In the spring of 2005, when asked about Arianna Huffington’s plan to launch a news-aggregating blog to compete with the Drudge Report, Matthew Drudge did not seem too impressed.

“I don’t think that need is there,” he told The Observer. “I think I fill that need.”

And while he allowed that Ms. Huffington had “tons of charm and humor,” he questioned whether she and her coterie of boldface names had the stamina to compete.  read more »

Back in September, The Observer wrote about how Hillary Clinton's campaign had forged a surprisingly friendly relationship with the Democratic netroots by carefully feeding them scoops and nuggets of information. That strategy, we reported, was masterminded largely by Peter Daou, who runs the campaign's internet outreach.

Today comes perhaps the apotheosis of that phenomenon, as Mr. Daou takes to The Huffington Post to promote a new Web video and Web site on behalf of the Clinton campaign...  read more »

Remember all that outrage a couple weeks back about the fact that The Huffington Post doesn't plan on paying its bloggers? Well, it looks like something good might actually come out of it.

In an interview with Portfolio.com, Arianna Huffington said that she's considering a revenue-sharing model which would allow her contributors to direct a portion of the ad revenue generated by their stories to a cause of their choice.

The Portfolio.com story also reveals the fact that Ms. Huffington appears to use the single word "blog" to refer to a blog post, as if she were your mother.

Last night at a party for The Atlantic Monthly's 150th anniversary, held on the stage of the NYU student center auditorium, the aging cable-access porn star Robin Byrd was looking around the room. She saw Robert DeNiro, and locked in.

"Hello!" she said, touching his right arm.

"Hi" he replied.

"Hi," she said, curling a smile.

"Hi, hi," he replied, holding his look for an extra second and turned away.

"I guess he recognized me and doesn't wanna talk," Ms. Byrd concluded. "Look at him! He's got a clavicle problem, you know. A clavicle problem."

Mr. DeNiro's left arm and shoulder were in a sling.

"Because his arm is not in a cast, just a sling! He has a clavicle problem, poor guy."

"I don't really know what The Atlantic is," she continued. "Is it something political?"  read more »

David Lauren and girlfriend Lauren Bush were just a few among the green movement's good-looking rear-guard to sip martinis and muse passionately if not altogether scientifically about the dangers of environmental degradation and the magnificence of the planet beyond Central Park.

“They really showed how beautiful our world is,” said the young Mr. Lauren. “It just overshadowed whatever beauty is in this room.”  read more »

And now, Arianna Huffington is writing a theoretical obituary for him, blaming the consultants Lamont brought on board for dulling down a once-exciting campaign.

"The addition to the Lamont campaign after the primary of Democratic insiders Howard Wolfson, Doug Schoen, and Stephanie Cutter has been part of the problem. According to their poll-driven culture, one must move to the center and appeal to those in the middle. And, as a result, once-promising politicians are insidiously encouraged to lose their moral bearing -- and the authenticity that made them so compelling in the first place."

I'm not sure Arianna Huffington defines "compelling" in the same way as the average Connecticut general election voter. But still, it's surely not good news for such a prominent Lamont sympathizer to be engaging in recrminations -- even hypothetical ones -- three weeks before the election.