Matt Drudge has an incredible gift for sifting the news and finding important stories. He is lso teh recipient of a lot of early tips. In one recent case, though, was he played by the Hillary Clinton Campaign to get early, prominent coverage of a fundraising coup?

As Senator Barack Obama prepared to give a major speech on Iraq one morning a few weeks ago, a flashing red-siren alert went up on the Drudge Report Web site. It read, “Queen of the Quarter: Hillary Crushes Obama in Surprise Fund-Raising Surge,” and, “$27 Million, Sources Tell Drudge Report.”

Within minutes, the Drudge site had injected Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s fund-raising success into the day’s political news on the Internet and cable television. It did not halt coverage of Mr. Obama’s speech or his criticism of her vote to authorize the war in 2002, but along the front lines of the campaign — the hourly, intensely fought effort to capture the news cycle or deny ownership of it to the other side — it was a telling assault.

Mrs. Clinton’s aides declined to discuss how the Drudge Report got access to her latest fund-raising figures nearly 20 minutes before the official announcement went to supporters. But it was a prime example of a development that has surprised much of the political world: Mrs. Clinton is learning to play nice with the Drudge Report and the powerful, elusive and conservative-leaning man behind it.

As noted above, this is the same Matt Drudge that rose to prominence on his coverage of her husband's Oral Orifice Oval Office dalliance with Monica Lewinsky. That makes Drudge a card-carrying member of the "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy" -- but Hillary seems to be prepared to sell her soul for good coverage.

If she has one to sell.