By RegoPark
Contributing Writer

What with all the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, Judith Miller will have to spend 50 days atop a billboard instead of a jail cell to get anyone to remember her plight.

Many people don’t know that Matt Drudge had his own Miller moment back in 1997 when he posted a well-circulated rumor about Clinton White House aide Sidney Blumenthal. Mr. and Mrs. Blumenthal’s attorneys contacted Matt immediately and he retracted the story within 24 hours…but Sid demanded to know his sources. When Matt refused to name them, he found himself the defendant in a $30 million lawsuit.

I don’t think the Blumenthals would have dropped the suit if Matt had named names. Not after they were on a roll, with a mission and moral support from the Clinton Administration, which was using public resources to publicize a private lawsuit. But a mix of conservatives and First Amendment freedom fighters rallied around Matt, giving him less incentive to “sing”. I wonder at what point Matt Drudge would have named a story source.

On one hand, naming a source would hurt him professionally because he is the go-to guy for leaking everything that the press and people in power have carefully patched up. As that key-in window on the Drudge Report page says, “anonymity guaranteed.”

On the other hand, Matt hasn’t faced the threat of jail time. He couldn’t update the site behind bars, and more importantly, everyone would know the updates in his absence weren’t his. He couldn’t do the radio show, killing ad revenue if his was an extended jail visit. Nor could he easily communicate with sources – or have time to follow up on leads behind the slammer. He’d have to devote all his energy to dealing with lawyers and press contacts.

While her bosses may have understood or even wanted Judith Miller to yell “uncle”, she has the support of the press and they’ll surely work with her in terms of settling back in when she does taste freedom again. Drudge would certainly have moral and even financial support he’d need, but there’d be only so much his well-wishers could do if he chose the can over confidentiality. Like Martha’s company, Drudge Omnimedia is too intertwined with the individual running it. Not that I hope anyone takes my suggestion to heart – but if someone has it in for Drudge, the way to get him is to get him busted. Maybe they should check out The Smoking Gun’s police report of a youthful bicycle mishap in Manhattan. It’s not like they’d have to extradite him from Florida. The Republican National Convention would have been a perfect time to haul his unliberal ass in to settle an unpaid traffic fine.

But seriously, I wonder how much Matt knows about the people who e-mail him scoops. Does he always or usually have a contact e-mail? (He doesn’t own a cell because “it slows things down”, but he’s definitely talked on the phone with his sources in the past. I wonder if he, himself, would have the ability to name the origin of a tip, let alone the inclination. Skeptics may point out that maybe Drudge makes up things, or that he heard a vague rumor about Sidney Blumenthal through the grapevine and didn’t have the distortion straight in the first place.

Anyone from anywhere can report anything…and in an Internet news room, or an anonymous tip, they can get off Scot-free. If nothing else, Matt Drudge puts his name on his stories, unlike Washington Whispers or news group postings.

Oh, well…as that old Miller commercial goes…”If you’ve got to do time, we’ve got the beer.”

Or something like that.