The Drudge Report at times functions as an adjunct of the Romney campaign.
Saria Dy / Flickr.com
Last night was one of those times.
It was a treat to learn first of the Drudge’s “surprise veep frontrunner” teaser headline, and then the “surprise” itself, via Twitter, where opinion leaders collectively scoffed at Drudge’s essential unsoundness and yet could not stop themselves for falling for the ruse that Mitt Romney is strongly considering ex-Bushie Condoleeza Rice as a running mate.
The first reaction to the “scoop” was that the Romney campaign was feeding fake news to Drudge as a way to get talking heads to talk about something other than Bain Capital.
Other no-less-plausible theories quickly emerged.
TAC friend Michael Brendan Dougherty had a good one: the Condi balloon is a clever feint: “Floating Condi and getting all the MSM to drool over a pro-choicer makes the selection of boring Pawlenty more appealing to GOP voters.”
I’ll buy that.
In fact, I’ll buy almost anything other than the patently absurd notion (Larison is characteristically on point this morning) that Rice is a legitimate veep contender or that Matt Drudge is a legitimate newsmaker.
My advice: Stay on the trail, Bain hunters.
Mark R.Liccione 
Remember the Battle of Midway in WWII? Japanese coded messages referred to AF, which the Navy thought meant Midway, but was not sure. So they sent a message from Midway about a broken water condenser and the Japanese took the bait, reporting water problems on AF.
The Condi as VP rumor was a similar undertaking. The only question was what was the purpose: test the waters for Condi as VP? Deflect Obama’s disgusting attack ads? Who knows.
What I do know is that the Romney campaign better get off the defense and start an offensive campaign. Those running the campaign would do well to study the life and philosophy of George S. Patton, Jr. No one ever won a war with defense.