By JOHN SCHWARTZ

THE Internet is a terrific place to have a brawl, at least if you want a crowd. Post, riposte, with a potential audience of millions.

In this case, the combatants are Barbra Streisand, heavyweight celebrity and liberal, in one corner; Matt Drudge, heavyweight Internet gossip columnist and conservative, in the other. Advertisement

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It started at the end of last month, when Mr. Drudge ridiculed Ms. Streisand over a memo that she sent to House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt, urging Democrats to be more forceful in opposing the Republican administration. Mr. Drudge thought that the memo's multiple misspellings (Gephardt became "Gebhardt") were laughable. Ms. Streisand disagreed. On her own Web site, barbrastreisand.com, she blamed an inexperienced new employee for the errors, and accused Republicans of using ridicule to avoid addressing serious issues.

Mr. Drudge escalated his attacks last week after Ms. Streisand gave a speech in which she claimed to be quoting Shakespeare's Julius Caesar:

Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war

in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor,

for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword.

It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind

The problem, as Mr. Drudge gleefully pointed out, is that Shakespeare didn't write it. Snopes.com, a site that debunks so-called urban legends, has identified the quotation as an Internet hoax, which entered circulation in late 2001. Mr. Drudge's dispatch included a phone number for Ms. Streisand.

Ms. Streisand responded on the "Truth Alert" section of her Web site that "whoever wrote this is damn talented and should be writing their own play."

On Friday, Mr. Drudge sent out an alert of his own that the Streisand Foundation had bought 800 shares of stock in Halliburton when the company's chief executive was Dick Cheney.

"How low will Republicans stoop to try to stifle the voice of singer, director, actress, activist Barbra Streisand?" her Web site responded, with an explanation that an outside investment adviser runs the foundation's stock portfolio, and that in any case the shares were sold in 2000 at a loss of $1,288.

All this is grist for Mr. Drudge's publicity mill. But why Ms. Streisand has responded is one of those mysteries of the Internet.

-- Anonymous, October 06, 2002

Answers

LOL

-- Anonymous, October 07, 2002