Drudge is over. So 1999. He is doing nothing during this time of constant news except going for cheap and immoral notoriety by posting that horrible POW photo without so much as a warning or a simple link to another page on his site, put Oscar ratings on the top all this morning, and is probably just relaxing down there in Florida. Good for him and what he achieved in the past but...talk about resting on your laurels.
Fox News is pointless or worse. Inflammatory would be my word. All Sunday night they were going with this chemical plant story, and granted there may still be a story there, but at that moment, nothing was known and they were reporting it and interviewing experts as if it was a done deal.
The warbloggers who came to fame and acclaim post 9/11 did so partly on the rallying cry "We can fact check your ass." Meaning that with their eyes, ears, sources and keyboards, they could do an end-run around establishment media and get inconvenient and politcally incorrect facts out there in the light of day where they belong.
I've only been reading a few of them - Instapundit, Blair, etc.. - in the rush of the day, but I have to say, there's precious little fact-checking of asses going on there these days. For the most part, they're linking stories that only fully support their opinions of this war and their expectations of it, with hardly a dissenting voice or - more importantly - fact. They have become as firmly committed to the cheerleading squad as FoxNews or NRO.
It's too bad, but you know, a vacuum doesn't stay that way for long. Along come Warbloggers: The Next Generation - linked below and here again: Command Post (supportive of the war, but works at covering it broadly), The Agonist (works very hard at objectivity, and successfully), and Daily Kos (against the war, but works at covering it broadly)
You might also check out Nate Thayer's dispatches from Iraq at Slate
And do you know what else? It's 11:05 pm on Monday and I still don't know who won the Oscar for Best Picture or if Scorsese got his. Seriously. No one at the dinner table (including movie fanatic son) knew either. Guess I'll go check that out now.
Update - Oh, okay. Hollywood honored the child rapist. Got it.
