When I was young (ca. 2001), I was very much in Matt Drudge’s target demographic, and for various reasons (I like tabloids, I like celebrity gossip, and I like to keep up with the echo chamber without subscribing to Fox News), I’ve stayed a loyal Drudge reader for years.

Drudge is a window into the right-wing’s id. And so it’s always amazing to me to see things like this:

First, there was a time when being a Republican meant celebrating your loyalty to Nixon. Anyone can like Reagan, but only a real s.o.b. can like Nixon. 

Second, if there’s any historical analogy that springs to mind for Democrats and Republicans alike, it is not Obama:Nixon. Indeed, on any Nixonian dimensions (introversion, paranoia, generic air of cartoon villain menace), Obama:Nixon is as satisfying as Twix:steak tartare. Rather, one thinks of history’s greatest monster.

Third, we may have to keep in mind that Matt Drudge, like Ann Coulter, might be a long-term left-wing absurdist sleeper agent. After all, Nixon was re-elected in 1972 by a victory of truly landslide proportions after refusing to unilaterally end failed overseas military adventurism in a triumph over a rabid opposition party that nominated its weakest candidate following a brutal primary season.