....[W]e need to have a master plan to do the same thing to the right that they've done to us since the Reagan years. There's a whole new generation of Democrats who aren't afraid to be labeled as "liberal," and as Bai says, we're "wiring a vast left-wing conspiracy."

A blogger writing for FishBowlDC, according to his self description he hardly appears to be the amateur Jeff Gannon was accused of being:

Garrett Graff is vice president of communications at EchoDitto, Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based technology consulting firm. A Vermont native, he served formerly as deputy national press secretary on Howard Dean's presidential campaign and, beginning in 1997, was then-Governor Dean's first webmaster. In college, he was a news writer and executive editor at the Harvard Crimson, Harvard University's daily newspaper, where he wrote more news articles than any other writer in half-a-century and held internships at ABCNews' Political Unit and at the Atlantic Monthly. He is also a frequent speaker on blogging and the intersection of politics and technology.

And more than a little bored. Gannon was interesting, but this FishBowl guy strikes me as warmed over affirmative action for leftists who demand access and bully their way in. (But I've never had much desire to be where I'm not wanted, so I'll probably never understand the mindset.)

Graff is another left wing journalist. He started a blog and now he has a White House pass.

The fact remains, though, that Graff is a media professional by any standard. Being a deputy national press secretary for a leading presidential campaign, and having written "more news articles than any other writer in half-a-century" hardly qualifies him for the role of vindicated little guy.

I don't know why, but for the first time in my life, I feel like going out and buying a pair of pajamas.

MORE: (I guess I should catch up on blog reading before I write anything in the morning.....)

Bill Quick thinks Graff's background should be immediately investigated. (Via Glenn Reynolds, who playfully calls Graff a blogger.)

UPDATE: Via the ever-alert Michael Demmons, I found this insight from Stephen Green:

I think it's important - even vital - for bloggers to remain outside the system.

Stephen has more:

We're outsiders. We're cranks. We aren't caught up in the system. Those are our strengths. As individuals, they can be weaknesses – even a moderately successful blog like this one is read by only a few thousand people each day. But in aggregate, the blogosphere works because we aren't enjoying expense account dinners with the Assistant Undersecretary of State for Screwing Things Up in Some Already Screwed Up Place. We don't consider the personalities we write about to be friends or sources. We have our causes, but we don't have to hide them behind a threadbare veil of "impartiality." We aren't being whispered sweet nothings (and being paid sweet somethings) by powerful lobby groups – well, I'm not, anyway. We know exactly where Power stops and We begin: Right here, at our keyboards.

Media, government, whatever – to us, everything is fair game. Whatever respect blogs have earned in the last couple of years, we've earned in part because we aren't politicians, appointees, slick columnists, blow-dried TV personalities – or flunkies to any of the above. We own ourselves. We aren't caught up in the system.

The blogger who gets access, is the blogger on the road to irrelevance if he doesn't watch himself.

What I think puts excitement in blogs is their role as alternative media -- with emphasis on the alternative.

To borrow from Groucho Marx, I shouldn't want to join any club which would have me as a member. (Not that I'm especially worried, because I'm just not up to anyone's standards.)

Am I alone in thinking that there's a crazy yin-yang aspect to all this? Is it that once a blogger has "arrived," it may be a sign that he's about to depart?

MORE: Conservative pundit Jonah Goldberg (who also blogs), has a different take than mine, but it's worth reading:

Left-wing bloggers believe they are part of the same "revolution" as right-wing bloggers are. They're not. The conservative blogs are the shock troops of a decades-long battle to seize back the culture. Conservatives have always had to rely on "alternative media" — magazines, AM radio, blogs — because the Mainstream Media closed the door to conservatives. And even when they let a few token ones in, they had to be labeled "conservative" first and journalists a distant second. The lefty blogs are something else entirely. They represent — much like the still-lame liberal talk radio and the new liberal think tanks — an attempt to copycat conservative successes. Their fight is not with the monolithic mainstream media (or academia) but with the usurpers. Politics is not a battle of technology. It is a battle of ideas, and therein lies all the difference.

If you have to "seize" it with "shock troops," it ain't culture. In my view, culture wars simply do not work, as they tend to destroy culture in the name of saving it. (Or, as in the case of the deconstructionists, in the name of destroying it.....)

UPDATE: I see that Glenn Reynolds has been severely taken to task for linking to the very same autobiographical sketch from Graff's own blog! (How utterly malevolent!) This leads ultimately to what the "News Editor" calls "the question at hand":

is InstaPundit puerile, an imbecile, lazy, or merely an asswipe?

MORE: The "asswipe" remark issued from the "tongues" and "lips" of an anonymous blogger who refers to himself as "News Editor" also known as "we." He (should I say "they?") accuses Glenn Reynolds of dishonesty because he dared to comment upon his strong emphasis of the phrase "gay hooker" to describe Jeff Gannon:

Fifth, there is absolutely nothing in The Advocate article above which proves, or posits, or suggests, or implies, or even vaguely alludes to the notion that, as Reynolds would have it, "the gay angle really was the big angle on Gannon [for the Left]."

No, Glenn, those are your Talking Points talking. Can't you tell the difference anymore?

Here at The Advocate we talk with our tongues, so please (speaking of conservative misrepresentations) read our lips on this one: the "gay hooker angle" made up two words out of our eighty-three-word biography of Gannon.

Again: 2 of 83.

Really makes it look like our "big angle," doesn't it?

Good Lord, are these guys debating with both brain cells tied behind their back or what? We demand a fair fight!].

Gay hooker. Uses Alias. Denied credentials by U.S. Senate and U.S. House. Had worked for a G.O.P. activist site for six days at the time of his application for a White House press pass. Received his journalism "degree" during a two-day "course" which set him back $50. Has a website on which he talks about guns. Fondly. Does not claim to be unbiased or non-partisan. Had never done any professional writing at the time of his application for a White House press pass.

The first two words in the biography!

The most important words!

Excuse me, but has the "News Editor" ever heard of the pyramid style of writing? Journalism 101? The most important information always comes first, and in a biography, the first words would be expected to describe the subject's most important occupation -- or whatever it is he is best known for. In this case, the "News Editor" thinks "gay hooker" is the lead item.

Duh! (I didn't even need to use both of my brain cells for that one.)

Advantage, Reynolds.

(Not that it's especially relevant here, but reading through the passage above, I get the distinct impression that the "News Editor" doesn't approve of gay men with guns.....)