Palin Brings "Bloggers in Pajamas" Back Into the Limelight
Not everyone is a fan of new media. Back in September 2004, Jonathan Klein, then a former CBS News exec, defended Dan Rather's 60 Minutes segment about George W. Bush's lack of National Guard service during the Vietnam War by observing that, "You couldn't have a starker contrast between the multiple layers of check and balances [at '60 Minutes'] and a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing." Klein, who would soon be appointed CNN/USA President, was attacking the conservative bloggers who were attacking Rather and CBS, and although I thought then and now that CBS and Rather were right to run that story, I certainly didn't agree with Klein's myopic "analysis" of blogging. Given the power and reach of the Internet, and the way all kinds of information can become available in all sorts of unexpected ways, it struck me then that pajamas and basements were no impediments to the pursuit and publication of truth.
That's obviously much more the case today. But the "bloggers in pajamas" meme lives on, not just as a justifiably sarcastic comment on Klein's 2004 statement and any like-minded old media worshipers still among us, and the name of a successful online news venue (Pajamas Media), but ... somehow, unsurprisingly, in that special lingo of none other than Sarah Palin, who last night told Greta Van Susteren on Fox that a lot of the media's negative stories about her were due to their reporting on the basis of "some blogger, probably sitting there in their parents' basement, wearing pajamas, blogging some kind of gossip, or a lie".
Now, in Klein's defense in 2004, new media were much newer then than they are now. The Huffington Post, YouTube, and Twitter didn't even exist yet, and Facebook was just a few months old. Palin's attack is thus much more ludicrous than Klein's, because it ignores the massively greater and diverse sources of information that any blogger can call upon today.
But facts seem beyond Palin's grasp or interest, whether in real world or online geography. And the irony is that her worst moment with the media in the campaign just concluded came not from a blogger in pajamas, but from well-dressed Katie Couric on mainstream CBS, who asked Sarah Palin what newspapers she read, and she couldn't name a single one.
Maybe she was getting her news from some blog...
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Comments
1) does she think she's helping herself? why won't she just stop talking?
2) Rachel Maddow riffed on this tonight on her show - even wearing pajama pants
and oh, okay, like serious writers don't work in their pajamas ever?! she obviously doesn't have a grasp of technology either.
WOOF
She's such an A-hole!
First blame the news media. Then blame the bloggers.
One thing she seemingly can't do is look in the mirror and see her own flaws.
A healthy ego is necessary to run for public office but do we want elected officials that are in total denial about themselves?
I suggested to my audience the other day that in the next presidential election, the candidate or the campaign that blames the news media will be the campaign that loses. Because when all else fails, losing politicans attack the media for doing its job reporting their shortcomings.
She's going to keep getting attention because she's run for national office, after being fired out of rural nothingness from the McCain campaign cannon. There will be regular pilgrimages to Juneau and Wasilla by all sorts of media people with hot mikes until the 2012 campaign cows start to come home. It won't stop with Matt Lauer and Greta Van Susteren. In fact, they'll probably return to Alaska a few more times, leading the pack, just to check on Palin's "progress," or "evolution" into a national leader.
As Palin spins spins on, with an eye to running for the Republican nomination (that's the goal!), she's going to offer her expertise, no matter how thin it is, to anyone who will listen.
She knows. She just knows!
Who will listen? Oh quite a few million people probably, maybe more if she can hire some tutorial heavyweights like Henry Kissinger and Phil Gramm to sharpen her presentation (Vot do you zhee vhen you zee Alaska from your houzze, Zharah?).
Having her own blog is automatic. Just a matter of time. Phil will provide spreadsheets by the pile, with links to his academic papers.
Her analysis of the media storm that swirled over her head as the days of the McCain campaign's viability dwindled to a precious few, is based on her "expertise" as a journalism major. She'll build on that.
As a political phenom with an eye on the prize and, a grudge, she's clearly prepared to lecture everyone on what she thinks should be said, and how, and how we all have to be "nice" to her so she can help us next time (there may be more work ahead for Tina Fey).
Sarah Palin is a demagogue in a pink jacket and lip gloss.
Lipstick on a ...
rated!!!
Palin is becoming an albatross around the Republicans' necks. It will be interesting to see if the Republicans can keep her away from the spotlight. If she is the leader of the party, it will become irrelevant.
I rather wish ALL of the Ignorant-And-Proud-Of-It "conservatives" would do likewise, regardless of whether they are be-penised or vagina'd.
Exactly how does she think media will have evolved by 2012?
Bull. The 'Trig's not her baby' and 'book banning' stories came off anonymous blogs that were posted before the convention. Check the disgusting archives at Daily Kos and go from there.
This is from Sept 4, the day after Palin's St. Paul speech:
After an extended flamefest and various concerns, I still feel this is a valid diary and something that the media should be looking into.
A couple folks had concerns about libel, and everything about affairs that I have cited has been posted elsewhere as well. I have posed the question about paternity, because there is odd behavior going on here.
Nobody was really questioning who Trig's father was, just if he was Sarah or Bristol's child.
It was the McCain campaign that threw out the idea of paternity testing - and I am seriously wondering if they put that out there to kill the idea of the press ACTUALLY asking for it!
This is exactly how Karl Rove works: he takes seriously damaging items and packages them in ways so they get overlooked or immediately discounted.
Food for thought.
More update:Other sources are saying that Brad Hanson is the man who the National Enquirer is going to break as Sarah's secret affair
She also should have added "with dirty hair".
going off to shower....
If Palin had been has homely as most of her female detractors, she would have had an easier time, but no matter. If Obama pursues his policies and continues to take orders from his associates, Daffy Duck could beat him in 2012. Talk about chickens coming home to roost!
Why do people (including Palin) treat the "banning books" story as "bull"??? Sure it wasn't true that she handed over a list of specific books to ban, but it was in fact verified that she asked three times in the early months of her first term as mayor of Wasilla how the librarian there felt about the concept of banning books, were she to ask her to. (The librarian, to her credit, told her in no uncertain terms that she would not do so if asked. The librarian was later fired but reinstalled after some people made a stink about it--assuming it was over the refusal to ban books). That does not assuage any concerns some of us have about the banning books story about her.
As for latest reports about her not knowing stuff, she has hardly put them to rest. She vaguely says they're not true but also mentions all over the place that they are taken out of context (like there's any context for not knowing the continents?) or maybe they were referring to this or that or maybe they are just jerks. What's important is that it is highly believable that she doesn't know this stuff. It completely fits the perception I have of her already, based on my own senses, having witnessed her "performance" over the last couple of months. A Republican from townhall.com said last night on TV that she is smart and charismatic and only lacks knowledge which anyone can pick up, so she would be a good candidate in 12. Well, he's leaving out the part that her lack of knowledge is a direct result of her lack of curiosity and sense of community with the rest of the world. She's exactly like George Bush: if it didn't directly affect him, he didn't know anything about it. That's kind of huge for a President.
I say unleash the hounds on this Alaskan Malamute.
I gotta go put on my "pa JAM as".
Gordon, actually, I regularly check both.
In the case of Dan Rather's report about Bush's lack of service, even if the document he had was forged, that does not mean that the story was false.
That's not prejudice - it's logic.