I check out the Drudge Report every day, though I’m getting close to ditching the habit. Why? It’s not because the site features the mean and the vulgar (hey, cheap thrills are its main draw), nor that Drudge has lost the talent for news scoops (TMZ wins that race nowadays), nor the overall editorial sloppiness (a recent page has a headline posted on the left side, matched by an only slightly differently worded headline down the right side, both of which link to the same AP story; and then there are those recurring howler typos).
No, it’s because the site’s Adolescent Quotient, once recessive, is becoming dominant — and I don’t mean that in a good way.
Consider a photo posted this week:
Of the gazillion photos of Hillary, that’s the image Drudge chose to illustrate a piece he trumpeted with the headline, “FEELING JAPANESE: Clinton eyes Asia for first trip abroad.” Back to the photo: Get it? Hillary squints her eyes to near slits, to form Asian eyes! Ha! ha! ha!
Or consider the image Drudge chose to post, top and center, a few days before the Inauguration:
Your eyes move to the center point, an upraised hand in a tight black leather glove. Got that in your focus? Now, what memory might it summon up? Hmmm . . . Could it be — ?
Yes, it’s getting embarassing looking at this stuff. Maybe the time has come, as we were admonished lately, to put aside childish things?