I don’t know what the rest of you think, but I don’t know of any outlet (in our out of the mainstream media) with more original and pertinent things to say over the last couple of years about the global war on terror than The Belmont Club. The man who blogged pseudonymously as Wretchard the Cat was able to make connections that ran from Indonesia to Iraq with the knowing facility of a Graham Greene, but for our time.
When Charles and I were thinking about how to make PJMedia into the serious online news and opinion organization we dreamt of, we thought almost first of Wretchard. We contacted him and immediately he joined us, as if he too were waiting for a way to affiliate and raise the blogosphere to the next level. As you will see from his profile, Wretchard the Cat is Richard Fernandez. He is a young man whose extraordinary background helps explain his brilliant writing.
Richard will be Pajamas’ Australian Editor. That is, he will have the keys to the car and be responsible for our portal content while we sleep here in Los Angeles. Someone else, to be revealed shortly, will be doing the same from Western Europe at different hours.
Roger: Congratulations on a great acquisition to Pajamas Media–Wretchard’s posts will be the bench mark against which all posts should be measured when historians look backwards on the changing nature of the media.
His analyses are always top notch and you guys done really OK in getting him on board–you are putting together an AWESOME team.
Well done.
Congrats – looking forward to the debut of PJ Media.
Every addition to Pajamas Media has amplified my internal “wow” response geometrically. The possibilities that this absolutely stunning network of cooperative intelligence may reveal, stimulate, engage, or create, makes me tremble with anticipation.
Richard is one of my heroes. That’s right. Up there with Frank Lloyd Wright among others. Richard, I’m so happy for your success, and wish you nothing but good fortune!
Great synergy for PJMedia. I literally have the two of you as my top three favorites with Instapundit for daily checking.
Cheers!
Roger,
I feel (unduly) proud of myself for having stumbled on Belmont Club very early on, very soon after he started; I can’t even remember how I found wretchard. Probably someone more perceptive than me pointed me there.
Like the Bard above I have Roger L. Simon, InstaPundit and Belmont Club as my first sites to check every day.
Jamie Irons
Roger,
I feel (unduly) proud of myself for having stumbled on Belmont Club very early on, very soon after he started; I can’t even remember how I found wretchard. Probably someone more perceptive than me pointed me there.
Like the Bard above I have Roger L. Simon, InstaPundit and Belmont Club as my first sites to check every day.
Jamie Irons
Please forgive double post; internet connection glitch.
Jamie Irons
On the most important issues of the day, this network in the making, I predict, will prove to be more influential than the Ill-conceived Times Select. Why pay $49.95 for an inferior product?
Great news about the must read Wretchard. The go to guy on the global war against Islamic terrorist extremists.
Creme de la creme. Well done.
Keep the standards high. May I recommend some others for PJM? Try
Norm Geras
Brad DeLong
Daily Ablution
Across the Bay
ChicagoBoyz
medienkritik.de
also: Michael Yon from Iraq
RealClearPolitics, Instapundit, Roger, aldaily.com and Belmont constitute my daily rounds.
Fantastic pick up and will give you a great perspective closely aligned to actual events on the ground. Nice to know the young man’s name. Good Job Belmont, good job PJM.
BillRoggio and company are good too along with Securitywatch and WordUnheard for daily updates on the ground and around the world which do not get reported in MSM.
Now, you’re looking seriously at what can be done better in the blogosphere.
Here’s hoping he can bring together a tapestry of informed realtime opinion to the mix which is solely lacking across all media avenues today.
WTG!
Roger, I’ve made fun of your plan to rename PJM, but I’m in awe of the lineup you’ve recruited so far. Wretchard is top notch and I don’t go a day without reading him, Instapundit, Roger L. Simon and LGF. Congratulations
That’s a great addition, Roger. The quality of his comments section has slipped a lot since he got popular, but his own analysis is still top notch. I rarely form an opinion on an event in the WOT until I’ve had a chance to read his take on it.
I do think this has been Wretchard’s dream even before PJM…we talked about it once. Via email, anyway.
He’s not only astute, brilliant, and able to make connections the rest of us don’t see until he points them out (maybe that intuitive math brain), but he’s modest, too. Above all, though, I cherish Wrretch for his optimism. When everyone else was complaining about Iraq, he was able to show what was going right. He was definitely the candle in that particular darkness.
Maybe that’s what draws people? That and the fact that he is always kind and a most generous soul?…not a snarky bone in his body. You know that old Jewish myth about there always being twelve good men in the world and they’re the pillars holding it up? Wretchard might be one of them…
Sometime get him to relate his story of scraping up the money to get to Harvard and what happened upon his arrival in Cambridge. Very funny and poignant.
Last of all (but most important for me) is the fact that our blog is a Belmont progeny. I’m sure there are others out there, too.
The Belmont Club is an invaluable asset. Wretchard’s insights are truly profound and he draws some of the brightest minds to his comments section.
Here is an excerpt from a comment from “Pundita” from this post:
http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/2005/10/dead-man-laughing.html
“Believe you me, seeing men wearing the uniform of the most powerful military in the world pick up shovels and work like coolies alongside the poorest locals is a better illustration of what America stands for than a million lectures on human rights.
Men who knew nothing but the whipsaw of despotism and subjugation, and who were raised to the idea that the only honorable labor is warfare, are getting a long-overdue education, courtesy of the US military.
They are seeing with their own eyes that there is another model for males to live by — a very successful model.
In other words, they are learning that you can be a real man without being a warlord who murders with impunity.
Why couldn’t they see this when the Peace Corps came calling? Because of Pasha Logic 101: Peace Corps workers must be coolies in their own tribe and pansies to boot, else why would they be in my village digging a well?
But it’s quite another argument when a man carrying enough firepower to blow my village to Kingdom Come rolls up his sleeves and picks up a shovel.”
The Belmont Club is an invaluable asset. Wretchard’s insights are truly profound and he draws some of the brightest minds to his comments section.
Here is an excerpt from a comment from “Pundita” from this post:
http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/2005/10/dead-man-laughing.html
“Believe you me, seeing men wearing the uniform of the most powerful military in the world pick up shovels and work like coolies alongside the poorest locals is a better illustration of what America stands for than a million lectures on human rights.
Men who knew nothing but the whipsaw of despotism and subjugation, and who were raised to the idea that the only honorable labor is warfare, are getting a long-overdue education, courtesy of the US military.
They are seeing with their own eyes that there is another model for males to live by — a very successful model.
In other words, they are learning that you can be a real man without being a warlord who murders with impunity.
Why couldn’t they see this when the Peace Corps came calling? Because of Pasha Logic 101: Peace Corps workers must be coolies in their own tribe and pansies to boot, else why would they be in my village digging a well?
But it’s quite another argument when a man carrying enough firepower to blow my village to Kingdom Come rolls up his sleeves and picks up a shovel.”