Matt Drudge, Almost As Powerful As God?

The stock market preformed a high dive routine yesterday that sent the financial world into the rocks below. Not long after judges had raised their score cards and reporters began to critique the dive I realized two things had occurred. First the diver (stock market) had swam to the side of the pool, started to dry itself off, and began to quickly climb back to the top of the cliff. Second Matt Drudge seems to have garnered the responsibility for killing the diver, that is not dead. To put it another way are some people now suggesting that Matt Drudge has the power of God himself?

Matt Drudge’s drudgereport.com drives the online news community, maybe even most new media outlets, but does he have the power to effect financial markets around the world? James Pethokoukis, a senior writer at U.S. News & World Report asks the question, “Did the Drudge Report Help Tank the Stock Market?”

…”Greenspan warns of likely U.S. recession.” That was the headline right near the top of the widely surfed Drudge Report yesterday afternoon and this morning, referring to a speech that former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan made the other day via satellite to a business conference in Hong Kong. Many market watchers are blaming those comments– along with a weak durable goods report and the plunge in the Chinese stock market – for today’s stock market sell-off. (link)

So are we to believe that Matt Drudge holds the power to crumble the world economy by linking to a news story? I’m sure Matt can find better uses for his assumed omnipotent powers than to destroy the world economy. I was under the assumption that Drudge was in the business of aggregating news not challenging God to a show of power. Let it be known from this day forward that the keyboard is mightier than the sword. Matt for your encore you could do what Al Gore cannot seem to do solve global warming by linking to a story about florescent light bulbs.