J$P Extra! Matt Drudge takes on John McCain, Brian Williams, Spider-Man, and more!

From The Drudge Report radio edition, December 5 2004:

Enough is enough. We've elected Republicans to run the House, the Senate, the White House, and hopefully the Supreme Court, but it seems to me that government is creeping its greasy paws into every aspect of our lives. I'm feeling suffocated. Let's tax the people, but we'll like private companies collect it. How ridiculous is that? The private collectors will not have access to your tax returns; isn't that generous? Just your social security, your address, your phone numbers, everything. They make the tax code so complicated; what happens if the amount you owe is disputed? What's your remedy when these bullies are knocking on your door? And private collectors will have the power to determine what can be seized? What a recipe; thank you again, Washington. This is the marriage of the IRS, which can do anything they want, with private bill collectors who take 25% of everything they recover. Isn't that the definition of fascism when you marry the private sector with the government as one?

The notion that John McCain is saying we may need to intervene--the government, the Feds--into baseball and drug-test the players, that is amazing. More restrictions, more rules. He's got his hands into everything. Obviously if McCain starts looking at the internet we're all in trouble. Or talk radio, and he's not a big fan of talk radio--he blames Limbaugh for thwarting his primary process against W. It's not that nobody who's Republican wanted to vote for McCain. But now McCain wants to drug-test the baseball players. What business is it of his what baseball is doing? Does this go to football players, hockey players, the minor leagues? Where do you draw the line?

Let's put it back on him. I'm challenging Sen McCain, how about this, mandatory drug tests of elected officials? And that would include all of those Senators and all of those Congressmen. And breathalyzers on all the politicians before they take to the floor. They should at least be sober when they vote, and the public has a right to know. If they are getting into our sports and our media and our entertainment business--as if it's not enough to be sending Washington all that money, 35% of our wealth, to spend as they will--why don't we do drug tests on politicians who directly affect our lives? They would run out of that Capitol Grill so fast, they wouldn't even eat their filet mignon.

All of this finger-waving on the satellite dish over those baseball players, and McCain is sitting here wagging his finger. Enough of these politicians. We elected this government and I see no signs of it trying to shrink, trying to give power back to the people. Wouldn't it be ironic if all of this opens a hornet's nest and it starts a movement across the land for drug tests for politicians? I thought Republicans were for less government, period. I guess not.

This is also McCain trying to stay in the spotlight. He has to keep up that tan, that special orange glow that only the Klieg lights can provide. He's going to be in full pancake makeup tomorrow and he's got to be sure he's at least making four network appearances. And the press will love him; they will eat it up. McCain speaks, and we all stop by our typewriters. This just in!

60 Minutes and Viacom back in business: this time they're admitting they own the book, the interview with Bob Dylan, and the book is released by Simon and Schuster which is owned by Viacom. So 60 Minutes continues to roll out their products but at least now we've trained them well. We had to bust them when they had all these other authors on and they weren't saying we own the book.

They had such low ratings on CBS News this week, you would not believe it. I was going through the cities and we are getting into fractions. That gives CBS a lot of room to change the broadcast completely. I understand the CBS 60 Minutes II producer, Josh Howard, is going to bite the bullet. My sources are assuming he's already been told. And the report is going to ride Dan Rather quite hard, saying if it wasn't for him the forged documents wouldn't have been on the air, at least this is what I have been told.

Frank Rich in The Old Gray Lady is trying to make Brian Williams the new red state anchorman. Oh, we miss Dan Rather with his objectivity, we miss Tom Brokaw. Now we have Brian Williams who is sucking up to people like Hannity, saying the real America is not found in the New York-Washington corridor. I think Brian Williams is completely phony, quite frankly. I don't mean to rain on anyone's parade, but he's been out there smearing me for a while. He may just not like that I beat NBC to stories sometimes. But to describe bloggers as people in bathrooms with modems? He says he loves NASCAR (I don't know what that's code for), but he is kind of an elitist himself. This is what he said about me on CNBC one day (of course about four people saw it): "Drudge, a man who is not a journalist based on any modern set of standards." Oh yeah, Brian Williams, he holds the tableau on modern journalism standards. He's another one who's tan in December; I don't know how they do it, but they do it. We wish him luck; he's going to be fun to watch, especially with grownups like Peter Jennings still on the playground. It can't be an easy job to be a network anchor in an old crusty format on the evening news.

They put politics aside for a few hours tonight in Washington for the Kennedy Center Awards. Elton John received a Kennedy Center honor, Warren Beatty (last seen in Shampoo), composer John Williams. The only person who didn't show up was Michael Moore--he's going through a mid-life or something, he shaved for Leno. Teresa Heinz Kerry looks 500 years younger in the photos; no I don't think it's Botox. Elton John looks three minutes away from death--not a good look. He brought his partner to the White House tonight--we haven't seen this since Anne Heche. Robert Downey Jr called Elton the "other" First Lady of the United States. Downey went on rambling, saying that John Kerry, who was in the audience, was suffering from acute symptoms of ADD--Altruistic Democrat Disorder. Everybody is coming together, and here's this heroin addict--I'm surprised he didn't urinate on the stage--as everybody nervously laughed. We won't give him the drug test we're considering for our elected officials.

I've been noticing movies I like are getting trash reviews, and movies I don't like are getting praised. And I really hit ground zero when I walked out on Spider-Man 2, which I thought was truly for the retarded, of the retarded, just lame, awful, horrid--but it was praised. Some of these movies I liked recently are getting Fs, zeros, one star. I've always disagreed with reviews; we're all not homogenized yet, Wal-Mart. I still think movies are going to hold on because they take you somewhere else. Say what you will about Alexander the Great, it took me away, off the streets I walk on.

Jeanine Garafalo is going on a three-week vacation already. With the launch of a new network and all the hundreds of channels out there, she's on the battlefield leading Air America and she goes, oh, sorry guys, I've got to go away for three weeks, I've got to make a movie, make some money. They were never serious anyway. Someone like Art Bell, he loves radio. He eats, breathes, and sleeps radio, and has all of his adult life. And it comes through. Hannity comes to mind, Limbaugh comes to mind, they love radio, they love the medium. Not sitting here smearing and sliming the way they do at Air America. The latest stuff on Bush I heard was just ridiculous. They're melting. Their brains are mush. I hear the affiliates are starting to drop off. Santa Barbara dropped them; they're going to a comedy format. In that case they should have kept Air America.

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