They Need To Come Up With Something Bigger Than "FAIL" To Describe This

OK, so now it comes out that the McCain campaign was feeding reporters that now-discredited story about the campaign staffer attacked by an Obama supporter because of her bumper sticker.

John Verrilli, the news director for KDKA in Pittsburgh, told TPM Election Central that McCain's Pennsylvania campaign communications director gave one of his reporters a detailed version of the attack that included a claim that the alleged attacker said, "You're with the McCain campaign? I'm going to teach you a lesson."

Verrilli also told TPM that the McCain spokesperson had claimed that the "B" stood for Barack. According to Verrilli, the spokesperson also told KDKA that Sarah Palin had called the victim of the alleged attack, who has since admitted the story was a hoax.

The KDKA reporter had called McCain's campaign office for details after seeing the story -- sans details -- teased on Drudge.

This is just a disaster for the right wing. They lived by these B.S. stories for so long and now they're dying by them. It's extremely appropriate.

And hopefully, this signals the end of Matt Drudge and the ushering in of a new sobriety where people desire actual news and information instead of nonsense links to irrelevant gotcha stories. Indeed, just today Eric Boehlert writes:

Was Drudge just trying to prove our point?

About how his influence has cratered during his campaign cycle? And how, since the Wall Street meltdown began six weeks ago, his brand of shallow, partisan, GOP gotcha attacks have been completely ineffective?

Well, yesterday he went all in on the very hard-to-believe tale from Pittsburgh about the McCain supporter who was mugged and whose assailant carved a "B" in her face after becoming enraged about her GOP loyalties.

It was The Drudge Report that posted blaring headlines about the story, and it was The Drudge Report that tried to push the story into the mainstream media, perhaps in one last attempt to leave its mark on the campaign.

Well, Drudge did leave a mark. Just not the one he wanted.

It's hard not to feel schadenfreude over this. I can't say that I've ever read Drudge more than once or twice in my life, but the way that the traditional media follows his every utterance is disturbing. Maybe not so much anymore.