Drudge is not as powerful as Forbes says

Matt Drudge's Drudge Report is still relevant, much to my dismay.

ABC News recently cited the Web site in a story. Unbelievable. I don't suppose the network is familiar with his work.

Forbes, in yet another inane list, named him fourth on The Web Celeb 25. Is there a department of stupid lists at Forbes? Then again, it's great marketing for the magazine.

Drudge's standing on this list doesn't make any sense. Why is he ahead of Jeff Jarvis of Buzzmachine, Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit and Michael Arrington of TechCrunch? All of these bloggers have way more influence these days than Drudge.

Drudge's heyday was at the zeitgeist of the Clinton impeachment battle. Love him or hate him, he's had an impact on popular culture. He's also single-handedly kept the fedora industry from going belly up. American Heritage details his rise to power in an interesting article.

But the country has changed quite a bit since then. The Democrats now control Congress. Even the most strident conservative bloggers are now beginning to admit that the mainstream media does get stuff right from time to time.

Matt Drudge, though, will continue to have his fans for some time to come, particularly among conservatives.