Join host Steve Green of VodkaPundit.com and myself for a troika of interviews with best-selling authors:

• Roger L. Simon, the CEO of Pajamas Media.com and PJTV.com, on his new book, which looks at forty years inside Hollywood, Blacklisting Myself.


• Bernard Goldberg, formerly of CBS, now with HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, and a frequent commentator on Fox News, for his look at A Slobbering Love Affair: The True (And Pathetic) Story of the Torrid Romance Between Barack Obama and the Mainstream Media.


• And veteran talk radio host Hugh Hewitt provides a sneak preview of GOP 5.0.

Tune in here to listen! Incidentally, the interview with Roger L. Simon is available online separately, here.

Glenn Reynolds notes:

SO, MICHAEL STEELE DOES OUR INTERVIEW in December, and in January he's RNC Chair. Bill Haslam does our interview on Wednesday, and on Thursday he raises $1.4 million. Coincidence? . . . I think so.

Of course! The real reason is that both segments were featured on Pajamas' weekly show on Sirius-XM radio! You can hear the segment featuring Steele's interview here, and our newest show featured the interview with Haslam.

Coincidence? Uh yeah--I think so, too. But still!

If you missed it today on Sirius-XM satellite radio's POTUS channel, the latest podcast edition of Pajamas Media's weekly show is now online:

Join host Steve Green of VodkaPundit.com for his take on Illinois' Gov. Blagojevich's removal from office and Nancy Pelosi's proposed economic prophylaxis! Plus:

• PJTV co-host Allen Barton interviews Gordon Cucullu, the author of Inside Gitmo, published this week by Harper Collins.
  
• James Lileks on the Stimulus Bill.
  
• Col. Austin Bay, the co-author of A Quick And Dirty Guide To War, on President Obama's planned 16 month withdrawal timetable from Iraq.
  
• Glenn Reynolds and Dr. Helen Smith interview Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam, as he prepares for the TN gubernatorial race.
  
• Produced by Ed Driscoll.

Tune in here to listen!

If you missed it today on the Sirius-XM's POTUS channel, the latest edition of PJM Political is online at Pajamas HQ. Join host Steve Green of VodkaPundit.com, an all-star cast from Pajamas Media, PJTV.com, and the Blogosphere, for their thoughts on the inauguration of President Obama and the early days of his administration:

• Pajamas Media CEO Roger L. Simon.


• Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit.com.


• John Hinderaker of the Power Line blog.


• Hugh Hewitt of Hugh Hewitt.com.


• James Lileks of Lileks.com.


• PJTV.com co-hosts Alan Barton and Bill Whittle.


• PJTV co-host Joe Hicks interviews Reason magazine editors Matt Welch and Katherine Mangu-Ward on the future of libertarianism in the age of Obama, and the growing split between free-market libertarians and social conservatives.


• Produced by your humble narrator and boulevardier of the Blogosphere.

Tune in here to listen!

If you missed this week's edition of PJM Political on Sirius-XM's POTUS channel, tune in here.

Join host Steve Green of VodkaPundit.com and myself for our take on US Airways Flight 1549's miraculous landing, and next week's transition of power in DC. Plus:

* Pajamas Media CEO Roger L. Simon and Caroline Glick, managing editor of the Jerusalem Post interview Joe Wurzelbacher (the man, the myth, the plumber) from Israel, via PJTV.
* Old media throws a hissyfit; Joe The Plumber responds. (Video here.)
* James Lileks on incoming President Obama's inauguration day.
* Robert D. Kaplan of the Atlantic magazine on Iran's sphere of influence in the Middle East.
* James Pethokoukis of US News & World Report on the highs and lows of outgoing President Bush's handling of the economy.

Produced by friendly neighborhood multimedia maven.

My interview last week with Andrew Breitbart, discussing his new "Big Hollywood" group blog for Saturday's edition of PJM Political unfortunately needed to be edited to fit into the rest of the show's weekly 55-minute running time on Sirius-XM Satellite Radio. However, the complete 15-minute interview is now online; click here to listen!

Steve Green, my partner in crime on PJM Political, Pajamas' weekly show on Sirius-XM Satellite Radio is celebrating his blog's 7th anniversary today--"That's 21 in Blog Years", which means that at last, the blog itself can drunkblog legally.

And you can hear its boss in the latest edition of PJM Political, which also features Glenn Reynolds, Michelle Malkin, James Lileks, Roger L. Simon, and special guests Andrew Breitbart on his new "Big Hollywood"...and the man, the myth, the plumber turned war correspondent himself, Joe Wurzelbacher.

Tune in here!

If you missed it today on Sirius-XM's POTUS channel, the year-end wrap edition of PJM Political is now online in handy portable podcast form (as frequent contributor James Lileks is wont to say).

Join host Steve Green of VodkaPundit.com and myself for the year-end edition of PJM Political as he recaps the key moments of the 2008 presidential election. Plus a look back at the decisive elections of the past with:

• Michael Knox Beran, the author of Forge of Empires: Three Revolutionary Statesmen and the World They Made, 1861-1871 describes "How Lincoln Saved The World."


• Amity Shlaes, the author of the New York Times best-seller The Forgotten Man on the 1932 and 1936 presidential elections.


• James Piereson, the author of Camelot and the Cultural Revolution on JFK and the election of 1960.


• Craig Shirley, the author of the Reagan's Revolution and the forthcoming Rendezvous With Destiny on the 1976 and 1980 elections and the fall and rise of Ronald Reagan.

Tune in here to listen!

If you missed it yesterday on Sirius-XM's POTUS channel, Saturday's PJM Political is now online; tune in here to listen.

Join host Steve Green of VodkaPundit.com for his take on President-Elect Obama's cabinet choices, and the Pythonic implications of the "shoe toss" incident that bedeviled President Bush in Iraq.

Plus, from PJTV:

• Pajamas Media CEO Roger L. Simon debates Frost/Nixon with fellow Oscar-nominated screenwriter/producer Lionel Chetwynd.
  
• Glenn Reynolds and Michelle Malkin talk with Former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, now looking to helm the Republican National Committee, followed by their conversation with the surprise celebrity from the last month of the presidential election, Joe Wurzelbacher, aka...Joe The Plumber.
  

If you missed any previous episodes of PJM Political, click here and scroll through for hours of audio archives. And tune in to Pajamas Media's PJTV channel for video coverage throughout the week.

Welcome viewers and listeners of Cam Edwards of NRA News--you can watch the video comparing and contrasting two very different television news reports of elderly vets attacked that we were discussing right here.

The latest edition of PJM Political on Sirius XM's POTUS channel is now online, with host Steve Green of VodkaPundit, James Lileks, Rick Moran, Glenn Reynolds and Michelle Malkin and myself all discussing the Blagojevich blowup, plus Roger Simon and Charles Johnson on the state of Dan Rather's lawsuit against CBS.

Tune in here to listen.

If you missed it today on Sirius XM, the latest edition of PJM Political is now online, featuring Roger L. Simon's interview on the changing role of gender in Hollywood with fellow Oscar-nominated screenwriter/producer Lionel Chetwynd. And recorded on the recent National Review cruise, my interview with former Cheers executive producer Rob Long. Plus an excellent discussion on President Elect Barack Obama's impact on black America with PJTV co-host Joe Hicks and John McWhorter, senior fellow with the Manhattan Institute.

Hosted by the best-known bartender since Sam Malone, produced by your friend and humble narrator--click here to listen!

Just uploaded the latest edition of PJM Political to Pajamas HQ, which contains Glenn Reynolds and Dr. Helen's interview with Mike Huckabee, and several of my interviews recorded during the National Review post-election cruise. Tune in here if you missed it today onSirius-XM!

I just updated the PJM Political page over at the mother-Pajamas-blog to reflect the the Sirius XM satellite radio merger, which allows the weekly PJM Political show to be heard on multiple platforms--and multiple times:

Beginning Saturday, November 22, PJM Political moves to its new day, and can now be heard on both XM channel #130 and Sirius #110 at 7:00 AM eastern, 1:00 PM eastern and 7:00 PM eastern. As always, watch this space for the podcast version, uploaded later that same day.

Larry Kudlow talks presidential economics on this week's edition of PJM Political, also featuring James Lileks' warm remembrance of Dean Barnett, and a round-table pre-postmortem of next week's election featuring Steve Green, Lileks, Ed Morrissey of Hot Air and myself.

And you'll never look at Five Easy Pieces the same way again!

I spoke with Mark Steyn yesterday for PJM Political on XM Satellite Radio's POTUS '08 channel regarding his Canadian show trials. Ten minutes of the interview is at the top of this week's show; the unedited version (which runs about twice as long) is here.

The great conservative filmmaker and film blogger "Dirty Harry" reviews David Zucker's new movie on his blog. And tune in here for a recent edition of PJM Political featuring audio interviews from Glenn Reynolds, Roger L. Simon and myself with stars Jon Voight and Robert Davi, and screenwriter/executive producer Myrna Sokoloff recorded during the film's premiere at the GOP convention in Minneapolis.

As Glenn writes, "If An American Carol does well this weekend, it'll make it a lot easier for the next film of its type to be made." As someone who's enjoys--on one level or another--the starboard side of the Blogosphere, you can help ensure the film's success; check here for times and theaters near you.

Update: Much more on the film from Kathy Shaidle, at Examiner.com.

Whoops--sorry to go all Mahavishnu Orchestra with the above headline. But the latest PJM Political is now online, providing a timely midweek snapshot of a crucial election week: two days after a spectacular Wall Street meltdown and one day before the critical vice presidential debate.

Tune in here to listen!

If you missed it on XM, the latest PJM Political is now online. Stay tuned 'til the end, when host Steve Green and I chart a course towards the Delta Quadrant in the final minutes of the show!

Back on the mighty XM satellite after a two week hiatus, this week's PJM Political is a chronological look back at the past two weeks, beginning with the debut of Sarahmania, through the GOP convention, and a look at the weeks to come. With a star-studded cast of pundits, bloggers--and even actors!

And speaking of Sarahmania, Fred Thompson called in today to discuss how she's driven the media absolutely bonkers.

James Lileks, whom I interviewed about AMC's Mad Men series last month for Pajamas' XM show, has some thoughts about the show in yesterday's Bleat:

I thought "Mad Men" would end up more highly regarded than "The Sopranos," and it wasn't just the late night and the well, wow factor the last episode left me with. It's the same kind of show - episodic, layered, one big arc sheltering a dozen small plots - and it also deals with a Big Subject, but there are crucial differences. That means a long "Mad Men" essay follows, so if you don't care, well, farewell! See you at buzz.mn. (And Twitter.)

Nearly everyone in "Mad Men" is a likeable character in some ways despite their flaws, and nearly everyone in "Sopranos" was mostly unlikable but redeemed for the moment by plot and dialogue. I suppose that's why the latter was lauded; there's something perverse and vicariously appealing about caring for bad guys. Aren't we naughty. But even the not-so-bad people in the Sopranos were unappealing, really; the wives were all shrews content to float along on murder money, the kids were empty shells, and the mobsters - while always fun to watch and listen to - were cruel men without qualities, only tics. Did anyone care if Christopher fell off the wagon? Anyone care about anyone, except whether they would be the Whacker or the Whackee this season? When you think about it, the grand tale of modern mobsters yearning after a bygone time when they had the nabe in their hands is a little like post-Communist block captains lamenting the end of the Soviet Union. Cry yourself a river. Put on the Sinatra and deal with it.

The show gets smaller as we get away from it, and in a way you start to feel a bit abashed for having gotten sucked in. "Mad Men" inhabits a far more interesting world, has people making an honest living, dealing with art in a quintessentially American way - through commerce - and takes place at the same time as the Soprano's good old Good Old Days - except these guys aren't stealing or hurting or killing. They don't have any good old days; these are the good days.

Well, at least until the end of this season, which is set in 1963. This was the penultimate first season episode. So it stands to reason that the crew of the good ship Sterling-Cooper are slowly drifting into one heckuva Boomer-era iceberg somewhere near the conclusion of this season's story arc.

The latest edition of PJM Political is now online!

Saddleback: The Recap: Featuring James Lileks, Victor Davis Hanson and Jennifer Rubin. Plus much more; later today on PJM Political!

The latest edition of PJM Political is online. The newest show features Steve Green, Roger Simon and myself discussing the MSM running interference for John Edwards, Amanda Carpenter on the Washington Post's own journalistic gaffes, and James Lileks and Austin Bay on Russia's invasion of Georgia.

Tune in each week!

Ten minutes of video, 55-minutes of satellite radio, 30-minutes of podcasting, and all for the price of your broadband connection; just another week here at Ed Driscoll.com.

Seriously--be sure to check out the latter two items: Steve Green energetically ties together the disparate elements of this week's PJM Political, and Austin Bay interviews General David Petraeus, who phoned in from Baghdad.

(For any podcasting boffins in the audience, here's some gear talk: because of the poor phone connection, Gen. Petraeus initially sounded more like a call from here until I applied a massive amount of Izotope's RX audio restoration plug-in, followed by compressing the daylights out of the recording with their Ozone mastering plug-in.)

Mickey Kaus's ongoing victory lap takes him to the virtual studios of PJM Political this week.

VodkaPundit, Capt. Ed, The Anchoress, Lileks, and the American Thinker all in handy portable podcast form (as Lileks himself would say)? Why yes, the new edition of PJM Political is now online!

Karl of Protein Wisdom links to my interview on PJM Political this past week with James Lileks on AMC's Mad Men series; there's an interesting debate on the show's aesthetics and writing going on under the post in the comment section.

Steve Green, the great VodkaPundit, is taking over as host of PJM Political. If you missed this week's show on XM Satellite Radio's POTUS '08 channel, tune-in here for all of the 100-proof fun, including guests Hugh Hewitt, Evan Sayet, Roger Kimball, along with James Lileks' weekly segment.

Late last year, when I reviewed Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism for the New Individualist magazine, I wrote:

Goldberg does yeoman’s work researching and documenting material that the American left had consigned to the memory hole since 1945. By the 1970s, this pre-World War II past was considered hermetically sealed by liberals. As Goldberg writes, Ronald Reagan, a former FDR backer, was attacked in the Washington Post as late as 1981 for correctly pointing out the favorable lip service that he remembered being paid by FDR’s brain trust to Mussolini.

For this week's edition of PJM Political on XM Satellite Radio's POTUS '08 channel, I interviewed Ben Wattenberg about his new book, Fighting Words: A Tale of How Liberals Created Neo-Conservatism, due out next week. In it, amongst numerous other anecdotes of his life behind the scenes in Washington and in front of the cameras at PBS, Wattenberg mentions one example of the Gipper discussing--quite accurately--his recollections of one intersection of LF and the New Deal on his PBS series back in 1981.

Wattenberg writes:

I must offer here a word of sympathy for the oft-battered members of the press. I, too, have experienced the thrill of the chase. In 1981, my ex-AEI colleague Dave Gergen was on Ronald Reagan’s White House communications staff. I got a one-on-one interview with President Reagan for my weekly documentary program Ben Wattenberg at Large. I ran through many of his views and policies: his optimism, his conservatism, the federal budget, the role of the federal government in relation to the states, Cuba, El Salvador, the Soviet Union, the safety net, and more.

But not long into the interview I asked him about his support of President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Depression years. Here are some excerpts of what he said, and the reaction I had:

REAGAN: I have known [FDR’s] sons for years. I know their own conversations about what he believed. I think [FDR] always thought that the things that were being done were in the nature of medicine for a sick patient. But people attracted to government and to government positions in those years, in many instances, did not view the medicine as temporary. If you remember, I was assailed during the campaign for saying that many of the New Dealers actually espoused what today has become an epithet--fascism--in that they spoke of how Mussolini had made the trains run on time....

ME (in my head): Bing!

REAGAN: They saw in what he said he was doing—a planned economy. Harold lckes [FDR’s secretary of the interior] said that what we are striving for was a kind of modified form of communism.

Me (in my head): Bing! Bing!

REAGAN: I don’t really believe that was really in Roosevelt’s mind. I think that, had he lived, and with the war over, we would have seen him using government the other way.

What was I binging about? It was not about Reagan’s views of the New Deal or Harold Ickes. It was about a news story for our program. I knew that Mussolini and Communism would be newsworthy. If I hadn’t been wired for television I think I might have jumped out of my chair and given Reagan a big wet kiss.

Sure enough The Washington Post ran:

Reagan Still Sure
Some in New Deal Espoused Fascism

President Reagan remains convinced that many New Deal advisors to President Franklin D. Roosevelt espoused fascism and spoke admiringly of Mussolini’s Italian Fascist regime...

It is an idea Reagan first voiced in 1976 and has repeated several times, most recently in an interview with Ben Wattenberg to be broadcast on the Public Broadcasting Service Friday night.

Publicity for a television program in the competing print media is very hard to get. There are so many television programs...

And so many books, but Wattenberg's Fighting Words is great read, as Wattenberg discusses his journey from writing speeches for LBJ to becoming a pioneering neoconservative. Look for my interview tomorrow, when PJM Political airs in its new timeslot on XM's POTUS '08 channel #130--1:00 PM EDT/10:00 AM PDT. We'll put the podcast version up later tomorrow as well, here.

If you missed it on XM, the latest edition of PJM Political is now online, featuring extended interviews with Jonah Goldberg and Kathy Shaidle on Canada's Thought Police, plus Michael Silence on AP's dunning notices to the Blogosphere, and Andrew Breitbart on the untimely passing of Tim Russert.

Plus James Lileks and Bill Bradley!

I know it's designed as a hit piece against McCain, but Fred Kaplan's Slate article sounds remarkably reassuring in spite of its author's intentions:

Many foreign-policy mavens have wondered which John McCain would step to the fore once he started running for president in earnest—the McCain who consorts with such pragmatists as Richard Armitage, Colin Powell, and George Shultz; or the McCain who huddles with "neocons" like Robert Kagan, John Bolton, and William Kristol (before he started writing op-eds for the New York Times).

Last month, the Times published a story about the battle for McCain's soul that's being waged by those two factions.

On Tuesday, McCain cleared up the mystery: He's with the neocons. He is, fundamentally, in sync with the foreign policy pursued by George W. Bush for his first six years in office.

Compare and contrast the above with Jennifer Rubin's take on Obama's Middle East advisors:

I have no doubt that Obama’s staff will rush forward to declare, as they have before, that Brzezinski is only a informal adviser. But the question remains why Obama has had a retinue of advisors (both formal and not) like Brzezinski, McPeak, and Malley who hold views so antithetical to Obama’s supposedly unassailable record and views on Israel. You can understand how rational voters, Jewish or not, would conclude that something is amiss and wonder why Obama does not disassociate himself entirely from these people. But no, those Jews are just hung up on Obama’s name and the phony emails about Obama’s Muslim upbringing. That must be it.

Heh.

Incidentally, Rubin, along with Tammy Bruce, Ed Morrissey, and Steve Schmidt, a senior McCain campaign adviser, were the guests this week on PJM Political. If you missed it on XM's POTUS '08 channel today, tune in here.

If you missed it on XM Satellite Radio's POTUS '08 channel today, the latest PJM Political is online, here.

(Two guesses as to the main subject matter this week.)

Update: Just changed the photo of Hillary--that photo of her in the sunglasses that Drudge currently has up is too much.

You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, it's not surprising that people get bitter, they cling to guns or religion, and they tune into the latest edition of PJM Political, featuring Mark Steyn, Michael Yon, James Lileks—and more!

(You have no idea how close I came to using the above uber-pretentious late-1980s high-MTV era-inspired title on the actual PJM post.)

The latest podcast edition of PJM Political on XM Satellite Radio is now online:

As host Bill Bradley notes, John McCain+David Letterman=Comedy Gold! Plus:

• David Harsanyi on The McCain/Lieberman connection: As Harsanyi writes in his Denver Post column: Is McCain now a Lieberman Democrat? Or is Lieberman a McCain Republican? Or, is there any difference? And how do the two men fit into Harsanyi's Nanny State book?
• Begun the Wiki Wars Have! Matthew Sheffield of Newsbusters notes that the entries for the three remaining presidential candidates inside the online anarchopedia are ground Zero in hardscrabble text warfare.

• Roger Kimball of Pajamas and the New Criterion on Tariq Ali's silly nostalgie de la sixties.
• Produced by Ed Driscoll.

For those who missed it on XM yesterday, the newest PJM Political is now online, with extra monkeyfishing for your added podcasting pleasure:

It's Tuzla-Palooza this week, as host Bill Bradley analyzes the CBS clip that showed a distinct lack of sniper fire 12 years ago when the former First Lady dropped in on Bosnia. Plus:

• Frank Martin of Varifrank tells A Tale Of Two Tankers--with both a John McCain connection, and even a synchronistic Sinbadian Tuzla tie-in!
• James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal's "Best of the Web Today" column would rather be monkeyfishing--and who wouldn't?
• Cartoonist/graphic designer Chris Muir explains how he lives life Day By Day.
• And PBS producer/financial author Jim Schlagheck gives his economic prescription to the next occupant of the White House to Glenn Reynolds and Dr. Helen Smith.
• Produced by Ed Driscoll.

Ten days on the road, and I'm gonna make it home tonight, to slightly paraphrase Dave Dudley, not to mention the Flying Burrito Brothers at a far worse road gig than I just returned from.

Watch for regular blogging to resume Friday. And the podcast version of this week's edition of PJM Political on XM Satellite Radio's POTUS '08 channel, featuring James Taranto, Chris Muir, Frank Martin (sans Sigourney, unfortunately), and host Bill Bradley, to go live on the newly revised Pajamas site tomorrow as well.

Assuming some or all of the hyperlinks and MP3 files work, the special Road Warrior edition of PJM Political that I produced while I'm on the East Coast this week is online here. Show topics include:

Carly Fiorina was once the CEO of Hewlett-Packard. These days, she's working for John McCain, as another CEO--Roger L. Simon of Pajamas Media--discovers. And host Bill Bradley on the little-discussed speech that McCain's presumptive opponent quietly gave in Philadelphia this week. Plus:

Jonah Goldberg of National Review Online explains how, as he puts it, Valerie Bertinelli's "lesbian kisses and diet tips" knocked his book Liberal Fascism from atop the NYT Best-Seller List!

James Lileks test drives his Reverend Jeremiah Wright impersonation. (Don't try this at home, kids.)

Michael Barone says the decade's Red and Blue State maps will be thrown out the window in November.

Tune in, here!

And the latest PJM Political is online, here.

Two guesses as to one of the main topics of conversation.

If you missed Hugh Hewitt's show yesterday because you were listening to Pajamas' PJM Political on XM satellite radio, you can tune-in here and catch two hours of Jonah Goldberg discussing Liberal Fascism.

If you missed PJM Political yesterday because you were listening to Hugh Hewitt, you can catch it here.

And for a sneak preview of next week's PJM Political, take a listen to Austin Bay's interview with Tom Bevan of Real Clear Politics.

That's the topic of this new Politico article. But Ed Morrissey, Duane Patterson and I discussed the idea on Ed's Blog Talk Radio show and Pajamas' PJM Political XM show two and a half months ago!

On this week's PJM Political, Glenn Reynolds and I debate David Shuster's now-infamous "PimpGate" remark on MSNBC. Plus a look inside the Romney campaign's sprawling Mitt TV Internet video operation, and a full wrap-up of Chesapeake Tuesday.

As part of their Super Tuesday coverage, Roger Simon and I were interviewed by XM's senior director of news programming, Scott Walterman. At one point, Scott asked us about the enormous sums of money that Ron Paul has raised, largely via the Internet. Scott asked us what will happen to that war chest when Ron drops out of the race: well, now we know.

If you missed Pajamas' weekly show on XM's POTUS '08 presidential election channel, tune in here:

Rudy Giuliani and John Edwards head for the sidelines, and Bill Clinton dusts off the memories of Jesse Jackson in South Carolina, plus:

Host Bill Bradley on John McCain's comeback, the Kennedys' endorsement of Obama, and a preview of Super Tuesday.

Jonathan Last of the Weekly Standard on the campaign trail with Bill Clinton.

Bridget Johnson on "California's New Starring Role in the Presidential Primaries."

Mary Katharine Ham on being dubbed "The Worst Person In The World" by a little known talk show on public access cable TV.

Produced by Ed Driscoll.

For extended versions of the interviews featured on the show, don’t miss this week’s PJM Political “Director’s Cut Interviews.”

Ezra Levant writes:

I was interviewed on the XM satellite radio channel "POTUS '08". Click here to hear it. I'm not sure how a radio channel dedicated to the 2008 U.S. presidential election found a way to dedicate 15 minutes to a case of Canadian censorship, where the CBC's several radio channels have been silent on the subject.

That's an easy one--Ezra's story went from Little Green Footballs to Hot Air to Instapundit to the Pajamas motherblog, stopping by for a cup of coffee on my blog as well. Since it seemed to resonate so much with Pajamas' bloggers--not to mention readers--it seemed to me that it was a topic we should explore on Pajamas' radio show, even if it's a story only tangentially related to the 2008 election. (Presumably, we'll be back to wall-to-wall election horse race coverage next week.)

Ezra Levant was our special guest this week on PJM Political, in which he discussed his infamous videotaped kerfuffle with the Alberta Human Rights Commission.

Also on the show were David Frum on his new book, Comeback:Conservatism That Can Win Again, Patrick Cox, who was Fred Thompson's first campaign hire, and James Lileks.

Tune in here to listen to the whole show, or here to go straight to my interview with Ezra.

While Bill Bradley has a cogent and reasoned post-mortem of New Hampshire in this week's edition of PJM Political on XM Satellite Radio's POTUS '08 channel, others aren't as reserved.

Some on the left blame Diebold for Obama's loss--which would implicate Hillary's campaign in a pretty giant conspiracy, if true. Others? Well, as Michelle Malkin bluntly puts it, "Chris Matthews: New Englanders are lying bigots."

But both examples are predicated on ideas hatched in fever swamps. What is it with the left's ability to divide and conquer their own constituents?

Update: And speaking of New Hampshire and fever swamps...

More: Related thoughts and links via Glenn Reynolds.

Just had a great interview with Steve Forbes, which, barring any huge breaking developments, should air as a segment of next weeks' PJM Political.

And this week's show? It airs tonight at 7:00 PM eastern/4:00 PM pacific, but you--yes you!--can hear it now. Need need to thank us--just consider it part of the rich assortment of swanky free virtual swag that provide our readers here at Ed Driscoll.com on a regular basis...

Who better than Iowahawk himself to educate voters on the important role our nation's 29th state plays in presidential politics:

Iowa is a Microcosm of America. A one-day national presidential primary (as some analysts have recommended) would be prohibitively expensive for all but the most well-funded candidates, and make 'dark horse' campaigns virtually impossible. Democracy is better served by a small scale contest that allows for grassroots candidates to build momentum, while representing the country as a whole. Luckily, Iowa is an almost perfect miniaturized 1/100th scale model of the United States. For example, Northeastern iowa is filled with gritty and glitzy urban financial centers like Dubuque, "Iowa's New York." Iowa's Missouri River West Coast teems with hi-tech Gay entertainment centers like Sioux City ("The San Francisco of Iowa") and Council Bluffs ("The Malibu of Iowa"). With its fashionable supermodel nightclubs and machine gun-wielding drug lords, far southeastern Keokuk is our Miami Beach. And, in the center of it all, there is Des Moines, which is famous as "the Des Moines of Iowa."

Iowa is also widely known as "The Diversity State," with its vibrant Norwegian-American community and its equally vibrant German-American community, not to mention a growing population of German-Norwegian-American halfbreed mestizos. And, according to the most recent U.S. Census, Iowa has twice as many African-Americans as New Hampshire, and both of them are keenly involved in the political process.

Read the whole thing, then drop by this week's edition of PJM Political for more Iowa-tastic politics!

Update: As if Iowahawk's introduction isn't enough, he's also live blogging the rich futuristic psychosexual fission that is the Iowa Caucus.

John Bolton will join Tammy Bruce at 3:00 PM pacific, along with Claudia Rossett, as Tammy sits in this week for Larry Elder on L.A.'s KABC.

And if you can't tune into that, don't miss PJM Political on XM's POTUS '08 channel at 6:00 PM eastern/3:00 PM pacific. (Podcast online--so tune into Tammy, then listen here.)

This International Herald-Tribune article titled, "In Italy, a winter of discontent" sounds very much like a micro-version of Mark Steyn's opus "It's The Demography, Stupid", which originally appeared in The New Criterion before running in Opinion Journal.

And speaking of which, both Mark and Roger Kimball of the New Criterion appeared on this week's edition of PJM Political on XM's POTUS '08 channel, which can you listen to, here.

If you haven't stopped by yet, this week's PJM Political features:

Jonah Goldberg and Hugh Hewitt discuss CNN's Virtual Reality during last Wednesday's GOP YouTube Debate. Also on the show:

Host Bill Bradley discusses the surprising surges of Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee.

Mary Katharine Ham explains how she made the leap from the newspaper to new media.

James Lileks uncovers the Huckabee/Hanna-Barbera connection.

Joe Mathieu tells Pajamas' Austin Bay what makes the POTUS '08 Channel tick.

Produced by Ed Driscoll.

Tune in here to listen!

In case you missed it, yesterday's show on XM satellite radio's POTUS '08 channel is available for downloading here. Pretty nifty line-up, too:

Join host Bill Bradley for thoughts on yesterday's GOP YouTube/CNN debate, plus:

Pajamas CEO Roger L. Simon and Bob Owens of Confederate Yankee interview Sen. Fred Thompson regarding the future of America's War On Terror.

Should Thompson not get the nomination, Ed Morrissey and Duane Patterson (producer of The Hugh Hewitt Show) discuss his chances as a GOP vice presidential nominee.

Glenn Reynolds and Dr. Helen Smith discuss the upcoming Supreme Court case involving the Second Amendment with Robert Levy of the CATO Institute.

Liz Stephans and Scott Baker of Breitbart.TV on the role of YouTube and viral online video in the 2008 presidential election.

Produced by Ed Driscoll.

For extended versions of each of today's segments, and the video of the Thompson interview don't miss this week's PJM Political "Director's Cut Interviews."

For podcasting techies wondering what I used to record the segments with Liz and Scott, and the previous segments from the last two weeks' shows all recorded earlier this month from Blog World in Las Vegas, I simply used my trusty Samson Zoom H4 Handy Recorder (which has a pair of pro-style XLR jacks, visible in the photo that accompanies the Videomaker review), a pair of Shure SM58 mics, and a pair of tabletop mic stands. The Zoom recorder uses an SD card, and an 2-gig sized card provides about two hours of audio, which can quickly be ported over to a PC's hard drive and then into your DAW program of choice for editing and mixdown.

I threw them all into a suitcase before heading to Vegas just as a lark, but I was astounded at how clean the audio was, even with the roar of Vegas Convention Center crowd all around, which is why I ended up doing so many interviews there. The trick, I think, is the Shure SM58s. There's a reason why so many rock groups use them on-stage and on live recordings--their cardioid input pattern makes them great at focusing the loudest sounds (which normally should be the person talking/singing/playing into them) and de-emphasizing the background noise.

We have a special political junkie's Thanksgiving survival guide this week on PJM Political, by the way.

(I threw caution to the wind and selected yet another scene cut from the watered-down first season of Sesame Street to illustrate the post...)

Just had a terrific afternoon visit to XM satellite radio's headquarters in Washington DC, to visit the production facilities for their POTUS '08 channel. It was a pleasure to finally meet Joe Mathieu in person after exchanging weekly emails and phone calls regarding PJM Political, and to also meet his fellow on-air talent, Rebecca Roberts and Tim Farley. (Not to mention spending a few minutes on the air discussing Pajamas and its origins in between the big story of the day.) XM has quite a production facility--on the other hand, in a way, it's also a slightly more compact than you might imagine. Just as today's technology allows individual blogs to punch far above their weight, it also allows a single facility in DC to pump over a hundred channels of audio out into the hinterlands via satellite.

The latest PJM Political is online--click here to listen!

Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of the Blogosphere, PJM Political, hosted by Bill Bradley, catches up with Colonel Austin Bay in Abu Dhabi, Richard Miniter and Vaclav Havel in the Czech Republic, and extensive coverage of last week’s BlogWorld & New Media Expo in Las Vegas, including interviews with:

Glenn Reynolds, from An Army of Davids to the limits of the Blogosphere.

Hugh Hewitt on changing lives, one Blog at a time, and A Mormon In The White House.

Ed Morrissey on a talk radio station that’s open to all, and interviewing Rudy Giuliani.

Stephen Green on Vodka, Vegas, Hillary, and Peggy Noonan.

Pajamas CEO Roger Simon looks ahead--next year’s BlogWorld, and to later this month, when he interviews Fred Thompson.

Rick Calvert, the CEO of BlogWorld Expo, on putting it all together.

James Lileks: Will Hillary revoke Wolf Blitzer’s license?

Bill Bradley: Has Elliot Spitzer revoked Hillary’s license?

Produced on location by moi.

Extended versions of several of this week's segments can be found here. Finally, if you missed any previous episodes of PJM Political, click here and scroll through for hours of audio archives.

Just got into San Jose airport, and back home from Vegas. While I was there, I recorded a ton of audio from Pajamas' booth at the BlogWorld convention. Watch--err, listen--for this in the coming weeks in future episodes of PJM Political.

Update: Speaking of audio, "Nothing says blogger party like subdued hip hop", as Duane Patterson writes, complete with a short video clip of such "music" at the Thursday night Pajamas Party at Blog World. It's proof that not everything was smooth sailing on Blog World's maiden voyage.

By the way, it was a pleasure to finally meet both Duane and Ed Morrissey for the first time in person, and they graciously allowed me to sit in on their regular gig at Blog Talk Radio. I appear about 20 minutes into show, after Ed's interview with Rudy Giuliani (via scrambled subspace radio from the planet Skyron), and N.Z. Bear, who was there at Blog World, but sadly I didn't get a chance to talk much.

If you missed our weekly episode of PJM Political on XM Satellite Radio's POTUS '08 Channel today, you can listen to it here.

You'll hear:

Host Bill Bradley asks: Is John Edwards going to sacrifice himself to take down Hillary Clinton?

Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post and CNN’s Reliable Sources discusses his new book, Reality Show: Inside The Last Great Television News War.

Pajamas' own Corn & Miniter Show (With Eli Lake of the New York Sun sitting in for Richard Miniter), explore the winners and losers of the Democrats’ recent debate.

Austin Bay of Pajamas' Blog Week In Review podcast interviews Heather Mac Donald and Steven Malanga, co-authors of The Immigration Solution, with an emphasis on Hillary, Russert, and last week's debate.

James Lileks, master of the Bleat and purveyor of Gastroanomalies.

Glenn Reynolds and Dr. Helen Smith ponder if Hillary Clinton is “a daring girl.”

David Paul Kuhn of Politico.com spots The Neglected Voter: White Men and the Democratic Dilemma.

Pajamas CEO Roger L. Simon and Blogosphere pioneer Mickey Kaus debate Fred Thompson’s latest campaign ad.

Produced by yours truly.

Extended versions of several of this week's segments can be found here. Finally, if you missed any previous episodes of PJM Political, click here and scroll through for hours of audio archives.

Frustrated at the thought of a Hollywood writers strike? Roger L. Simon suggests the perfect replacement for your favorite weekly show. Tune in each Thursday!

If you missed this week's episode of PJM Political, which airs 6:00 PM and 11:00 PM Eastern each Thursday on XM's POTUS '08 Channel, click here to listen to the podcast version, which is now online at Pajamas HQ.

Show highlights include host Bill Bradley asking: Was Tim Russert Hillary's strongest opposition in Tuesday night's debate?

Also on today's show:

John Fund of the Wall Street Journal explains "Who is Mike Huckabee?" and why Huckabee was so perturbed with Fund's recent Opinion Journal profile that he wrote his own rebuttal.

Pajamas' own Corn & Miniter, discuss the winners and losers of the recent GOP Debate--beyond John McCain, who certainly won the soundbite award.

Don Surber of the Charleston Daily Mail wonders how a young journalism student got under the Edwards campaign's skin.

Austin Bay of Pajamas' Blog Week In Review podcast interviews Michael Ledeen, author of The Iranian Time Bomb

Virginia Postrel of The Atlantic and her own Dynamist blog explains the issue that she says may be as important as religion in explaining the divide between America's red and blue states.

Steve Green of VodkaPundit confesses: "I Was a Card-Carrying Libertarian."

Pajamas CEO Roger L. Simon and Pajamas Express journalist Ron Rosenbaum go in search of campaign coverage black holes.

Produced by yours truly!

Finally, if you missed any previous episodes of PJM Political, click here and scroll through for hours of audio archives.

No, that's a new law firm, it's the guests on this week's PJM Political show. The MP3 version of this week's PJM Political on XM Satellite Radio's POTUS '08 channel is now online--tune in here to listen!

What does GOP presidential hopeful Gov. Mitt Romney say about HillaryCare and other issues? Glenn Reynolds and Dr. Helen Smith interview the former Massachusetts governor. ( Full-length interview here.)

Other topics discussed in this week's show, hosted by Bill Bradley, include:

Diana West of the Washington Times on her new book, The Death of the Grown-Up, and the dearth of grown-ups on the 2008 campaign trail. (Full-length interview here.)

Gray Lady Down! Michael Malone, ABC News' "Silicon Insider" on "How The New York Times Fell Apart." Will the Blogosphere pick up the pieces in '08? (Full-length interview here.)

James Lileks on Ron Paul and his....dedicated...fans.

US News & World Report's James Pethokoukis: Will subprime mortgage woes equal a subprime economy in '08?

Corn & Miniter on the first GOP candidate to leave the race.

Bill Bradley compares and contrasts the response to the Southern California fires with Katrina in '05.

Roger Simon on the campaign trail.

Produced by yours truly.

Finally, if you missed any previous episodes of PJM Political, click here and scroll through for hours of audio archives.

The MP3 version of this week's PJM Political on XM Satellite Radio's POTUS '08 channel is now online--tune in here to listen!

PJM Political spends a fair amount of time in the Minnesotan corner of the Blogosphere this week, as Captain Ed Morrissey interviews GOP presidential hopeful, Senator John McCain. Also joining host Bill Bradley are:

John Hinderaker and Paul Mirengoff of Power Line, Time magazine's "2004 Blog of the Year" on the state of the 2008 election.

James Lileks, the Bard of Minneapolis.

And from beyond the Twin Cities:

The Glenn & Helen Show, featuring energy efficiency guru Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute with his advice to the 2008 candidates.

Govindini Murty and "Dirty Harry" of the Pajamas-affiliated conservative film blog, Libertas on Hollywood's role in the 2008 presidential election.

The Corn & Miniter Show, featuring David Corn, Richard Miniter, and dozens of oysters on the half-shell.

Steve Green of VodkaPundit and Jeff Goldstein of Protein Wisdom, with their unique take on the candidates and their foibles.

And host Bill Bradley on the state--precarious and otherwise--of the candidates' finances.

Produced by yours truly. And yes, my voice was shot this week.

And for extended "Director's Cut" podcast versions of several of this week's segments, click here.

Finally, if you missed our previous episodes of PJM Political, listen here.

Fellow Silicon Valley resident Alan D. Mutter writes, "As if the mainstream media didn’t have enough trouble navigating the uncharted realm of digital innovation, they are losing many of the young, technologically astute employees who could be their guides":

“What am I doing here?” a talented young designer and programmer working at a publishing company asked me recently. “These guys don’t get it. I’ve got to get out. I’m just wasting my time.”

Like the others quoted in this article, the young journalist is not being named, so as to protect his livelihood until he bails out of his MSM job.

He summed up the frustration of the twenty- and thirty-something professionals who grew up with a keyboard at their fingertips and an iPod, or at least a Walkman, plugged in their ears. They use modern media the way their generation does, not the way their fifty-something bosses wish they would.

But the young net natives, for the most part, rank too low in the organizations that employ them to be invited to the pivotal discussions determining the strategic initiatives that could help their employers sustain their franchises.

“In most organizations, the people with the most online experience have the least political capital,” said one mid-level online editor at a newspaper. “It seems like the pace of change inside media is slowing, tied up in politics and lack of expertise in managing technical projects – while the pace of change is continuing apace outside our windows.”

I don't have too much else to add to Glenn Reynolds' comments on the Washington Post's Marc Fisher's drive-by shot at XM satellite radio's new POTUS '08 channel, or Pajamas' weekly contribution to the 24-hour channel, PJM Political. Except to note that, just as former CBS (and later CNN) executive Jonathan Klein was unnerved that "a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing" could expose Dan Rather promulgating forged documents (to borrow from Pajamas CEO Roger L. Simon's weekly introduction to the PJM Political), it might surprise the WaPo's Fisher that the elements that go into the PJM Political show are assembled almost entirely in a series of home studios. Including the Glenn & Helen Show, Austin Bay's Blog Week In Review, James Lileks' segment, and my own interviews linking them together. Not to mention all of the editing, mixing and mastering, which I do on an a high-end PC designed primarily for music production, and armed with some pretty nifty audio software.

And while I'm proud of what we've been able to do on PJM Political, I still think the ultimate example of DIY production is England's 18 Doughty Street. Every day, they self-produce hours of high-definition live television for the Internet out of a London townhouse. I'm not sure if I'd want to do that! (At least not on a daily basis.)

As Mutter writes in the above link, the 20 and 30-somethings working in the nation's newsrooms know that this sort of programming really is the future of news--even if their bosses would rather stick with a model that's been outdated since Tim Berners-Lee found a way in 1989 to run a user-friendly graphical Web on top of an Internet that was already two decades old.

(And just wait 'til the 64-bit revolution in computing really starts to power the Army of Davids and their multimedia efforts.

(Via Small Dead Animals, whose graphic of a large and equally dead flyblown reptile couldn't be more appropriate for their post.)

In case you haven't seen the links from the Insta- and VodkaPundits, as well as the one-man global pundit (thank you gentlemen!), this week's PJM Political is online now, and will be on XM in about an hour and a half.

I think we assembled a pretty good show, if I do say so myself:

You'll hear Mark Steyn, the one-man global content provider, discussing his best-selling America Alone in the context of the 2008 election. Also joining host Bill Bradley are:

Laura Ingraham on an excerpt of the Glenn & Helen Show discussing her new book, Power to the People.

Amity Shlaes, on her best-selling look at the Depression, The Forgotten Man, (about which Rudy Giuliani recently told talker Glenn Beck that "it would be great for everybody to read it").

James Lileks, the Bard of Minnesota.

University professor/blogger Steve Boriss on the Future Of News, and its immediate future: the upcoming election year.

Jules Crittenden of the Boston Herald and his own Pajamas-affiliated blog on the transnational synchronicity of Katie Couric and Barack Obama's near-simultaneous flag pin kerfuffles.

Steve Green of Pajamas-affiliated VodkaPundit and Bill Bradley on Tuesday's GOP debate.

Roger Simon and Bruce Carroll of Pajamas-affiliated Gay Patriot on the first Democratic debate aimed towards the GLBT community.

Err, and me!

Finally, if you missed our first two episodes of PJM Political, listen here.

Click here for further details, or tune into #130 on your XM dial, the POTUS channel.

And if George, Bill, George and Jimmy are tuning in, remember, this offer still stands....