WHAT DID HE NOT KNOW AND WHY DID HE NOT KNOW IT? . . . NBC White House correspondent Dave Gregory, asked by radio host Don Imus this morning on MSNBC whether previous national security advisors had testified under oath before commissions such as the currently seated 9/11 Commission, said he did not know. To which Imus: Why don't you know? You're the NBC White House correspondent and you don't know that? To which Gregory, bristling, voice rising: Hey, I'm honest enough to tell you I don't know.

Honest enough? Not to lie to us? He wants a medal?

Imus: Find out and tell us, OK? Gregory: OK. Then Gregory went on to Iran-Contra testimony and other things he JUST HEARD ABOUT from newscasts, naturally to bolster the anti-administration argument.

Gregory has no reading background in these matters? He takes not the time for a Google search, for God's sake, to discover precedent for this testimony that Condoleeza Rice won't give because she's National Security Advisor? Where's the context beyond what happened yesterday? Where's the compared-to-what factor? These jokers get on the air and feed us the news they think is important but know so little?

Nay-sayers of Drudge miss the point. He's treated as a reporter, of gossip at that. But he's an editor (& publisher). He lays out his paper with headlines that blare forth what he considers important (editors do it every day), and he has a very good eye for that. He's a brilliant editor, in fact, in the business of gaining readers. His readers keep coming back for more, by the millions, every day. An amazing performance.

Many newsies eat hearts out at that. And it's no accident he's conservative. Only a conservative could do this, because only for conservative news is there a yawning vacuum to be filled. Chi Tribbers et al. don't get this. They are too busy reflecting views of people they meet at parties who, like them, have got the hot gospel of liberalism from the tenured radicals who taught them. Hermetically sealed from the hoi polloi, they revel in their isolation and look through their pince-nez down at Drudge and his ilk, who are beating them at their own game.