UnFairWitness

Pajamas Media's Ad.Doubleclick.net Ads

InstaGlenn claims to have Pajamas Media ads up on his sidebar.  I can't see them, though, because I have doubleclick.net already blocked in my Firefox AdBlock extension.

Do the PJers think everyone reading them is so dumb they can't tell they're having doubleclick serve ads for them? 

Fire Rumsfeld

The Cunning Realist makes the timely argument, working from this Rumsfeldian "epiphany."  Read the whole thing, but here's a quote:

"For Rumsfeld to try to wish away an overwhelmingly indigenous resistance as if it were no more than a stray neighborhood dog is not only the height of hubris, it's utterly reckless. It also indicates that Rumsfeld lives in the same sort of dangerous bubble as Bush."

Good News from Iraq!

Working with a private defense contractor, military officials in Iraq are having articles written by U.S. military "information operations" troops translated into Arabic and then placed in newspapers around Baghdad, according to U.S. military officials and documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

Many articles are presented as legitimate news accounts in the Iraqi press. The newspapers are paid for publishing the articles, which trumpet the successes of U.S. and Iraqi troops, denounce insurgents and promote U.S.-led efforts to rebuild the country. Records and interviews indicated that dozens of such articles have been placed in Iraqi newspapers in the past year.

More.

Apparently, we only know about this because some people in the Pentagon and the military still retain a few principles:

The military's information operations campaign has sparked a backlash among senior military officers in Iraq and at the Pentagon. They argue that attempts to subvert the news media could destroy the U.S. military's credibility in other nations and with the U.S. public.

"Here we are trying to create the principles of democracy in Iraq. Every speech we give in that country is about democracy. And we're breaking all the first principles of democracy when we're doing it," said a senior Pentagon official who opposes parts of the information operations campaign in Iraq.

 

Pajamas Media taking Jarvis' advice?

During the name-theft kerfluffle Jeff Jarvis had some decent advice for the Pajamistas:

I’ll start the ball rolling: I think you should be a conservative Huffington Post. Stop trying to act fair and balanced; have a worldview and be proud of it. Thank your liberal tokens who were kind enough to join in and give you beard and come out and be right and be proud.

And that's just what you see PJ media making a stab at today.  Their entire front page speaks with one voice.  Unfortunately, their reputation for being the Keystone Kops of the blogverse remains intact.  Witness this opening paragraph, apparently imported from Barcelona, Spain:                               

Reid: Osama bin Dead

Compiled by Pajamas Media staff in Barcelona   

Was Osama bin Laden killed in last month's earthquake in Pakistan? So said Senate minority leader Harry Reid to a Nevada TV station (video here). More than the news itself that the No. 1 Most Wanted could be dead -it's not the first time the speculation arises, and at least until now it has been never confirmed-, it's the possibility that Reid might have disclosed classified information what is has some angry, though others say that there's not much there there since Reid was only speculating:

Good thing they have an editorial staff!  Or, maybe that dash/comma combo is a Spanish thing.  Anyway, the dread Em Ess Em is no doubt trembling - with laughter - at this threat to their relevance. 

Another thing I find curious.  This whole thing Reid/Osama issue keys off a John Fund Opinion Journal Diary email sent out yesterday (helpfully posted in part by the RNC website, to which all the Pajamahedeen all link), which accuses the Senate Democratic Minority Leader of being a "sieve" for "intelligence matters."  Remember that this hot breaking news statement by Reid happened in a TV interview a week ago, so what we have here are the "elite bloggers" of the Pajama Media portal all speaking with one voice on the front page of the website that's going to be  "coalescing the Internet’s brightest minds and most compelling content into a single source that will, in turn, redefine journalism in the 21st century and beyond" on a week-old TV interview. 

In turn, this highlights the problem with the idea of PJ Media being, as they proclaimed to be aiming for, "bi-partisan." No bloggers but those running right-wing political blogs are going to look for a John Fund email posted on the RNC website for material.  I find it curious that so many right-wingers did.  In fact, it looks supiciously coordinated.  How else to explain the fact that all the largest right-wing political bloggers highlighted the same obscure subject on the same day, followed by a well-timed Instalanche?

PJ Media needs to take Jarvis' advice and come out as the right-wing version of the Huffington Post.  At least that way, it will look like they did it on purpose rather than bumbling into the form they should have taken from the beginning.

"pajamas media"

               

Pajamas Media Deathwatch Explained

Anyone wondering why Pajamas Media is headed for oblivion?  Well, let these guys just show you!

Later: Jeezus, who's this Tammy idiot?  "Adam, the Santayana reminder is excellent. I'm going to send you a pocket-protector right away. :)" 

Apply a muzzle, quick.

More later:  That's it?  63 posts, most of which were pure fluff, schmoozing and attempted witticisms that sound extra-lame because you're supposedly trying to explain to people how you're going to stop your company from swirling down the drain? They deserve to fail.

Oh, lord.  This is awful:

Pajamas Media debuts new professional logo

New logo for the Pajamas Media Open Source Media OSM Pajamas Media Site. 

You think I'm kidding, right?

UPDATE:

PJM Death Pool

Via Althouse

 

Pajamas Media: The Suits Made Us Act Stupid

Yet again, the hapless non-businessmen at the multimillion dollar VC funded OSM.org site try to resolve a controversy by dodging responsibility for their actions and posting a weasel-worded statement of half-truth, buck-passing and faux self-deprecating jokiness which falls far short of the transparent honesty and humility that might have moved them at least some of the way toward reconciliation with their outraged neighbors.

Instead, we get this. (I'm not linking it - I'm pasting the entire thing below the jump due to the OSM/PJ persistent habit of stealth editing and disappearing anything embarrassing to them. In just 5 days, they've created this reputation for themselves!)

And this: "We are re-assuming our identity as Pajamas Media. (Just give us a few days to sort the technical issues out.)"

Once again, rather than working their asses off to immediately do the necessary work (how hard could this be for a company that allegedly has a "Director of Technology" and a CTO?) they leave the website in limbo yet again, just as they did during the 5 days they mulishly refused to admit that appropriating Open Source Media from the pre-existing Open Source Media wasn't going to be accepted.  Even if they could have somehow bullied and intimidated the actual owners of the name to submit to the theft, the blog world was having none of it, yet these bloggers failed to see this.

Altogether, an extremely bad show.

Dennis the Peasant comments. I'm sure we'll hear more from him as PJ's CEO flops and flounders through the next few days.

For those of you who haven't followed this slo-mo trainwreck and would like to review  the full story, there's no better place to start than Dennis the Peasant's Ragging on Roger Simon category.  Then, for the full story of the launch of OSM, including the swank coming out party in NYC, this series of well-written detailed posts by The Young Curmudgeon are a must read (in reverse order - yes, that was lazy of me.):

• Further Roundup of OSM stuff
• Big Roundup Post on OSM/Open Source Media/Open Sores Media/Pajamas Media/Name to be Announced Media Problems and Controversies
• The Party
• Judith Miller/Senator John Cornyn at OSM Launch
• The Political Panel
• Impressions From the Open Source Media Launch Event

UPDATE:  Brendan at Radio Open Source of Open Source Media, Inc. breathes a sigh of relief that the name ordeal is over.

UPDATE:  Here's some tough love for the PJ Executive board from Dan at Riehl World View.  Will they listen?  So far, they haven't.

UPDATE:  From the That's gotta hurt dept.  From Businesslogs, a sample:

Their write-up about the switch sounds so terribly fake and highschool-ish that I almost feel bad for the investors who poured $3.5M into the company, only to watch them fuck themselves repeatedly all over the blogosphere. How can investors give a few guys 7 figures and not Google the damn name "open source media" and see that somebody else already has that name? Did their due diligence include sitting blindfolded while Roger Simon procured their checkbook and wrote himself a check for whatever he wanted?

Read the rest.

Also, via Businesslog, here's Kevin K. at Catch.com helpfully rewriting Roger Simon's press release announcing the name retreat: Excuse us while we pee ourselves with embarrassment

Hot North American news covered from...Barcelona, Spain?

Found on the OSM homepage:

At this moment...

Compiled by OSM Staff in Barcelona

What had been widely anticipated has just been confirmed: the Associated Press reports that General Motors has announced it will cut about 30,000 jobs and "nine North American assembly, stamping and powertrain plants by 2008 as part of an effort to get production in line with demand."

Why would  they have US news covered by "staff in Barcelona"?  Are all the American staff busy?  Even weirder, it's almost 8 PM in Barcelona, while it's the middle of the workday everywhere in the US.

The OSM's Spanish staff is kicking butt!

Also, Mike Rundle calls Dennis the Peasant's post about Roger Simon's lack of ethics and general weaseliness the blog post of the week.

                               

From Pajamas Media to The Big Flush

Blogospheric consensus:  Trainwreck with Hindenburg/Titanic potential.

And this logo? 

All I can say is that Tbogg was awfully close with this post.

Considering the name-theft issues, maybe they should've gone with Big Flush Media instead.  I swear, I can't look at the OSM logo without thinking of swirling blue toilet water.

Open Source Media is not open source.

"..the truth is that if you limit your material's distribution you are not entirely in the spirit of the Open Source Initiative..."

"...their officially-sanctioned shorthand OSM™. Yes, the trademark symbol is part of the abbreviation to remind people that they're not that "open source"."

"....What exactly is OSM? Don't ask me, I'm not that smart! And it seems the more I read about PJ Media/OSM, the less I know..."

Ever wonder what the proprietor of Little Green Fascists looks like?

Well it was a hectic day for our intrepid new paradigm-ers as they launched their shiny new $3.5 million flagship and then watched as it slowly moved away from the dock only to stop and then just sit there making an occasional gurgling noise in the shallows.

This guy wants out....

Dennis the Peasant goes ballistic on his critics.

Technorati tags: pajamas, Pajamas Media, Open Source Media

Warbloggers: suckers for the "MSM"

Arthur Silber on the warblogger pile-on to the scurrilous attack on Jimmy Massey's credibility by St. Louis Post Dispatch reporter Ron "Embedded"  Harris.  (and welcome back Arthur, you were missed.) 

From the AWC blog archives, here's Scott Horton on his interview with Massey at Camp Casey in  Crawford last August. (Scott and Jimmy photo to the left) And, here's Scott's interview with Jimmy Massey and Tim Goodrich from October 15, 2005.


Funny how the warblogs, so enamored of screaming BIAS! at the "MSM" were so keen to buy this story.

The white phosphorus controversy

I see that Swopa has a post up concerning the use of white phosphorus in Fallujah, and I must admit that I've had some of the same concerns about the evidence that his emailer does.  I'd also like to add a bit more about Jeff Englehart.  This is long with some extensive quotes from Jeff's blog posts, so I'll continue it below the jump.  Read on....

Fallujah, white phosphorus, jeff englehart

My Adventure with the Pajamas Media New York Headquarters

- In what appears to be an attempt to address growing criticism of its missing business plan, Pajamas Media put out a press release a couple of days ago.   Don't look for it on their webpage, though, it isn't there.

They've taken  a couple of guys on board which is supposed to have "strengthened its advertising and sales team." The previous strength of PJ Media's "advertising and sales team", as far as anyone can tell, was zero. So 0+2 = strengthened.

But, here's the weird part. PJ Media's press release says PJ will "run its corporate office out of the Los Angeles and will drive its sales and business development programs out of its New York location."  Bad grammar aside, here's its NY Office location according to the press release:

Rockefeller Plaza Center - 7th Floor
     1230 Avenue of the Americas
     New York, New York 10020 USA
     212-745-1377

Being a snoopy sort, I Googled the phone number. 

... New York: Accurate Software Rockefeller Center 1230 Avenue of the Americas, 7th Floor New York, NY 10020 USA Tel: +1 212 745 1377 Fax: +1 917 639 4005. ...

Hmmm.  No Pajama Media, but maybe they took over that office.  So, I called the number.

RECEPTIONIST PERSON: SJ Enterprises

ME: Hello.  May I speak to someone about advertising with Pajamas Media?

RECEPTIONIST PERSON:(Sounding confused) Whaaat?

ME:  Is this the Pajamas Media New York office?

RECEPTIONIST PERSON: No.

ME:  Is this 212 745 1377?

RECEPTIONIST PERSON: (Wary) Yeaaaah.

ME: So, what does SJ Enterprises do?

RECEPTIONIST PERSON: Wait a minute.

I was then transferred to a machine that said, "You have reached Voice Mail.  Please begin speaking after the tone."

Somehow, I think the Pajamas Media Sales Team is going to have trouble selling advertising, which is pretty funny considering that in answering questions for FishbowlNY's post The Pajama Game: Footies for Judith Miller? , Roger Simon said:

Bloggers are being compensated at two levels - one for which we would place all the ads on their site, another for which we place only a certain number of their ads . Almost all have opted for the former. These contracts are flat deals based on our best estimates of possible ad revenue these blogs will earn for our company. You will notice the words "estimates" and "possible." We don't know how accurate we are going to be. How could we? All these things will be revisited in forthcoming years. Our business plan is to err on the side of generosity and keep all our bloggers happy. We want them to stay with us of course.

And Saddam's WMD is in Syria, too.

UPDATE:  Oh, yeah! That'll get the advertising bucks rolling in!  But, really, PJ Media, you should have sprung for the whole "Virtual Office" enchilada, including:

Personalized call answering - Professional receptionist answers your calls in your companys name according to your specifications

Although I'm wary of office services that make punctuation errors in their pitches.

pajamas pajamas media pjmedia Media, Blogging, Internet, Opinion, Weblog, Journalism, Blog.

Is Tom Palmer a liar, stupid, or a liar AND stupid?

November 10, 2005

Tom Palmer's Outrageous, Brazen, and Shocking Lies Exposed

— Jeremy Sapienza @ 11:49 pm

I'm sitting here at about 9:30pm, Thursday night -- with my jaw on the floor. I have pretty much always thought Tom G. Palmer of the Cato Institute was a bit of a weirdo, a bit obsessed with attacking people like Lew Rockwell and Justin Raimondo, and bit sensitive about his homosexuality, among other things. I have heard from other people about how he is "evil," (haha, thought I, just silly hyperbole!) and the "libertarian hit man" back in the Kochtopus days of the 1970s, and a "character assassin," but it didn't really sink in until just now, just a few minutes ago...just when his unadulterated unapologetic lies oozed across my exposed tongue, leaving a sick taste in the back of my throat.

More here

Tom Palmer libertarian CATO

• Blogging
• Blogs
• News and politics

Tom Palmer

Raed Jarrar answers Jane's question about Iraqi accents

I've read firedoglake quite a bit since Scootergate and the Niger forgeries story got hot. Yesterday, Jane Hamsher posted an email and an interesting question about a tape Colin Powell used in the UN presentation on Iraq, the one he now calls a "blot on my record." The question:

...in February 2003, when the U.N. presentation occurred, the local Pacifica affiliate contained an interview with a correspondent in Baqhdad, non-embedded, who watched the live broadcast of Powell's speech with a room full of Republican Guards. When the tape of the intercepted phone conversation was played, widespread laughter erupted in the room. The accents employed by the alleged Iraqi officers were so geographically inappropriate -- attributed by the actual Guards as either Saudi or Jordanian -- that the immediate effect was comical. I don't recall the reporter and can't identify him now. But with all the other pretexts for war now being identified as ill-considered at best and fraudulent at worst, this experiment is easily reproduced: Play the tape for a selection of Iraqi sources and have them identify where the speakers are from. If the result is as described, this would seem more of a smoking gun than possibly even forged memos: Somebody recorded fake audiotapes and couldn't even be bothered to cast the right nationalities -- or else couldn't tell the difference.

Jane added, "The clip itself is here, it's the third clip, labeled "Modified Vehicle." If anyone knows someone out there with a knowledge of Iraqi dialects who isn't presently in some CIA black ops prison camp and could review the tape, we'd certainly love to hear about it."

So, I emailed Raed Jarrar and asked him to listen to the tape, although it seemed unlikely that such an obvious rotten trick would have gone unnoticed so long. Raed answered,

Dear Tex

I remember listening to this tape while I was in Baghdad, and we laughed too. Not because of the accent, because of the retarded content of it.
The Iraqis talking on the tape have an Iraqi accent for sure, but the way they were saying stupid things about hiding the "modified" vehicle didn't make any sense.

Believe me my friend, there are a lot of Chalabi supporters types that are more than ready to do this.

The people on that tape are unfortunately Iraqis. I hope they at least feel ashamed by now.
Maybe one day in the future we'll know their real names, and how much were they paid to act this dirty role.

best
raed

Since Jane didn't post this anywhere, though she received and acknowledged the email I sent passing it on, I thought I'd post it in case anyone wondered.

Judy Miller "retires" from the NYT

UPDATE: Judy, Judy, Judy, you link whore!  Here's Judy Miller's "Farewell Letter" and embedded within it is a link to her  website, all stocked and ready to go with rebuttals to everyone who's been mean to her lately.

Judith Miller retires from New York Times

E & P has more details:

Under the terms of the separation, Miller will write a farewell letter to the editor, to be published in Thursday's paper. Another condition of the split required Keller to share a letter with the paper's staff clarifying his controversial remarks about her "entanglement" with I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former White House official indicted in the CIA leak investigation.

"In her 28 years at The Times, Judy participated in some great, prize-winning journalism," Keller wrote to the staff. "She displayed fierce determination and personal courage both in pursuit of the news and in resisting assaults on the freedom of news organizations to report. We wish her well in the next phase of her career."

Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., said in a statement, "We are grateful to Judy for her significant personal sacrifice to defend an important journalistic principle. I respect her decision to retire from The Times and wish her well."

Miller's lawyers and the paper had been negotiating a severance package for the last two weeks, although they had declined to discuss specific terms of the deal. An article posted on the Times' Web site Wednesday afternoon outlined the broad terms: "Under the agreement, Ms. Miller will retire from the newspaper, and The Times will print a letter she wrote to the editor explaining her position," wrote Katharine Q. Seelye. "Ms. Miller originally demanded that she be able to write an essay for the paper's Op-Ed page refuting the allegations against her, the lawyers said. The Times refused that demand -- Gail Collins, editor of the editorial page, said, 'We don't use the Op-Ed page for back and forth between one part of the paper and another' -- but agreed to let her to write the letter."

More here.

"Enemy combatants" and welcoming Chalabi

From TalkLeft:

Breaking: Senator Lindsay Graham is introducing an Amendment to the defense appropriations bill pending in the Senate (S. 1092) that would strip those designated by the Administration as enemy combatants of the ability to seek habeas review in federal courts. This is an end-run around the Supreme Court's decision in U.S. v. Rasul which held Guantanamo detainees have the right to challenge the legality of their detentions.
[..]
This would effectively end all litigation brought on behalf of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, as well as any future litigation on behalf of those imprisoned at the CIA secret detention camps. This bill is intended to have retroactive application.

However, you can rest assured that this measure won't affect anyone important, right, George and Dick?

Steve Clemons at The Washington Note:

CHALABI News Flash: Congressman & Senator Call for Him to be Subpoenaed

Just got word that Congressman George Miller and Senator Richard Durbin, in a joint news conference later TODAY, will be calling for Ahmad Chalabi to be subpoenaed.

Good call.

More Fun With Chalabi.

Subpoena the Hero in Error

Josh Marshall posts:

Someone was willing to say it: Chalabi deserves a subpoena, not photo-ops with administration bigwigs. See Rep. Miller's (D-CA) speech on the floor of the House just yesterday.

Yeah, well, I said it first.

Republican implosion over torture gulags

An interesting torture story developing today.  From publius:

According to Drudge (always a shaky way to start), Frist and Hastert are going to announce an investigation not into our mini-gulag in Eastern Europe, but into the leak of the black sites to the Post.

This is EXACTLY why the Espionage Act should be read in the way that I read it. By roping Libby within its scope, you give the government a perfect weapon to punish all unfavorable reporting on national security issues. Inevitably, people will abuse the power - because that's what people tend to do. An expansive reading of the Espionage Act will remove a check to corrupt and illegal practices - which is precisely what Frist and Hastert (surely at the direction of others) are trying to do.

Then, here's digby:

Whole Lotta Love

Wow. CNN is reporting that Trent Lott just said that the Washington Post leak was probably perpetrated by a Republican Senator! Apparently, the gulag was discussed at the Republican-Senator-only meeting last week in which Cheney begged them to back-off the anti-torture policy.

Lott said, "we have met the enemy and he is us." Man a majority leader scorned is fearsome creature, ain't he?

I do find it fascinating that Cheney was discussing this Gulag opernly in front of the GOP caucus after they had just recently voted 90-0 for the anti-torture amendment. Seems old Dick is a little slow on the uptake. He didn't learn a thing from his earlier leaking campaign, did he?

Think Progress has the video.

"We" do not torture

We do not torture...George W. Bush

We don’t do torture....Porter Goss

I guess it depends on the meaning of "we."

A DEADLY INTERROGATION
by JANE MAYER
Can the C.I.A. legally kill a prisoner?

Link Roundup

Wonder what the heck is going on in Paris, with all the rioting?  Skip the bigots and read lenin.

Micah Holmquist sends us linkage for the NYT bogus intelligence story:  You can read the actual document provided to the New York Times via Carl Levin's webpage.   Micah on on WMD, torture and Iraq.  Thanks, Micah!

Oh, and here are the Republican Talking Points on the NYT al-Libi story.

Laura Rozen on how the Republicans plan to spin the outrageous demand for the Phase II intelligence report to be produced, already.

Burning Tony Blair in effigy for Guy Fawkes -

      
• October 26, 2005 :: Burn Tony Blair in effigy this Guy Fawkes night



• October 28, 2005 :: The kindling takes shape
• October 31, 2005 :: Head finished. Body to follow.
• November 2, 2005 :: My, my... don't we look relaxed?
• November 3, 2005 :: Stop! ... Voodoo time!
• November 5, 2005 :: And at 7:10pm this evening... Tony Blair burns
• November 6, 2005 :: Can you guess what this is, boys and girls?

The Medium Lobster says:  "Torture shouldn't just be the tool of the CIA or even the armed forces. It should be the legal right - no, the duty - of every American citizen."

Torture Dick.

Roderick Long: Antifascist Before It Was Cool

George and Condi in Argentina

Saddest Riverbend post ever.

The Rad Geek on FBI spying on Americans:  "....the Washington Post is shocked! shocked! to discover that the FBI may have abused its undisclosed and unchecked powers."

Dermot O'Connor on a heretofore untapped source of extra troops for the Iraq occupation.

al-Libi and the Bush/Cheney Torture Regime

Douglas Jehl's revelations in the New York Times today:

A top member of Al Qaeda in American custody was identified as a likely fabricator months before the Bush administration began to use his statements as the foundation for its claims that Iraq trained Al Qaeda members to use biological and chemical weapons, according to newly declassified portions of a Defense Intelligence Agency document.

The document, an intelligence report from February 2002, said it was probable that the prisoner, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, “was intentionally misleading the debriefers’’ in making claims about Iraqi support for Al Qaeda’s work with illicit weapons.

The document provides the earliest and strongest indication of doubts voiced by American intelligence agencies about Mr. Libi’s credibility. Without mentioning him by name, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Colin L. Powell, then secretary of state, and other administration officials repeatedly cited Mr. Libi’s information as “credible’’ evidence that Iraq was training Al Qaeda members in the use of explosives and illicit weapons.

And how was this garbage "intelligence" obtained? Well, we already know that al-Libi is practically a poster boy for the Cheney/Bush Torture Regime:

Torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere - Pakistan turns Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, a Libyan national, over to US authorities. Libi is believed to have run the Khaldan paramilitary camp in Afghanistan for al-Qaeda. Interrogations start and a debate soon erupts with regard to which methods can be employed. The CIA advocates threatening him with his life and that of his family. [Washington Post, 6/27/2004] The CIA's actions are, according to Newsweek, facilitated by a February 2002 secret presidential order “authorizing the CIA to establish secret detention facilities outside the US and to use extra harsh interrogation methods” (see After February 7, 2002). [Newsweek, 5/24/2004] Some time after his handover to the US, Al-Libi is rendered to Egypt. According to an ex-FBI official, the CIA “duct-taped his mouth, cinched him up and sent him to Cairo. At the airport the CIA case officer goes up to him and says, ‘You're going to Cairo, you know. Before you get there I'm going to find your mother and I'm going to f*** her.’ ” [Newsweek, 6/21/2004] Al-Libi is said to provide the US with valuable intelligence including information about an alleged plot to blow up the US Embassy in Yemen with a truck bomb and the location of Abu Zubaida, who will be captured in March 2002 (see March 28, 2002). The FBI has thus far taken the lead in interrogations of terrorist suspects, because its agents are the ones with most experience. The CIA's success with Al-Libi contributes to the shift of interrogations from the bureau to the CIA. [Washington Post, 6/27/2004] Such methods as making death threats, advocated by the CIA, are opposed by the FBI, which is used to limiting its questioning techniques so the results from interrogations can be used in court. [Washington Post, 6/27/2004] “We don't believe in coercion,” a senior FBI official says. [The Guardian, 9/13/2004]

Friday Cat Blogging

Warbloggers in Pajamas hacktacular

Wolcott (here and here) is all over David Corn for agreeing to join the editorial board of the odious Pajamas Media, future web home for war hacks not yet indicted.  Like Michael Ledeen. Corn's response makes it clear that he has no idea what he's getting into, "I look forward to a new Internet enterprise that seeks to promote varying views, even if the idea came from conservatives." Well, as Wolcott says,

Does Corn really want to be associated with fun blogs like Little Green Footballs and Gates of Vienna ("At the siege of Vienna in 1683 Islam seemed poised to overrun Christian Europe. We are in a new phase of a very old war")? I guess he does, because he'll be appearing on a panel at Pajamas' gala conference in November in Manhattan, where Roger L. Simon and company will break out the ginger ale and announce their new monicker. Then everybody will adjourn to invade Syria, if they can arrange transportation.

The weird thing about Pajamas Media is that it doesn't even know what it wants to be when, if ever, it grows up. Originally, it was an idea for right-winger and warblogs to make money selling advertising, but they appear to have jettisoned their advertising guys one of whom fortunately blogs so that we can read the entertaining story of that backstabbing.  (Also see the links here - Blowing the cover off Top Secret Pajamas Media Foreign Correspondents.)  They claimed to be the "New Media" but the keynote speaker for their New York City gala launch party is none other than Old Media icon Judy "The Aspen Roots of WMD" Miller, who possibly works for the New York Times, which last I checked, was almost the definition of Old Media, according to the New Media. 

Well, PJM's launch party is two weeks away, so they have plenty of time to decide what they are before that. Meantime, a competitor has apppeared on the blog-aggregation scene! Meet Lingere Media:

LINGERE Media is a new blogging venture designed to bring together some of the internet’s more obvious fast-buck artists and will hopefully cobble together a single source that will, in our dreams, complement and re-define journalism in the 21st century, which we can then unload on a gullible public via a stock offering. Upon its official debut in November 2005, LINGERE Media will feature content from over 300, no 70, no 150, no, make it 70 half-assed bloggers. The company was founded in 2004 by acclaimed accountant and blogger Dennis The Peasant and Cletus Barnwell, cesspool manager, hog calling champion, and author of the blog What Smell?

With that extensive roster of Quality Bloggers only thing Lingerie Media needs to catch up is to announce a grandiose launch party keynoted by a noted failure in their field! Maybe Scooter Libby is free.

Chalabi - The neocons' bad penny

Chalabi returns to the scene of the crime?  What's up with that?

Though his personal electoral base is limited he has forged links with fellow Shi'ite groups, including nationalist cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, and there is speculation he will put himself forward as prime minister, as he did after January's ballot.

Some U.S. officials have played down speculation, however, that the trip to Washington indicates an American willingness to promote Chalabi in that role.

"We've invited him to the U.S. I wouldn't read more into it than that," one official in Baghdad told reporters last week, pointing out Chalabi's major operational role in handling Iraq's budget and his position as coordinator of the oil industry.

"We have operational interests to discuss with the man and we're going to do that," the official said.

I hope Fitzgerald hands him a subpoena.

Senate forced into rare closed session

US Senate goes into closed session:

AMERICAblog: CNN just said that by invoking Rule 21, Reid just shut down the Senate, all 100 Senators are called to the Senate floor, they have to turn over their cell phones, blackberries, etc

Talking Points Memo: I'm told Sen. Reid has taken the senate into closed session to discuss the senate's failure to "phase two" of the Senate Select Committee on Inteligence report on the Iraqi WMD intelligence failure. Phase two, you'll remember, was to examine alleged administration manipulation of intelligence.

Reid's statement.

Quick review on the Phase II report: The Report They Forgot

In February 2004, the Senate Select Intelligence Committee (SSCI) announced that it had unanimously agreed to expand its investigation of prewar Iraq intelligence from focus on intelligence community blunders and into the more controversial area of “whether intelligence was exaggerated or misused” by U.S. government officials. The committee’s ranking Democrat, Jay Rockefeller, struck the agreement with Chairman Pat Roberts -- provided, Roberts insisted, that the probe into policy-makers’ activities wait until after the presidential election.

UPDATE - Daily Kos: As the post below notes, Reid asked the Senate to go into special session on intelligence -- that is, a closed session -- to discuss prewar intelligence. This mostion, along with a second (provided by Durbin), requires all Senators to report to the Senate floor. It is a non-debatable motion.[...]

Now, this is more than a temporary stunt. The Democratic leadership has promised to call a special session in the Senate every single day until Republicans alllow for a real investigation.

UPDATE: Crooks and Liars has the video up.

Tim Russert and Commencement Speech Bingo

Hilarious