I guess I should be pissed of at Obama since I'm "blogger" who works in his pajamas. Whatever. When I was seven I collected stamps. By the time I was eight I was playing D&D.I've been fielding geek insults since I shot my way out my Ma Dukes. This ain't nothing but water to me.LESTER HOLT: John what we saw in that protest today, was it simply frustration or does it represent a serious problem the President is having with an important part of his base?
JOHN HARWOOD: As a practical matter Lester I don't think it's a serious problem. we've seen and certainly Bill Clinton learned that they Democratic President can get punished by the mainstream of the electorate for being too aggressive on social issues so for now I think the administration feels that if they take care of the big issues -- health care, energy, the economy -- he's going to be just fine with this group.
HOLT: But in general when yo look at the left as a whole, have there been conversations about some things they thought would have been done but haven't?
HARWOOD: Sure but If you look at the polling, Barack Obama is doing well with 90% or more of Democrats so the White House views this opposition as really part of the "internet left fringe" Lester. And for a sign of how seriously the White House does or doesn't take this opposition, one adviser told me today those bloggers need to take off their pajamas, get dressed and realize that governing a closely divided country is complicated and difficult.
That aside, there is some expectation that journalists won't grant their sources anonymity, so that they can simply run down people they don't like. Anonymity is usually granted when the source has something of value to say. I could be wrong, but I don't think "take off your pajamas and get dressed" really qualifies. It just feels like gossip, or reporters giving cover to some White House "advisor" so that he can tell "Ya mamma" jokes.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Mr Whitehouse advisor is just jealous. Who wouldn't rather work in their pajamas?
Nyah, nyah, Mr. Stuffed-Shirt-Anonymous-Wuss-Whitehouse-Advisor-Guy! We are happy and in our pajamas, probably eating hot, homemade blueberry muffins! You must wear a tie and drink crappy office coffee! PFFT!
...
It's really early where I am. O.O
Bagel chips with tzatziki, actually. But I'm in jeans.
I was just as glad you skipped it, since the effect elsewhere was pretty much emoting "OMG I have been anonymously maligned, anonymously! Let's talk about my feelings!" (With a special "Curse you Rahm!!!" from certain sources.) As Nate Silver pointed out, in terms of actions the White House has been very on top of new media--they clearly understand how people get their news. They give press passes to bloggers. One (possibly hypothetical) guy blowing off steam off the record is hardly the massive dis people seemed to want.
(A few posts up at Nate's I learned that the governor of Idaho is named Butch Otter, which is among the best politico names ever, right up there with El Tinklenberg.)
meh, I saw this as more of a "shut up and accept our moderate governing"
Yes, but in all fairness to reporters, that's what they do. Most MSM reporters these days aren't about substance, facts or research. They are simply stenographers for whoever is in power.
I thought you knew.
This whole thing seemed to me like nothing more than the blogosphere's love of getting VERY UPSET OVER SOMETHING.
SOMEONE IS WRONG ABOUT THE INTERNET!
Yeah, this is kind of like getting upset because someone stuck their tongue out at you.
Deep breaths, people.
This may seem like the splitting of hairs, but I wonder if this was a quote or a paraphrase, because we know how the beltway press sees the left as unhinged and unserious. The idea at the center of the quote seems pretty noncontroversial to me -- writing about governing is easier than governing. It's the wording that's the problem and I'm not going to take it from this source without a hunk of salt. Put another way, I was once an 8th grade girl, and if one of my frenemies came along and told me that Mike X said I was totally gross, I wouldn't immediately believe it.
No it's not splitting hairs, I thought the same thing. And it raises another problem with anon quotes. There really is no way to know whether it was Harwood or the source. Moreover how was it said? Was he joking with Harwood? I just hate these "my sources said" stories.
As a former "vendor" in the Big Media information bazaar, I have over the years provided anonymous quotes to the WaPo, NYTimes, LA Times, and the broadcast networks, among many others. And I always got paid. Not in cash, of course. The coin of that realm was and is influence: over the narrative, the story, the reporter and in the end, over events. Whether momentary or long term, this influence is useful but can be fleeting, at both ends of the transaction, if your shit isn't tight.
I key in how "governing a closely divided country is complicated and difficult." Whiner, if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. If you didn't believe you could achieve what you presented in your campaign because it would be complicated and difficult, then you are lying about the most fundamental aspect of how you were elected--on the audacity of hope. The very pajama clad networking that got you elected, you betray with your rivals' own verbiage. This is why the nation is so cynical about politics, why conservatism in America despite a clear minority makes it so complicated and difficult for you to get things done. Get over it, the internet is with us; your so called pundits with their half baked verities no longer shape public opinion in a vacuum. Get over it and adapt.
Pajamas? Who bothers putting on pajamas?
You tell em Tony!
Harwood and his anonymous source are conflating gay rights with the "internet left fringe".
Dems, to their credit, have been much more supportive of gay rights than Repubs. But gays, e.g. the Log Cabin guys, are not necessarily progressive, and they are not necessarily Dems. They have no particular reason to support Dems except for gay rights.
BHO and Rahm risk alienating voters who were attracted in 2008 by the promise of change on gay rights.
When I was seven I collected stamps. By the time I was eight I was playing D&D.I've been fielding geek insults since I shot my way out my Ma Dukes. This ain't nothing but water to me.
Geeks FTW!
man, they really don't know "the internet left." we commando, baby.
Man,
I don't even own pajamas. Any male over the age of ten who owns pajamas should just get an immediate vasectomy.
Sweats, underwear, shorts, or commando are all appropriate modes of dress or undress.
PAJAMAS....................sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet.
I'm picturing Rahm Emanuel in bunny eared pajamas with footsies jumping up and down and giving bloggers the finger.
RE: 10 years old
Okay, so I'm 15 years old. I haven't worn pajamas since I was I can't remember, and I'm getting ready to turn in and my mom is telling me I have to put on pajamas. The hell? Mom, I don't wear pajamas, their too hot (we live in SoCal) and they twist up. Mom insists. Fine, I put them on, she leaves, I wait 5 minutes and take them off and fall asleep.
Around 7AM the next morning there's a knock on my door. Uh, come in? Three cheerleaders are standing in my doorway. I'm mostly not covered by a sheet. They shut the door. I figure I must be having a really vivid dream, and put my head back down.
They knock again. Well fine, if this dream needs to be dreamed, I'm ready. Come in, this time offered with enthusiasm. Again the door opens and their are three cheerleaders and this time I am ready!
Except it's not a dream. It the the cheerleader kidnap breakfast. That why my mom had insisted I wear PJs to bed.
what this proves to me is simply this : wearing pajamas is "complicated and difficult."
I regularly send my teen age son's male friends up to his attic lair if he's still asleep after noon. I know that roars and grunts and thumps and yowls may well result.
Your mother sent girls to your room? Cheerleader girls? And she lived?
I think you're a very good son.
Really? Not even just the bottoms? I think you all better tell your girlfriends/wives, because I don't think I'm the only one that's always picking out pajama pants for Christmas! I think flannel plain pajama bottoms can be very manly.
"Plaid" not "plain". VERY important distinction.
I think all you bloggers are too close to this and are not getting it. It's not a joke. The pajamas thing is serious. It means, if you are just standing on the sidelines in your pajamas and screaming at the White House without doing anything concrete, and without taking the political situation into context, you are part of the problem and not part of the solution.
Calling out the pajama-wearing bloggers is simple code for saying, some of us are here trying to actually move the country forward, and some folks are just flapping their gums.
And it feels aimed directly at people like Andrew Sullivan, who has been yelling at Obama repeatedly about DADT without really recognizing that Obama can't do anything about it! Congress needs to pass a law and Obama will sign it, but until then, his hands are tied. It took Sullivan until just the other day to admit that this is the case, and only then via a reader email, and even then he sort of blew off the reality by saying Obama could change it if he wanted, when of course he can't.
The pajama comment is simply stating that We are here in the Arena working for change, so you folks who sit at home and just comment on things, please get real and understand we aren't working in a vacuum.
It's clear to me at least that Obama is trying to work through our huge problems systematically, and trying to knock one thing down at a time. And anyone with a brain knows that if Obama decided to take on DADT now, it would totally sink Health Care and so many other things. And all on a suicide mission because Obama can't change DADT by himself. And trying to do it by himself would essentially handcuff his presidency.
I cite Sullivan because I read him and am a fan, but also feel like he's gone off the rails hyperventilating about Obama and gay rights, when Obama clearly isn't the issue, and really the battle is being fought at the state level and in congress. And it's sort of sad to see Sullivan completely ignore the political context. At the same time, it's understandable, of course, because what Sullivan is fighting for is righteous, but deciding that Obama is the big enemy is not only wrong and terribly misguided but actually takes the pressure off the people that really need to be reached.
I thought it better for the Democratic family to treat the pajama jab as a chuckle.
But, for a serious answer, I completely understand that the White House has to stall left-wing causes sometimes and sell them out occasionally.
It's one thing for them to do that.
It's another thing for them to want liberals to like it.
They're choosing to do things that make liberals furious. When they get furious liberals as a result, they don't get to whine.
Or, to put it another way, White House aparatchiks need to take off their silk ties, realize that governing a closely divided country is complicated and difficult--and accept that it's not the left's job to make the job easier for them.
Hmmm....well, I thought it was Sullivan too. However, I'd say publicizing the issue on a blog thats read by millions is "doing something." I do get a bit frustrated at Sullivan attacking the Dems on this, because, while they are caving, it's the Repubs that enable this crap.
But this is exactly the problem. Sullivan isn't "doing something." He's just yelling at this point. And at the wrong people. And that makes him unserious. And gives the pajamas comment teeth.
"Doing something" would be trying to find a constructive way to move things forward. The idea that yelling at Obama to "stop firing people" when any serious person knows this is not his call, is something that should be above Sullivan.
I get his anger, but aiming it at Obama is misplaced and unproductive.
With 4,348 dead and 31,527 wounded Americans military personnel and 1,339,771 PLUS dead Iraqis, you folks are stessing out against President Obama over a comment thatn some anon source in the WH said about bloggers?
Give me a frigging break.
What evidence do any of you have that this comment was even made or the context? Did the President make this comment? What were the motives of the person claiming that these comments were made?
Why don't you find something else to whine about? What are you, 10 years old?