The “Pajamahadeen”

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One of the most widely read bloggers Andrew Sullivan writes for Time Magazine this week about the power of bloggers:

“Bloggers have no checks and balances. [It’s] a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas.”
—JONATHAN KLEIN, former senior executive of 60 Minutes, on Fox News

Well, last week, the insurrectionary pajama people—dubbed “pajamahadeen” by some Web nuts—successfully scaled one more citadel of the mainstream media, CBS News. One of the biggest, baddest media stars, Dan Rather, is now clinging, white-knuckled, to his job. Not bad for a bunch of slackers in their nightclothes.

I am seriously thinking of getting a Pajamahadeen tatoo now. I have always wanted to be part of a club. Somewhere I belonged.

The critics of blogs cite their lack of professionalism. Piffle. The dirty little secret of journalism is that it isn’t really a profession. It’s a craft. All you need is a telephone and a conscience, and you’re all set. You get better at it merely by doing it—which is why fancy journalism schools are, to my mind, such a waste of time.

I assure you that all at SepiaMutiny have a conscience. Well…five out of six is not bad.

Does this mean the old media is dead? Not at all. Blogs depend on the journalistic resources of big media to do the bulk of reporting and analysis. What blogs do is provide the best scrutiny of big media imaginable—ratcheting up the standards of the professionals, adding new voices, new perspectives and new facts every minute. The genius lies not so much in the bloggers themselves but in the transparent system they have created. In an era of polarized debate, the truth has never been more available. Thank the guys in the pajamas. And read them.

Yes. Please read us. AND please tell your friends.

15 thoughts on “The “Pajamahadeen””

  1. what do you think about rathergate, though, abhi?

    i think this is going to be watergate 2. see allahpundit.com for a roundup, but it’s pretty clear that the trail is leading right to the DNC.

    A pity…

  2. RatherGate reminds me of the OJ Trial. Just because the glove doesn’t fit, doesn’t mean OJ didn’t stab two people. Rather and his producers wanted to put out the story so badly, they accepted a forged document; but that doesn’t refute any part of the essential story: all the evidence points to Bush as using connections to get into the champagne unit of the Guard and shirking his duties while enlisted. The gov’t invested in him heavily and he never fulfilled his duties. How was he able to obtain a honorable discharge while missing a essential physical and only serving a year and change of his term?

  3. Yeah, what’s the big deal about forged evidence as long as I’m sure the person is guilty, right?

    By that logic, planting evidence if you think someone is guilty is ok.

  4. And if all the evidence points to guilt, why not present that evidence? Why is the best they could do a forged document and the memories of an 87 year old secretary who says the memo’s are fake but the information is accurate? The wife, son and commanding officer say that the memos are fake and the head of the Texas Air National Guard at that time has said he most certainly did not pull strings to get him in. If there is such a preponderance of evidence, just present it. Let the people (ah, the people) decide.

  5. And if all the evidence points to guilt, why not present that evidence?

    Exactly. I actually thought the lefties had something with this guard stuff. I didn’t think it was a big deal or anything, but I figured they had something that they could milk for a few points in the polls.

    But given that they had to forge documents to make their case, I think there’s probably nothing there.

    Given that CBS is pretty obviously in cahoots with the DNC (how did Operation Fortunate Son roll out the day after the attack otherwise? How did Josh Marshall know about it back in August, weeks beforehand? etc.)…I think that the counterstrike for the forgery is going to sink Kerry’s campaign, once it’s found out that some young punk from MoveOn/Kerry was the forger.

  6. Given that CBS is pretty obviously in cahoots with the DNC

    That’s what I love about the Right. No matter how false their statements are and no matter how much they lie, they beleive by stating something as fact they can convince “the people.” And you know what? They are correct. That’s why a benevolent dictatorship has always appealed to me as opposed to this farce we currently have. I doubt the DNC had anything to do with this but I wish they had. If only the DNC took their gloves off and manipulated the ignorant masses that way the RNC does, maybe progress would be made.

  7. Uh, Lost, did you read this?

    Burkett told USA TODAY that he had agreed to turn over the documents to CBS if the network would help arrange a conversation with the Kerry campaign. The network’s effort to place Burkett in contact with a top Democratic official raises ethical questions about CBS’ handling of material potentially damaging to the Republican president in the midst of an election. This “poses a real danger to the potential credibility of a news organization,” said Aly Colón, a news ethicist at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. “At Burkett’s request, we gave his (telephone) number to the campaign,” said Betsy West, senior CBS News vice president. CBS would not discuss the propriety of the network serving as a conduit between its partisan source, Burkett, and the Kerry campaign. “It was not part of any deal” with Burkett to obtain the documents, West said, declining to elaborate. But Burkett said Monday that his contact with Lockhart was indeed part of an “understanding” with CBS.

    It’s only a matter of time. Watergate 2!

  8. btw, Lost, if you’ve kept up on this story at all, there’s PLENTY more where that came from.

    Check out for example this timeline on the Fortunate Son campaign. The DAY AFTER the Rather report, the DNC launches this Operation Fortunate Son campaign with coordinated attacks from Harkin, McAuliffe, and print media.

    Or check out three posts from Josh Marshall weeks before the CBS report debuted:

    Josh Marshall, August 22nd: Now, as fate would have it, Ben Barnes is a Democrat. Was then, is now. And he supports John Kerry. But he’s never really spoken openly about how he helped Bush hop in front of everyone else or other aspects of the president’s abbreviated military service, about which he is said to know a great deal. Maybe now would be the time? Texas politics is different from Washington politics. Dems and Republicans are often tight. And I believe Barnes’ is a state lobbyist nowadays. So while supporting the Dem nominee may be an acceptable deviation, nailing the president on the Guard issue in what is now a Republican-dominated state probably wouldn’t be good for business. But maybe now’s the time for him to step up to the plate … Can’t we get Molly Ivins or some other worthy to put in a call? Maybe just ask him what he thinks of the Swift Boat business. Josh Marshall, August 27th: You’ll want to link through to this one — it’s a video clip of Ben Barnes, the former Speaker of the House in Texas, the guy who got President Bush into the Texas Air National Guard. I’m told the tape is from a recent Kerry rally and in it Barnes says the following… … Now, I don’t know what Ben Barnes looks like. And I do not independently know the provenance of the tape. But I’ve spoken to two sources who know Barnes. And they tell me that that is Barnes on the tape. One of those two men is Jim Moore — co-author of Bush’s Brain. Moore told me this afternoon that the clip is from June 8th of this year, at a Kerry rally in Austin. Moore assures me that the tape is legitimate. I placed a call to Barnes’ office and left a message with one of his assistants; but the request for comment has not yet been returned. Josh Marshall, September 1st: bit more on Ben Barnes, the guy from Texas who got President Bush into the Guard way-back-when. Apparently, the attacks on Kerry’s war record just proved too much for him. As we’ve noted previously, for almost a decade now Barnes has gone to great lengths to avoid causing trouble for the president on the Guard matter. And the Bush folks in Texas have made it clear to him during this election cycle that if he spills the beans about the president that they’ll do everything in their power to put him out of business in the state (Barnes is now a lobbyist). And that heat has, I’m told, increased dramatically in recent days. But apparently those threats haven’t done the trick because he has already taped a lengthy interview slated to appear in the not-too-distant future on a major national news show in which he’ll describe the strings he pulled to keep Bush out of Vietnam and apparently more. (Between you and me, according to my three sources on this, Barnes told his story to Dan Rather — remember, the Texas connection — for 60 Minutes.)

    Where was Josh Marshall getting his info from? It has three letters…or possibly five… 🙂

  9. so yeah, Lost, I’ll expect that crow-eating apology on my desk at 6 am sharp.

    The DNC and CBS are in this swamp together, neck-deep, and the pajamahedeen are going to finish them off…

  10. That’s why a benevolent dictatorship has always appealed to me as opposed to this farce we currently have.

    It’s rare to see the essence of Leftism as espoused by so many, boiled down so succinctly. I suppose “Lost” has a certain, a priori idea of whether his beliefs would be on the ‘dictator’ or ‘dictated’ side of the equation.

  11. The dictator comment was a joke.

    I have no doubt that the DNC is partially if not fully behind the memo scandal. From what I remember they brought in an oppo guy from the Dukakis campaign to lay waste to Bush following the Republican Convention. That they got caught in the act shows the lack of discipline on the part of the Dems. Rove regularly pulls off these kind of underhanded moves but is just too smart to get caught (see Swith Boat). Also GC you won’t be getting anything from me at 6a.m. To prove that a news org as respected and honored as CBS has been over the years, is trying to willfully discredit the President because they are “leftist” will never be proven, no matter what and army of bloggers can do. At most CBS will lose ratings.

  12. trying to willfully discredit the President because they are “leftist” will never be proven

    Right, just like the memos would “never be proven” forgeries. One more time for the reading comprehension impaired:

    The network’s effort to place Burkett in contact with a top Democratic official raises ethical questions about CBS’ handling of material potentially damaging to the Republican president in the midst of an election. This “poses a real danger to the potential credibility of a news organization,” said Aly Colón, a news ethicist at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. “At Burkett’s request, we gave his (telephone) number to the campaign,” said Betsy West, senior CBS News vice president.

    Somehow I think that this revelation of DNC-CBS coordination is just the tip of the iceberg. Keep denying, denying, denying and blaming it on KKKarl…but soon Move On will be reduced to its original purpose, namely trying to shoo away the gawkers from the blasted corpse of yet another Democratic train wreck. 🙂

    …btw, I didn’t support the Clinton impeachment, but I did support the consequence: namely the utter discrediting of the Marxist/Steinem strain of feminism. Once NOW sided with Clinton and refused to charge him with sexual harassment – a charge which they would have surely applied to Packwood, Thomas, etc. in the same situation, given Clinton’s ability to fire Lewinsky at will – they ended their pretense to nonpartisan moral high ground once and for all.

    In the days and weeks to come, CBS and Rather are going to be similarly unmasked. They will be forced to show us just how the sausages are made, and that “DNC” is a key ingredient…and it ain’t going to be pretty.

  13. If Rove regularly ‘pulled these kind of tricks’, then he will eventually be caught. It’s just the law of averages. No one gets away with everything, everytime. It just does not make sense.

    And as long as we are joking, I can’t help thinking that if Rove is as wily and smart and dastardly as certain people claim, he should be Secretary of State. Can you imagine the circles the dastardly Rove would run around the North Koreans and Iranians? (Once again, I am joking 🙂 )

  14. Ah yes, the age-old (ok, not so old) topic of how influential bloggers are. Instapundit and several other bloggers seem to think that they are supremely influential and speak the “truth” that the “liberal media” does not mention, but I think a less deluded assumption is that bloggers currently serve some purpose as fact checkers, and not much more influential than that. You may all disagree with me, and that’s cool. I’m delusional too. I’m sure some blogs, on both the left and the right, will become more influential in the future but that’s my thinkin’ on them now.

    On the typewriter “scandal” tip — it seems that GC and some other commentors KNOW FOR A FACT who was involved (and it musta been those damned liberals with their liberal media and their liberal agendas!) I wouldn’t jump to conclusions at this point, and at the same time I would NEVER defend CBS’s airing of a story that they did not verify. Again, many may not agree with me, but I wouldn’t be surprised if (and see here, i’m not stating this as engraved in stone fact)… if a very smart Republican put this whole “scandal” together, and successfully managed to get the public to be more sympathetic to Bush and distract from the original claims that Bush was AWOL. Seems we’re all conspiracy theorists…

    And lastly, WHAT liberal media? Let’s see, the NYTimes, the bastion of liberal media, had a one Judith Miller (not sure if i remember the name) taking “facts” from an Iraqi exile and corroborating these facts with the Bush administration, about the proof of WMDs in Iraq. Tons of articles came out. We went to war…over no WMDs. And the Times made a feeble apology about the issue and didn’t do squat to that writer. And FOX news? ’nuff said.

  15. Instapundit and several other bloggers seem to think that they are supremely influential

    Instapundit gets 350000 page views per day. That is more than many newspapers. LGF gets in the 150000 range. And many of the readers are opinion-makers themselves. So yeah, bloggers ARE influential.

    it seems that GC and some other commentors KNOW FOR A FACT who was involved

    Yeah, how could I get that idea? I mean, it’s not like CBS put out a press release saying they collaborated with the DNC on this hit piece. Oh wait, they DID do just that, didn’t they? Here it is yet again:

    The network’s effort to place Burkett in contact with a top Democratic official raises ethical questions about CBS’ handling of material potentially damaging to the Republican president in the midst of an election. This “poses a real danger to the potential credibility of a news organization,” said Aly Colón, a news ethicist at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. “At Burkett’s request, we gave his (telephone) number to the campaign,” said Betsy West, senior CBS News vice president.

    Facts, facts, facts…dangerous things!

    Seems we’re all conspiracy theorists…

    Yeah. QUITE a conspiracy!

    To get Dan Rather to lie and stonewall for 10 days straight!

    To get Bill Burkett to admit to lying to Dan Rather!

    Amazing that Rove could ALSO get Max Cleland and Joe Lockhart to talk to Burkett!

    And to ALSO get Mary Mapes to trust Burkett – quite a coup!

    And to get Tom Harkin & Terry McAuliffe to flack for Burkett & Rather by coordinating the launch of Operation: Fortunate Son with CBS (launched less than 24 hours later with a nationwide campaign using CBS footage).

    And to get James Moore, Bush-hater extraordinaire, to write a book about Burkett.

    And to get Kevin Drum and Josh Marshall to blog about Burkett.

    And to get John Kerry to sign off on a forgery…oh wait, that part hasn’t come to light…yet.

    That Karl Rove, with his 5-cushion bankshots….seriously…what color is the sky in your world, I wonder?