Had Drudge Blog been around when Mel Gibson presented Passion of the Christ, I might have written an essay about Matt Drudge’s support of the film in light of the fact that he is a nonaffiliated Jew and the only one invited to the private promotional screening. I might have talked about the implications of that message, and, most germane to my “expertise” as a “Matt Drudge historian”, what kind of paradigm he was working from. In light of Gibson’s DUI scandal and Jew-bashing tirade, it behooves all of us to view the movie in a different light.

Having recently seen the DVD version this summer, long after the hype and uproar has died down, I still wonder about Matt’s “Jewish endorsement” of the Passion and whether or not he really understood what he was aiding and abetting in a 2003 MSNBC interview:

“This is the ultimate film. It’s magical. Best picture I have seen in quite some time… It depicts a clash between Jesus and those who crucified him, and speaking as a Jew, I thought it was a magical film that showed the perils of life on earth…” (Note that Matt also praised Fahrenheit 9/ll).

Mel Gibson deserves at least a fair trial in the court of public opinion. Is “drunk talk” genuine expression of sentiments? Don’t most of us harbor some degree of irrational prejudice that we intellectually understand, or at least never dream of saying in public? But here I want to talk not so much about Mel, who’s getting all the feedback he can possibly want at this hour, but about Matt Drudge’s role in creating “buzz”, which warranted his invitation to the initial screening.

Drudge comes from a nonreligious Jewish family with what he calls very “liberal hippie” parents. While he went his own way politically, he absorbed their sensibilities in other ways. He claims to have meditated since he was five and reads J. Krishnamurti, a Theosophist. He guesses he is a “new age Jew” who likes reading Jesus and is into “third-eye stuff.”

Jewish education, while rich and meaningful, doesn’t necessarily entice kids forced to go there. It ain’t shiny, happy Protestant Sunday school where you sing songs and put on skits to keep you busy before joining the grownups at church. An obligation is involved in attending. Money is involved. Effort is involved. And the problem with Hebrew and religious school is, you actually gotta learn stuff. And that’s what young Drudge, whose high school ranking was 341st out of 355, had trouble with.

Always chafing at required education of any kind, Matt couldn’t master enough Hebrew to have his bar mitzvah – even after four, six or seven painful years in Jewish education (depending on the press interview). Since he didn’t have a religious foundation at home, and associated what he was learning with being “stuffed like a sausage”, I wonder whether he really looks on Judaism or Jewish culture positively.

What bothered me about Matt’s public sanction of Gibson’s film is that I don’t think he really understands enough about Judaism or the complicated history and dynamic of Jewish-Christian relations to pick up on things that alarmed others. His “endorsement”,based on limited perspective, negates the more informed warnings of the Anti-Defamation League, Jewish and Christian scholars, and a host of other concerned — and informed — individuals. And yet Matt seems to embrace basic values from the conservative, Christian middle America he influences…without really understanding what a different mindset they come from. Many of his fans who drool over their conservative action hero would be a little put off by the “real” Matt Drudge.

Nor, I doubt, does their hero understand who they are. Drudge has lived only in suburban DC, LA, New York, and Miami – all large, sophisticated cities with large Jewish populations, all places where religious and secular Jews alike can live without feeling too much like outsiders. Had Matt grown up in a smaller Jewish community in the Bible Belt or the Midwest, in the hinterlands where his core audience calls home, I doubt he’d have been so quick to defend Mel’s film “speaking as a Jew…”

Don’t misunderstand me. A handful of Jews, including Michael Medved, with a stronger understanding of context than Drudge, did not agree with the criticism leveled against Passion. All the same, there are details in the film that warrant serious discussion – things that Christians and contextually naïve Jews like Matt should hear me out on:

• Being a “Passion show”, the story opens with the exchange of dirt and money between Judas and the kohen gadol (Temple high priest). We see Pontius Pilate’s agonizing decisionmaking process and the Romans’ concern about keeping the Jews under control, but not the development of Jesus’ notoriety within the Jewish community. The Jewish authorities are not portrayed with the same complexity as their Roman higher-ups — a detail that may be unintentionally truncated by time constraints, but grave nonetheless. Viewers cannot entirely appreciate why the Jews would respond as they did.

• Even a very spooked Judas is more sympathetic than the nasty High Priest, who curls an evil smile at a key moment. This malevolence is a fictional dramatization that upholds the old anti-Semitic stereotype but has no basis in fact.

• There are more stereotypical hooked noses among the (mostly Italian) cast than I’ve seen in years.

• Given the chance to free Jesus, the Jewish mob chooses Bar-Abbas, whom the New Testament ’s koine Greek translates into “robber” but who’s depicted in Gibson’s film as a human Cujo. The Jews are depicted as so rabidly irrational that they’d rather unleash murderous psycho on themselves than go easy on Jesus.

• Viewers unfamiliar with the historical period would have difficult telling the kohanim (Temple priests) from the Roman soldiers. Indeed, the Jews and Romans seem to be in greater cohorts than they possibly could have been. In fact, these seemingly unruly Jews were at the mercy of the Roman Empire even to keep their civil liberties and Temple life intact.

Are any of these depictions intentional? Likely not. But while Gibson’s Passion of the Christ does not consciously invoke anti-Semitic sentiments, it does perpetuate them, however unconscious a viewer may be to them.

In this generation, young urban Jews like Matt Drudge intellectually know that anti-Semitism is out there, have been warned of its dangers, but don’t come across it on a daily basis. Nor do many fathom the lack of information that Christians and other non-Jews have about things they take for granted. Some fans of Drudge – and the Passion movie – are not exactly yeshiva bochers. They inhabit a world where people honestly think someone can’t convert to Judaism because their nose isn’t big enough, want to feel a the horns on their Jewish friends’ head, and think Jews killed their savior. It’s not the historical inaccuracies alone or the negative portrayal of Jews alone that concerns me, but the combination thereof.

I appreciate Matt Drudge’s ability to “separate artists from art,” as he said last night on-air. As a former philosophy and English major, I’m all too aware of his point that many of the great artists and thinkers were anti-Semitic. Nor do I take his press at face value: Some reports of his “endorsement” of Passion made him sound like a token Jew who was playing the role of doctor-in-the-cigarette-ad. Matt actually mentioned on radio in December 2004 that he had been invited to Gibson’s private film screening to create buzz, that he respected Mel’s mission to flaunt Hollywood and create the kind of film he wanted to, and even that Mel lost Matt a little bit with the “cross nail” marketing ploy.

I also appreciate Matt’s neutrality last night on-air as he listened to everyone from Chabad-Lubavitchers talking about the end of times, anti-Semites talking about the Protocols of the Elders of Zion or flashing an IM about “high maintenance” Jews, and a woman rambling about Jews for Jesus. Jewish journalists have to feel heat from their community. Not because they are interested in world domination, but because political issues are often survival issues. Matt is a more obvious supporter of Israel than many Jews. That’s one of many reasons why his fans appreciate him. But as anyone who read the transcribed tape between President Nixon and Billy Graham, being a friend of Israel and being a friend of the Jews are two different propositions.

In researching for my book, I came across a forum thread where someone expressed their respect for Matt Drudge. “Finally, a Jew who’s American first.” The site? Stormfront.

Is that the kind of Jew Matt wants to be? Does he still want to “speak as a Jew” in defense of those who are perpetuating hatred for his people? I hope not.

Is it possible to be falsely accused of making a political contribution? Can a political backer make a donation using someone else’s name and address and get away with it? That question emerged in 2001 but hasn’t been completely scrutinized.

Newsmeat.com reports a 2001 soft-money donation to RNC Republican National State Elections committee in the amount of $2,358, under the name of “Matt Drudge” under his home address (which anyone can track down). After this donation was reported, Drudge told Salon he has “never” given money “to anyone in politics” and called it “a fraud. Someone did it in my name.”

In the same vein, Drudge has quipped on the radio show that “I’ve never given money to a politician in this life.” Hehas co-hosted events at the Republican National Convention, and it’s not as though he keeps his attendance there nor his politics a secret. Donating money to the RNC would be a strange thing for Matt to hide or lie about, but I can imagine why some donors would want to keep a potential conflict of interest under wraps.

Would you sign a check and fill out the accompanying documentation in your legal name (Matthew, which someone online reported he used as a voice mail greeting), or your usual nickname? Newsmeat’s database records donors like Natalie Portman in her actual legal surname. How exactly was this contribution in question processed – whether it came from the Drudge pocket or anyone else’s?

It is always possible that Matt helped underwrite a dinner, whether or not he remembers it or views it as a political donation, and that it is legally registered as such. Perhaps it is a question of legality, perhaps semantics. Did Matt put the cookie in the jar, did he buy the flour, did he allow the use of his kitchen, did he roll the dough, did he emcee a segment on a cooking show, or did he just stick around and help lick the bowl?

Eat well, question everything. And if something looks fishy, question before eating.

…This space is constantly monitored for comment spam, and the offending material promptly deleted.

Of course, if you want to post something that will pollute the bandwidth for all of 15 minutes…

Back on Thursday!

Following up with this fortnight’s latest entries, The Drudge Report is finally posting a story on the Ann Coulter plagiarism scandal now that her syndicate has found no merit to the charges.

It still bothers me in principle that a story of such magnitude was not even acknowledged until now…and I don’t like to think that any news source I turn to would be so selectively permeable in news coverage had one of its friends really been proven to have done something wrong.

This is one of those days when I have something to say but no time to elaborate, but check out the profile of TVNewser Brian Stelter in today’s USA Today. Like Matt Drudge, this 20-year-old hails from Maryland. Like Drudge, he disseminates “inside stuff” that doesn’t make it into the mainstream media. More on this later, but this is someone to watch out for. In a good way.

The silence is deafening on Drudge’s coverage of the plagiarism accusation against Ann Coulter.

Don’t misread me. I question both the convenient timing of the accusation only a month after Godless skyrocketed the bestseller charts, as well as the merit of the claim itself. I understand why Matt Drudge would not ingratiate the New York Post with a response to a story he does not believe. I understand why, even if he felt the accusation was newsworthy for its own sake, why he would not do anything that could be construed as disloyal to his friend.

On the other hand, maybe there’s a bit of inconsistency in this North Korean-style “news blackout”. A search on Drudge Report Archives turns up a story on Coulter whenever someone has thrown a pie, disrupted her speech, or used a too-clever photo lense on her Time cover shot. In some ways, this new allegation is another pie throw. A pie throw that may or may not turn out to be a legitimate shot. It is, at best (for her) a slanderous accusation with yet-to-be-seen consequences for the offending medium. At worst, it is true.

The word of America’s #1 bestseller vs. the word of one of the best known papers in the country. Either way, this story is newsworthy. Especially in the light of recent author scandals ignited by the right research with the right anti-plagiarism software at the right time. Undoubtedly, Ann’s attorney wants her to say as little as possible no matter how innocent she is. But it isn’t Matt Drudge’s responsibility to listen to someone else’s legal or PR counsel. Drudge has a job to do. He has his own credibility to protect.

The Drudge Report has never been skimping relevant news coverage, no matter what its detractors claim. Often a breaking story is not so much about the primary issue as it is about the media’s decision process in addressing it. Drudge didn’t break the Monica Lewinsky story per se — he broke the story that Newsweek decided at the 11th hour not to cover it. Reporting the hot story of the day is what Matt Drudge does. While some consider many of his original reports slanderous (I won’t go there with the Blumenthal case right now), in essence, what he does is circulate other people’s reports, other people’s allegations, other people’s claims. He circulates stories that have made international rounds that he himself doesn’t necessarily care about — take the Paris Hilton sidekick hacking, or Jennifer somebody divorcing Brad somebody. While Matt’s about-face on “the Post vs. Ann Coulter” is a testament to his integrity as a loyal friend, or even to his values, it strays from the journalistic integrity within the style of reporting on which he has built his legacy.

The truth of the matter is that I don’t consider Ann Coulter worthy of the amount of attention she receives — I have little patience for intellectual laziness on either side of the political continuum. Only with great reluctance have I mentioned her three times in this space in the course of a month. But intellectual laziness doesn’t equal stupidity, and were she ever tempted to lift other people’s texts without crediting sources, she wouldn’t pick this time of her career to do so. (Then again, I thought the intense media scrutiny would have kept Bill Clinton monogamous in the White House.)

Ann Coulter deserves a fair trial in the media. But even a fair trial needs a statement from the defense team. Doubly so the kangaroo court of cyberspace. Ironically, Ann’s own site addresses the issue more directly than Drudge. Acknowledging the existence of this week’s latest controversy does not impugn Ann Coulter’s integrity. It behooves him to cover that controversy, to preserve his own.

Developing?

“The wigs and faces have come off on morning television — and the nails are out!

“It isn’t pretty,” shouts Drudge’s latest newsflash on Star Jones Reynolds’ sudden departure from The View.

You might find it amusing that Matt Drudge himself had a less than pleasant run-in with Star and the other View ladies three years ago this month when he accompanied Ann Coulter to her appearance on the show…and into the dressing room, which apparently didn’t go over too well.

“The gals were furious,” he is quoted as saying. “It was a communal makeup room, and this one didn’t have a face on, that one didn’t have her hair on, and the other one didn’t have any bra support…The security guard came and asked me to leave. As we were going out, I heard him say into his walkie-talkie, ‘Yes, I have him, and he’s leaving now.’ They put me in a small dressing room and made me stay there for an hour and a half.” (A View spokesperson explained that it was a private meeting for the co-hosts).

It’s not clear why exactly they had to call security on a man who was with the invited guest, nor what exactly happened in that exchange. (Did Ann insist on keeping him there? Were Ann and Matt both aware they were walking into a space where someone might be changing clothes? Couldn’t the View hosts have politely asked him to stay outside?) Anyhow, Drudge pumped the radio show last night at constant allusions to Star taking her hair out. I mean removing extensions, not tearing what really grows there. Yeah. We know what they mean.