Akademik

n.

Bloggers who expose errors made by the traditional media; people whose activism consists solely of emails and online posts. [pajama + Mujahadeen]

Rather has made clear he believes that those clad in pajamas and typing on computers are in no position to judge him. Our role, in his vision, is to passively imbibe his disinformative propaganda the way geese receive cornmeal to make fois grae [sic]. He sits behind his anchor desk, confident that his status is impenetrable and that any attack made by the Pajamahadeen against his position would be a useless gesture, no matter what technical errors we may have proved.

—Ed Driscoll, " 'Sixth Avenue Bloodbath': http://pajamasmedia.com/eddriscoll/2010/09/24/sixth-avenue-bloodbath/," Ed Driscoll.com, September 24, 2010

Yesterday, a reader emailed me a "terrorism awareness" video titled "The Violent Oppression of Women in Islam." ... Never mind that none of these swivel chair soldiers gave a rat's ass about women's rights in these and other places ... And still, the cry goes out, whenever these pajamahadeen want to attack Islam, where are the feminists?

—Antonia Zerbisias, " Women lose out, regardless of religion: http://www.thestar.com/living/article/599953," The Toronto Star, March 11, 2009

Dan Rather and John Roberts just ignored everything that has been revealed about the memos in the past few days.

—Jim Geraghty, " Saddle up, Pajamahadeen!: http://old.nationalreview.com/kerry/kerry200409141849.asp," The Kerry Spot, September 14, 2004

I realize I'm a tad late with this one, but there you go. In case all this is new to you, the pajama part of pajamahadeen comes from an infamous remark made by Jonathan Klein, a former CBS executive in charge of the program 60 Minutes. Klein was defending Dan Rather, who back in 2004 presented documents that raised questions about the National Guard service of George W. Bush. A small army of bloggers showed that those documents were forged. However, in a September 9, 2004 Fox News debate with the writer Stephen Hayes, Mr. Klein trashed the bloggers:

"You couldn't have a starker contrast between the multiple layers of checks and balances [in professional journalism] and a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing."

Those bloggers took the insult to heart by combining the words pajama and Mujahadeen ("fighter") and making the resulting blend a badge of honor. The American Dialect Society crowned pajamahadeen the Most Creative Word of 2004. The word is still around today, but as you can see from the second example citation, it now also has a pejorative sense.