Only Your Friends Will Tell You: Pajamas Media

To say TMR has a love/hate relationship with Pajamas Media would be an understatement (as our frequent comments about Glenn Reynolds' Instapundit make clear - more on that in a minute). But, by far, the strongest voice in their conservative empire is Bill Whittle (above) with his scorecard for the first half of President Obama's time in office being a(nother) fine example why they matter so much to us.

On the other hand, it seems that no matter what they do, they always have a tendency for screwing it up - a charge we're sure Professor Reynolds would throw back at us in a heartbeat - and the video, above, is a perfect example of what we mean:

Hey, folks, what the hell happened to Afterburner?



Whittle's work is still outstanding, but that dramatic 21st century opening to Bill Whittle's commentary - which closed with a single arresting fading synth tone - was perfection for what he does. So why the name change (to Firewall) and those cheesy-looking flame thrower graphics?

They did the same thing (minus the name change) to Andrew Klavan's Klaven On The Culture. Here's the old opening, with the program's multi-televisioned theme, which was brilliant:



And here's the new idea - featuring Klavan's signature - which is boring and, basically, sucks:



Why, guys? Don't you realize, like any painter would, that when you get something right you're supposed to stop painting? Do you see 60 Minutes (which these two PJTV segments remind us of) abandoning the stop watch?

And - if you're going to tinker with anything - why can't you get the boss, Roger L. Simon, to get rid of that damned hat? Aren't you all in this together? What's the matter with you?

And what happened to Alfonzo Rachel (AKA Zo/Macho Sauce)? He started off as smart, street, funny, angry, content-laden and ultraconservative, only to go to PJTV and become this:



The Rolling Stones? Are you kidding? There go the majority of black viewers. And his stuff has never really recovered.

Speaking of black viewers, we have no problem - yet - with either:

Sonja Schmidt,...

...or Joe Hicks' segments, though we miss "The Hicks File", which seems to have been replaced by the "Minority Report". Can't PJTV just have two winning segments by Joe?

The segments that aren't working are Trifecta (boring) Kruiser Control (not funny) Ed Driscoll (too funny looking and with a bizarre speaking voice) and yes, our ol' pal, Mr. Deer-In-The-Headlights himself, Glenn Reynolds (told you we'd get there - read on:)

Believe it or not, we love Glenn Reynolds. We think Instapundit provides an invaluable public service and deserves to be the catalyst/gathering spot for the Tea Party Movement that it is. As we've said many times, we've been honored when he's linked to our pieces, and been awed by the power he welds online. But,...but,...but,..

Awww, for once, no "buts" - like Pajamas Media itself, we find Reynolds frustrating because he's so good. Not always to our taste, but still damned good.

May he, and everyone at Pajamas Media, carry on for a long, long time.