You must have seen the story - Prince Harry has been deployed in Afghanistan.

Until today. And the British military brass are mightily pissed off.

From what I can tell, a rumor about his deployment circulated on an Australian website in January, and then on a German site earlier this month. But because these weren't big names on the net, the media black-out held and the deployment remained unreported.

What changed it all was when Drudge headlined the story. At least that's what the BBC editors are saying. (this post from the BBC is also interesting in explaining why they agreed to self-censor)

At that point, the media and the British military accepted the game was up and the news broke.

I'll leave aside the media self-censorship question, though my personal view is that so long as the media entered into the arrangement voluntarily with the British government, that is their right and they did not break any inviolable code of journalism.

But what to make of Drudge? Why did he break this story? It's not like he needs to prove he's the Daddy of internet gossip, and it's not like this story is of particular importance to anyone. Of course the story is readily consumed because it involves the British Royal family, but is that the sole reason for Drudge's decision to publish?

To my mind, all the story did was prove that high profile individuals will be stopped from serving their country. By infotainment greedheads like Drudge. No-one will care about this story next week, but thanks to Drudge, Harry's career in the British Army - a very bright career by all accounts - has been compromised again.

I typically don't tend to feel sympathy for the biggest winners of the lucky sperm lotto, but Drudge has proven that there is nothing that the Prince Harrys of this world can do that will not be tabloidized. Self-sacrifice, courage, and service are ignorable commodities to the Drudge's of this world, and I can't think of anyone more deserving than Drudge of having vindictive campaign launched against him.

The Royal Family, lest it be forgotten, is pretty good at these as well, and right now Drudge is fair game. Whilst I would not expect the media here to start taking shots at the man who rules their world, and certainly not the rightwing blogosphere despite the way this story has dicked around the British Army, but it might be worth keeping an eye on the British press once the Royal Family's PR machine goes to work on the Eggman.