RUSH: A lot of people have been ripping on Matt Drudge, too, and a lot of other people for what appeared to be a coordinated assault on Newt yesterday. Everybody is saying, “Conspiracy!” I don’t think the people we’re talking about have the ability to organize and pull off a conspiracy even though what it looks like. But in terms of all this stuff, it’s odd to me to hear people complain that Drudge selects his stories and distorts his headlines to forward an agenda. It’s especially ironic to hear people in the news media complain! (laughing)

To hear people in the news media complain about what Drudge does on his site! Matt Drudge’s website is what every news organization’s website ought to look like or be like or structured like. But, anyway, it’s getting pretty hard to report factually about any politician nowadays without looking like you’re trying to smear ’em. If you tell the truth about any of these guys, it can look like a smear simply because of what’s true about them. They’ve all got flaws. Everybody knows this. Some of their flaws are much larger than some of the others that that other candidates have. But a factual recitation of some of these people’s records — I’m just trying to be funny here (chuckles), but — it’s almost impossible to avoid looking like you’re smearing them. You just have to ignore ’em to avoid that charge.