The most fascinating aspect of the current breathless atmosphere in Washington around the Kerry intern sex story is a meta one. How is this filtering through the media? A friend IMed me this morning after seeing the Drudge story and asked, “When is this going mainstream?” I’m like: “Drudge is the mainstream.” In terms of readership and meta-media clout, Drudge is more important on the web than the New York Times. Now we have the Congressional Quarterly email Drudge has purloined and posted, which adds further credence to the story, and Lehane seems to be behind it. But if Lehane is behind it, and if Clark voiced the rumor “off the record” (ha!) to reporters earlier this week, why is Clark endorsing an “imploding” candidate? Weirder and weirder. Meanwhile, the campaign blogs are all achatter, and this blog and others are unafraid to write about it. If Lewinsky took days to go mainstream after Drudge, this story might take mere hours. If there’s something to it, of course.
PARANOID AFTER-THOUGHT: I was always a little suspicious about Terry McAuliffe’s raising of the Bush National Guard AWOL issue. I wondered: why are they doing this now, rather than wait till later? Now I wonder if it wasn’t a pre-emptive strike. Was it an attempt to ensure that Bush and his aides had decried “gutter politics” in the week that the Kerry story was going to break? I don’t know. But the timing is suspicious. Hyper-paranoid thought: were the dreaded Clintons behind this? It certainly makes the Kerry candidacy less secure, raises the likelihood of a brokered convention, etc etc… Take it away, Dick Morris! Here comes Rodham?
The Dish 