice of children and their lives to the maw of public spectacle to be the height of cruelty, a life sentence every bit as cruel as that visited on Jim Carey’s character in “The Truman Show”. Matt Drudge merely is a link in the coat of mail that surrounds and weighs down Harry and William’s lives. The real culprits are the royal family itself and the entire English structure that continues to supports reducing a human life to a form of slow ritualized death. This cruel institution should be confined to the trash heap of history with other forms of human sacrifice.
February 29th, 2008 at 10:47 am
Stephen, I take it you wouldn’t consider trading places with one of the riches heirs in the world, eh?