McCain: "Brooke and Mark show me Drudge, obviously, everybody watches, for better or for worse, Drudge."

Incredible how important Drudge has become. That's from an interview by Adam Nagourney and Michael Cooper. (Here's the article on the interview, with audio clips in the sidebar.)

Q: What websites if any do you look at regularly?

Mr. McCain: Brooke and Mark show me Drudge, obviously, everybody watches, for better or for worse, Drudge. Sometimes I look at Politico. Sometimes RealPolitics, sometimes.

He must mean Real Clear Politics.

On blogs:

... I understand the impact of blogs on American politics today and political campaigns. I understand that. And I understand that something appears on one blog, can ricochet all around and get into the evening news, the front page of The New York Times. So, I do pay attention to the blogs. And I am not in any way unappreciative of the impact that they have on entire campaigns and world opinion.

Q: You read newspapers then.

That's almost wistful, isn't it? Newspapers get a mention and the NYT reporter pipes up with "You read newspapers then."

Mr. McCain: I read them most all every day.

Q: You and Obama are both newspaper and book readers. Do you read them in the old paper version or do you read them online?

"The old paper version" — it almost sounds as though the reporters themselves are letting go of the newspaper newspaper.

Mr. McCain: I love to read them in the print form, and the reason why I do is because so much, the prominence of the story matters. If I read a story and say, Oh my God, did you see this? But it’s back on A26, it doesn’t have the impact of what are still – even though it’s declining – what are still, what are hundreds of millions of American picking up an looking at today....

I'm picturing Richard Nixon taking comfort in the New York Times publishing the story of the Watergate break-in on — what was it? — page 19?

Anyway, these days, that story on A26 will be moved to the front by Drudge — which all you newspaper reporters are checking too — and, Drudge or no Drudge, blogger swill bloggers will see any story the newspapers try to downplay, and if it's good, we'll churn it up until the newspapers have to write a story about how all the bloggers are writing about it.

Are "hundreds of millions of Americans" are picking up the newspaper newspaper? The NYT circulation is around one million. USA Today and the Wall Street Journal each have about 2 million. How many Americans get a newspaper? I don't know, but "everybody watches... Drudge."

"Watches"... is that why we love the web? We watch it, like TV.

Watch Matt himself say what his standard the Drudge Report is: "To be completely live, almost as if you're animated, with text":



Hey, Drudge is a strange guy, isn't it? It's hardly surprising that he rarely goes on TV. Yet this oddball leads the way for us, which makes us all pretty strange, don't you think? It must drive Nagourney and Cooper mad.

IN THE COMMENTS: 1jpb writes: "Does [McCain] know that religious conservatives (and non-conservatives) will quickly notice, and object to, his use of the word God?" Good question. I know it's very common among many Americans to blurt out "oh my God" carelessly and for almost no reason at all, but there are also many of us who think it is quite wrong. I, personally, think it's worse than blurting out "fuck" and I don't understand why anyone who has any respect for the 10 Commandments doesn't agree with me. If you're not in a situation where you can spice up your loose talk with "fuck," please don't say "oh my God."