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The Drudge hype falls flat

DENVER, Colo. -- One night before the first presidential debate, conservatives Matt Drudge, Sean Hannity, and Tucker Carlson hyped footage of a five-year-old speech by then-Sen. Barack Obama, widely covered at the time, in which the presidential candidate suggested the George W. Bush administration was discriminating against the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

But when footage finally aired on Hannity's Fox News program and on Carlson's Daily Caller website at 9 p.m., following hours of aniticipation spurred by Drudge's promise of controversy and Hannity's promise of a "bombshell", it fell flat.

"What’s the ‘So what’ of this video? I don’t think it’s going to really go anywhere,” Republican Rep. Allen West said on Fox News.

“I don’t think this particular speech is definitive," said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, though he added that it was at least a "reminder" of Obama's "pattern of dishonesty."

If the footage failed to impress, it may be because Sen. Obama's remarks were widely covered -- by Carlson, by Fox News, and by the mainstream media -- when they were made on June 5, 2007.

"Barack Obama was talking about a quiet riot today. And no, it was not a reference to a 1980s heavy metal band, unfortunately," Carlson, who hosted his own program on MSNBC until 2008, reported at the time. "The senator waded into the controversial waters of race during a speech Hampton University in Virginia. He said the Bush administration has done little to quell a brewing storm among some black Americans. He compared the current tension to what fueled the L.A. riots in the wake of the Rodney King verdict."

"Senator Obama today said the Bush administration has done nothing to defuse what he calls a quiet riot among black Americans, a riot he suggests is ready to erupt," Fox News host Brit Hume reported. "Obama said African American resentments and frustrations are building, especially, he said, because so many blacks from New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are still displaced 21 months after Hurricane Katrina. Obama warned against conditions similar to those in Los Angeles 15 years ago."

The speech was also covered by CNN, NBC News, ABC News, The Associated Press, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, and the Chicago Sun-Times, among others. Parts of the speech -- specifically, Obama's introduction of his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright -- would also be mentioned by reports in 2008.

But Hannity and Carlson said the full 40-minute footage of Obama's speech was notable because it included parts of the speech not included in the 2007 reports, most of which were based on prepared remarks and a compressed version of the video. The two men faulted the mainstream media -- which presumably includes Carlson and Fox News -- for not covering Sen. Obama's remarks in full.

What the "mainstream media" missed, Carlson alleged, was Sen. Obama "whipping up race hatred and fear" with remarks about how the federal goverment helped victims of 9/11 and Hurricane Andrew (in Florida), but did not help the victims of Hurricane Katrina because it didn't care about them as much. Carlson called those remarks "racial rhetoric designed to make people fearful."

Five years after the fact, and almost four years into Obama's presidency, it may be difficult for the outside observer to understand how a previously reported event could draw so much attention, especially given that it offers few bombshell revelations. The answer isn't Hannity or Carlson -- it's Drudge.

Despite providing only 2 percent of Americans with their campaign news, the Drudge Report continues to carry outsized influence -- because of his brand recognition and, in 2012, because he has a direct line to the Romney campaign. (When Drudge first posted a banner-headline for the video, the link re-directed to the Romney campaign donation page, and was subsequently pulled down.)

At 3 p.m. today, Drudge tweeted, "Curious tape dropping tonight. NOT from MOTHERJONES. Will cause controversy, ignite accusations of racism -- in both directions!", and it was off to the races. The "NOT from MOTHERJONES" meant to suggest the "curious tape" would create controversy to rival the recent footage of Romney telling donors at a private fundraiser that 47 percent of Americans didn't pay income taxes and would never vote for him. Smelling Drudge-level sensation, reporters, including yours truly, spent six hours in heated anticipation -- and all for naught.

In order to sell the video, Hannity resorted to claims that the media "has been trying to hide" the video. He ran the footage next to footage of Obama's famous speech on race and Rev. Wright the following year and said he couldn't tell which Obama was the real Obama. No one seemed to care.

So why rehash the race debate now? Some have suggested that Romney was trying to get into Obama's head ahead of the debate. Others saw it as a dog whistle masking itself as an accusation against a dog whistle (or, as Carlson put it, a "dog siren.")

"This is supposed to make you believe that in this tape from before he was president, Barack Obama is revealing his secret plan to be way more black than he seems to you now," Rachel Maddow, the liberal MSNBC host, said on her show. "This is how he snuck into the White House, right? People didn't know he was this black and if they would have known he was this black, they never would have elected. That's the idea here, right?"

The Obama campaign sees something far less nefarious but far more pathetic afoot.

“In a transparent attempt to change the subject from his comments attacking half of the American people, Mitt Romney’s allies recirculated video of a 2007 event that was open to and extensively covered by the press at the time," Obama campaign press secretary Ben LaBolt said in a statement. "The only thing shocking about this is that they apparently think it’s wrong to suggest that we should help returning veterans, children leaving foster care and other members of Mitt Romney’s 47 percent get training that will allow them to find the best available jobs. If the Romney campaign believes that Americans will accept these desperate attacks tomorrow night in place of specific plans for the middle class, it’s they who are in for a surprise.”