Your admonishment of Drudge for this action is based on a couple assumptions. 1. That Drudge is a journalist. 2. That Drudge has scruples or anything resembling integrity.
Thus, this is a non-story. Next, please.

If journalists have access to the speech then why shouldn't the regular public? Are journalists more deserving or better people than the rest of us?

Power to the people, thank you Matt Drudge.

Who cares if Matt is a journalist or has any scruples, it's the first site I check for all my news. Does Whitewater and Lewinski ring a bell?

If someone at the CIA hands over secrets to the NYT and they publish them, is that "breaking the embargo"?

That bigfoot journalists still read rightwing sleaze merchant Drudge (or, in Mark Halperin's words, are ruled by him), is the real story here. Drudge was interesting when he was Ken Starr's sock puppet, before the birth of a universe of thoughtful and well-informed blogs (no, not all of them, but plenty). Now he's just old news. He's never been a rebel. He's just a cog in the massive rightwing media conveyor belt. For God's sake, have some dignity, man!

Yes, common courtesy was overlooked, but at least when Drudge releases secret White House info, no one's safety is in jeopardy. Take note New York Times.

Drudge is more of a journalist and has more integrity in his little finger than all the "drive-by" media have ever had. He at least gives the truth instead of slanting it towards liberal Democrats!

Why is it a story when Drudge breaks an embargo but when "real" journalists make up stories and the documents to "prove" them it is not news?

40 minutes before the adress? Bull, Wall Street knew the content of Bush's speech days before! Bush said he was going to double the size of the stratigic oil reserve last night, yet the price of oil on the markets shot up last friday! Bush is lining his oil friend pockets again and proping up oil prices for his buddies...AND THEY KNEW ABOUT IT DAYS AGO! The price of a barrel of oil is up over 6 dollars since last friday..so-so what if drudge posted it 40 minutes earlier than ABC news, wall street knew last week!.

good for him. he could like CBS just publish some lie he made up and then berate the president with it then stick by it AFTER hes fired and sued.

I wonder if the president should also deny the NYT access for publishing leaked confidential material?

Drudge has repeatedly said he doesn't follow embargos. Whoever leaked the speach to Drudge, (effectively breaking the embargo) was the one who lacks integrity.

Hear, hear!!! Drudge is always getting kudos and held up as an example of blogging and the "new" media. All the putz does is collect news stories, change the headlines to fit his ideology and post links. A fifth grader could do it too.

Drudge has far more integrity than much of the old media. The few times he has been wrong he has promptly corrected. Old media outlets like al New York Times can take 8 months to correct, if they ever do.

"Once again flouting decades of tradition"

Much as ABC and the other networks flout the decades of tradition of journalists being nonbiased and fair? Pot, meet kettle!

I agree with the previous poster. Drudge is not a journalist; he's interested in sensationalism, not truth. Lucky for him most of us are interested in sensationalism, too.

I think its funny that ABC News' Ann Compton was 1)checking Drudge for the latest news instead of working and 2)complained to the WH regarding him breaking the embargo.

Drudge is the new Walter Cronkite of our age. Period.

whatever, nffcnnr - you slight Drudge as a non-journalist because your paradigm of news is old and out dated. Like your choice of news outlet [we did get it...] you lament the loss of 'honest' news sources and want everything to still be a 24-72 news cycle. sorry chump, your grandpa's 25 cent coffee doesn't exist. deal with that...

The administration and their minions leak everything about the speech in advance anyway, so why is this a shock?

Excellent point. Drudge is above all that protocol and mess, and get's straight to the business of getting information to the people.

Drudge is not a journalist - he links what others have said or written. Which is why criticism of his as a journalist is just plain ignorant.

Big deal, someone gave it to Drudge and he posted it. Blame the middle man or the White House, but not Drudge. The WH should not give out advanced copies if they don't want it leaked. And, obviously they can no longer trust that at least 1 on their list of a few hundred won't pass it over to Drudge. This is newsworthy?

Why is this even a story? I mean it's not like he went to print with a story about a top secret national security program.

Looks like the traditional media can't break a story - but rather sit on info when they know its real news (i.e. jfk cheating on jackie, mcgreevey being gay).

Eggman is a lost cause of the GOP.

The fact remains, however, that what Drudge posted was the truth. When I surf for news, all I am really concerned about is the truth, not some "gentleman's agreement" between the buddy-buddy media conglomerates. The poster above is right, though, in one respect. Why is this even a story?

I couldn't agree more. Drudge is well known for altering headlines to serve the right, linking "news" to his own site to inflate clicks and for going soft on any right wing politician unless it serves his purposes not to. This man is no journalist....he should be writing for toilet mags. Next, please.

Another reason why I read Drudge and don't bother with the dinosaur media such as ABC and others of like ilk.

Who cares if his pre-written speech was released moments before he read it aloud to the American people?! What is the big deal? It isn't like he said anything worth noting anyway. Why is this even news?

The Internet has broken the monopoly of news traditionally held by the media elites. Why should the media elites get a copy before the smaller publications/ lesser known journalists? We need more like Drudge, and less like CNN/ABC/NBC/CBS, which all report the same spin in lockstep with each other...

They're just sore, because "EMBARGOED" is the secret handshake, wink, and nod for liberalists --- I mean "journalists".
They don't spill their own secrets.

If Drudge doesn't get a copy(from the source), then he has no responsibility to abide by any embargo.

Why do the 'legitimate media' get an advance copy of any speech to begin with? Well, so the WH Press can go have a 'hot toddy' downtown and have time to submit their scathing attacks... oops... I mean expert analysis of the speech as if they had actually heard it.

I, for one, believe the press should get NO advance copies of anything, should have to make transcriptions their own lazy selves, and perhaps we'd get the chance as Americans to hear it at the same time that everone else gets to. It hightens the anticipation, helps the remarks make more of an impact, and stops the so-called experts from quoting snippets of the speech before the actual speech.

LET THE STORY HAPPEN! Viewers will gladly watch the results as they unfold, rather than sucking up the handfed drivel from anchors who wouldn't know a new inititive if it bit em' in the keester.

When you are so fed up with so called "journalists" such as the dinosaur main media, why should anyone be suprised they find stories of intrest and breaking real news on Drudge?

Your the man Matt! Question Rhonda... in the old days would they have stopped the presses for this story?

I think it's funny how quick people are to criticise when they are not the benefit of someone breaking the rules. All you libs who hate Drudge, would you have wished the Pentagon Papers been witheld 'for the publics good' and because the administration asked you nicely? No. You all started this, don't act like Drudge was the first.

ANN COMPTON (?) felt it necessary to tattle to the White House Press Office?
How sad her life must be as a self-appointed journalism-cop.
Who, in this day and age, would be surprised that Drudge scooped everybody.
Noone will admit it but EVERYONE checks out The Drudge Report first.
Fail to do so at your own risk.

VIVA LA DRUDGE!!

It's Bushs fault!

Thank God for Matt Drudge. Without
him we would never have known about the little blue dress Monica wore.

This one is so easy it defies any
further description, despite re-
ports to the contrary! News is
news irregardless of the timing.
If anybody thinks Mattman is going
to be stopped, think again. He's
the ultimate veteran of the info-
web and he gives both sides of all
the stories.

Matt Drudge has slammed politicians on both sides of the aisle, regardless of their stance or party. The problem that many on the left have with him is that he pushes news which the 'mainstream' media ignore on purpose, even though newsworthy, because it is news which may not fit their views.

Ohh - you all must mean 'respectable' journalists like Dan Rather(gate) and all of those at the New York Times who are nothing but truthful and honest people. (sic)

At least the journalists who lean to the right still have an ounce of impartiality. All you have to do is read the first 2 or 3 lines of a story to tell that the writer is a Bush hating liberal.

Thank God for Drudge!! - and Fox News!!!

It takes the other news agencies at least an hour to distort news anyway. So what is the big deal. Drudge has an inherent advantage since he simply reports the news Dan Rather distort it.

GOD BLESS MATT DRUDGE!!!

DOWN WITH RIGHT WING BLOWHARDS LIKE DRUDGE! UP WITH REAL JOURNALISTS!

Drudge is the man! Where would we be without him? Same with Rush. But you libs just can't understand that the day has come where light is being shed on you and all of your garbage and it is guys like Matt and Rush that have led the way.!!!!!

Drudge is a distibutor of other news stories, not a writer. If he can get stories to me faster (no matter the content), then I am in favor.

Interesting how when a journalist isn't out to "change the world [into a leftists' paradise]" and instead simply conveys unvarnished information, the left decides they are not legitimate.

You can disparage Drudge all day and night if it makes you feel better, but it doesn't change the reality that he has more impact now than, say, your icon Katie Couric does.

Why does the White House hand out the speeches to anyone in the first place...Why not just deliver the Presidents message when he addresses all of us?

nffcnnr, Drudge is as much a journalist and has every bit the ethics of any so-called "journalist" you can name, else how was B. Franklin ever considered a journalist. Face it, you are a communications bigot.

Maybe Drudge posted the speech at 8:20 because the liberal site Think Progress posted it at 8:10.

This from Think Progress website:

"Posted by Think Progress January 23, 2007, Filed under: State of the Union. 8:10 pm."

Their explanation?

"We’ll start respecting White House embargoes when they start telling the truth."

If oil went up as one post says why is gasoline down? Oil has dropped $25 a bbl in the last month. The dems wouldn't fill it when they had the chance at $9.50. We better take care of the oil as the who;e world runs on it!!! Many products are made with it! If we aren't careful the same things will happen again.Drilling projects are being canceled as unprofitable already. The same old cycle.

ABC is jealous they didn't break the embargo first....na na na na na!

Drudge ditto heads followed his link to this article ... funny.

One asked remember Whitewater ... yup I do ... Drudge was one of the first schills for the Republicans back then and cost the US Taxpayers MILLIONS of dollars by promoting an investigation of the President that FOUND NO WRONG DOING. His muckracking cost us millions and potentially caused great damage to America by reporting on the private sex life of a President. Clinton could have served the country better if the wealthy and their paid schill's like Drudge had not worked so hard to tear him down. Talk about disrespecting the role of The President. Conservatives are the worst when it comes to that. Drudge, Rush, Coulter ... all paid conservative schills with no respect for anything other than the party they are paid to support.

I'm disappointed and irritated. The arrangement was clearly one benefitting both the White House and the media. The White House could be confident that the text wouldn't be leaked before the speech was delivered and the journalists were enabled to better report on the speech. Matt has decided to take the benefit of the bargain without keeping his end of it. I'm a daily reader of the Drudge Report, but after this breach of faith, I hope the White House doesn't give him any more advance texts. It will serve him right.

Drudge only writes a few news flashes. His site is essentially a nexus of links to headlines around the world.
So he's conservative, what's the problem? At least he admits his bias; Katie, Matt, Charles, Lou, Brian, et al are liberal but refuse to acknowledge their bias. I'm not crying about it.
A copy was leaked to Drudge by another party, so the blame for breaking the embargo lies with them, not with Matt.
Enough with the childish ad hominem attacks.

Will someone tell me why a 41 minute embarago made any difference? I mean, what, was Hillary sitting there preparing comments from her blackberry? If he got the speech 2 hours in advance or more, fascinating, but 40 minutes...so what?

All the 'Old Media' does is whine, whine, whine. They've set themselves up as a bunch of privileged elites, supposedly more intellectual than the little guy. They decide what's important and what we should know. If we're lucky, they'll share THEIR OPINION of what they think we should know (never you mind that little thing called truth). The airwaves belong to the people -- that is all citizens, not just a few stuffed shirts who think they're above everyone else. Good for Drudge for sticking it to the 'Old Media'. No one listens to them anymore anyway -- unless they need a good laugh.

Who cares if Matt posted the text of the speech before it happened! If you want to talk about breaking embargoes, let's go back to 2000 when the msm were calling the election in Florida before the polls closed in the panhandle!! That was IRRESPONSIBLE!!!!!!!!

WHAT? I thought only the New York Times was allowed to leak Classified information with impunity! But they have to...all of their other stories are made up by their own writers or come from the AP!

There is no such thing as a "real" journalist on the left.

The reason why they release the speech early is so that the newspaper reporters can write the article with enough time to send it to their editor who sends it to layout who sets up the presses so that they can start running it by about 12:30am on the east coast. Any smart media relations department would do the same thing given the WH's situation. If the speech was given at 9am instead of 9pm, they probably wouldn't release the text early.

How is Matt Drudge a journalist? All I ever see on his site are links to news stories on other sites written by other people. I link to news stories on my web site all the time. I even provide my own comments on them. It doesn't make me, or anyone else to does the same a journalist. Journalists actually write stories, not just link to them.

Why do you bother comparing Drudge to a "journalist"? He doesn't write stories, he posts links to stories published in a wide variety of news sources. He doesn't write (usually), he ferrets out stories a lot of us would never otherwise see.

Read Drudge three/four times a day to keep up on events!

Just a bit ago Drudge was being blasted as a schill for the left. All I know is I get the latest first from his site. As a journalist- I never heard a claim to this entitalment.

Has anyone considered that he's simply a shrewd businessman? I mean one page, a few ads, and 8M hits a day to it? Come on, folks, pull your head out, cut with the emotions.

Speaking of, do you ever notice how liberals operate totally on feeling and emotion... man. Endless amounts of entertainment they are.

Drudge is the man. No BS with him.Best Web site for news.I check probably 5 time a day.

Drudge Report is hands down the best breaking news Web site in the World. - signed, a huge New York liberal

Every news station, TV and radio, had someone who had read the speech telling you what it said, what you will hear, etc, Drudge simply cut the BS. They are dancing around the embargo, pretending to honor it. In truth, they are all P-O'd because he did it first!

You suck up to the administration enough, you get rewarded!! Drudge is a headline writer at best....

More sour grapes from the increasingly marginalized "mainstream" media. ABC, CBS, NBC, NYT whining about Drudge again? What else is new? It's called jealousy.

The majority of the media today--ABC chief among them--only consider as "news" those stories that conform to a liberal ideology. The days when three nets and a couple of major newspapers controled what the people saw/heard/knew are gone...

...Good riddance.

In the future, just don't email the speeches. Let Drudge post all he wants: just make him RETYPE the goddam thing!

I agree w/ chuckles. Funny that I found this article on Drudge Report. Can someone tell me why the speech should be available ahead of time anyway?

hahaha you "haitin'" posters are just unhappy that you are not a puedo celebrity...

I don't think drudge is too biased on his site did you see the links to the scooter libby perjury trial testomony given so far makes the right wing administration look pretty bad???

I am a screeming liberal and I enjoy drudge's site even the lame links to "his right wing buddies"

link on brother!!!

I just wished Drudgy boy would lose the 1950-style gum shoe bit. Very immature. And this childish action just bolsters his immaturity. Self appointed journalism go awry.

Everyone hears what they want to hear and believes what they want to believe. The biggest point of all of this is, why is this even a story? Who cares that a speech was put on a website? Someone's feelings got hurt, and they used their role to complain about it. There's a reason that millions of people get their news and information from the Drudge Report. If it sucked as bad as some people think it does, nobody would ever go there.

The WhiteHouse shouldn't give advance copies out....to anyone! What's the point of his giving the speech if people can read it in advance? And if there is an embargo on it, then why give it out in the first place?

We love you Matt Drudge! You are the only REAL newsman left. You actually report the news without an agendum.

Dave:

Do not go suppressing the media! Censorship Be Damned!

CAS

Let me clue the Drudge worshippers into reality. Drudge IS NOT a journalist. The man writes NOTHING. He is an internet clipping service. You know how the fat cats need info and can't read anything, so they have someone who gathers info, highlights it and gives them the condensed version. That is all Drudge does. He finds stories and changes the headlines. He links to stories about things like two headed cows. Where does he get the "news" he "writes"? From the MSM. Geez, there is one born every minute isn't there. All Drudge does is keep lazy people from having to do their own internet search of the news.

RJP3--no wrong doing? Then why did Clinton lose his law license?

ABC played right into right-wing hack Drudge's hands by publicizing his "breaking of the embargo" 40 minutes early. Thanks, ABC, for giving him more undearned air time and more hits for his sleazy website.

Regardless of those that deconstruct the purpose of the DrudgeReport, Matt Drudge is carrying on in the tradition of Woodward & Bernstein, just not at a major news agency. He is providing a platform for whistleblowers to expose the truth. Within that forum one should expect some UFO stories, some tawdry sex-scandal stories, etc. For those partisan-eye-glasses folks who think Drudge is right-wing or left-wing, note that whenever a scandal in the White House is breaking, he covers it. Clinton got his, Bush gets his, as do their minions and compatriots. That would suggest he is less partisan in his postings than one might accuse.

At 6pm, CST, CBS Radio was already discussing the content of the speech, so this is a non-story.

Hey Rhonda Schwartz, slow news day? You guys hate this guy, why do you write about him? Ignore him.

Who hates Drudge? Yeah the liberals, that in itself should tell you something.

Any criticism of Drudge in this case is nothing more than the sore loser mentality of an envious competition. If the antics of the modern-day White House press corps doesn't disturb and disappoint people, particularly with actors like that egocentric adolescent flyboy David Gregory of NBC News, who with his intoxicated ramblings on Don Imus' program and his self-absorbed theatrics and desperate need to "be" the news, then something this tame and irrelevant shouldn't even raise an eyebrow! For shame!

Yep, Drudge is just a link poster. But he links you to places the main stream doesn't want you to see. I love it! Plus, he does report sometimes if you pay attention and it's usually good stuff.

Once a month, I take three bags of unopened Atlanta Journal Newspapers to the curb. On Sunday I read Overboard, and Dilbert. Wife reads the garbage they stick in it. For all news, 8 or 10 times a day, my choice is the slimy, unprofessional, non-respected, non-main stream, DrudgeReport. Like my favorite restaurant, it may not be Main Street, but it has the best of what I want.

After reading all these comments, I am more and more convinced that there are a lot of people that wrongly consider themselves to be liberals.I guess I should be embarrased because I didn't think Mr. Drudge was either "Right Wing" or "Liberal". He's just a guy who had a good idea to use the internet long before the word "blog" was invented. Most of us posting the opinions on this site have Mr. Drudge to thank at least a little bit for the amount of forums there are on the Internet today. As for all of you who are debating if Mr. Matt is a journalist or not, I think he is much,much more. From my viewpoint, he's given both parties a hard time. If some of you are still mad because he "broke" the Lewinsky story, I have this to say. You will never convince me that Bill Clinton, or his main squeeze Hillary are liberals. Not in a million years. They are rich. They love money, and they don't give any more of a damn about any of us than the conservatives. Bill Clinton sent his own brother up the river because he used drugs. If you think that was OK, I will tell you right now--"You are NOT a liberal". Think of some other title for yourself, and stop ruining the word for people who still remember what a liberal used to, and should be. Just for the record, I am not a conservative. Any fool who thinks, as Mr. Bush apparently does, that he could go into the Middle East - where fighting between different religious factions has been going on for over a thousand years - and think that any amount of troops could bring peace and democracy to the region in a few years is insane. There...I've said it. But you know, I don't feel any better about it.

Addicted to Drudge.

You rock Drudge! You are my news fix throughout the day.