SIGNORILE WATCH: Michelangelo Signorile is back with another ridiculous column of casual slanders, dubious assertions and selective amnesia. He's criticizes Matt Drudge (who, in true Signorile fashion, he refers to as a "nasty faggot") for reporting (truthfully) that author David Brock suffered a nervous breakdown last summer as he was writing "Blinded by the Right," his slam book about his former conservative running mates that has been criticized by both the left and the right. Signorile asserts that this information has no relevance. I tend to agree, but Signorile is not the exactly the poster child for this argument.

Signorile claims that it's an invasion of privacy to dig into someone's medical past, yet last year he gained his 15 minutes of fame for digging into Andrew Sullivan's sex life in an attempt to smear the prominent gay conservative. When "Washington Post" writers Lloyd Grove and Howard Kurtz published Drudge's story on Brock after they had ignored Signorile's attacks on Sullivan, Signorile became indignant. Here's what he wrote:

But Sullivan’s reckless behavior–advertised publicly on a website–in light of his ranting condemnations of Bill Clinton’s sex life, his pontificating on gay male culture and, most importantly, his pronouncements on AIDS, was certainly relevant to report on and discuss. And even if you don’t agree with that, how do you justify ignoring the Sullivan story but then reporting on Brock’s private medical information, exposed for political reasons?

It is hard for me to see how this can be justified. In an attempt to silence Sullivan's voice, which dissents from the Standard Gay Line, Signorile led a smear campaign, revealing Sullivan's online ads seeking HIV-positive sexual partners. Contrast that with the reporting that Brock spent time in a mental hospital while finishing his expose. Both stories are dubious, politically motivated slams, but an argument can be made that Brock's breakdown at the exact moment he was writing his book goes to "his state of mind at the time of the crime," as they used to say on Perry Mason.

Of course, the real issue that Signorile never addresses is Brock's credibility. Because Brock is painting conservatives as twisted hypocrites, Signorile seems willing to believe anything written in "Blinded by the Right." However, Signorile's column conveniently ignores the revelations from this damning report from the "East Bay Express" that reveals that Brock has been a pathological liar since at least his college days. This story was published on May 15, while Drudge's "sludge" was posted on May 21, so Signorile can't claim he was unaware of it. Indeed, the "East Bay Express" story was as widely circulated as the reports of Brock's breakdown, and was in fact reported on Drudge's Web site on May 15. How could Signorile miss that? Or do I even have to ask?