So last night I was at a panel-slash-conservative happy hour hosted and attended by the A-list of D.C.’s right-wing blogosphere, and the first person I saw as I walked in the door was Jeff Gannon. Awesome: six seconds in and I’ve met my first porn star.

Thanks (?) to a generous heads-up from Tom Tomorrow, I had the chance to attend a panel at the National Press Club sponsored by Pajamas Media entitled “How Partisan is Too Partisan?” For the uninitiated, Pajamas Media is a collective of several dozen bloggers, almost all of whom are right-wing conservatives. Their lineup includes co-founder Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs, a blog containing so much vitriol against the Arab world it’s often considered a hate site, and professional racist Michelle Malkin. So you can of course imagine who's going to end up being blamed for partisanship in the media.

To their credit, PJM is smart enough to keep their big-name hyper-partisans out of the public eye. Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds, notorious for his self-proclaimed “non-partisan” position by way of merely linking to right-wing blogs on a daily basis instead of offering the viewpoints himself, served as moderator. Reynolds' money quote of the evening was his description of his nonpartisanship: "My dream is a world where happily married gay couples have closets full of assault weapons," which... yes, I believe is still frightening. The extremists who might have, you know, made the hypocrisy of the panel's premise embarrassingly blatant were kept in the shadows—or the audience, as proven by Pamela of Atlas Shrugs, who volunteered as the event cheerleader, responding to the panel and various answers with ecstatic squeals throughout the evening—think a typical audience member on TRL, with an extra 30 years, two drinks and an intense hatred of Muslims.

As you can expect, the answer to the question “how partisan is too partisan?” involved that pesky specter of conservative hatred known as “the MSM,” otherwise known as The New York Times. The Times’ being partisan and detrimental to media in general was one of the two recurring themes of the event—the other was the mantra of “yes, but liberals are worse.” For some reason, any attempt to note that conservatives are also partisan writers was paired with an aside that they’re not as bad as the left: after all, as noted by panelist and former RNC communications director Cliff May, “because the MSM is liberal and won’t admit it, conservatives have had to face liberal opinion, whereas liberals can ghettoize themselves.” Much like the Fox News concept that their perceived left-wing bias in most media means the blatant right-wing bias on their network makes them “balanced,” May and his fellow Pajamhideen (their term, not mine) bemoan a form of “partisanship” that means perceived leftist media makes their right-wing rhetoric the voice of moderation.

Speaking of which, the voice of moderation at the panel ironically was Fox News’ Jane Hall, who differed from the other panelists with radical, outrageous ideas such as not believing every writer at the Times has a hidden motive, and requesting that panelist Michael Barone actually provide evidence of his claim that 90 percent of all college professors are “avowed leftists.” Continuing the "New York Times is partisan" mantra, May exclaimed the problem with partisanship isn't Fox News or bloggers, but the "MSM" (again, meaning the Times) because "it is partisan but doesn't admit it." May explained that he would prefer media that admit partisanship rather than "pretend." You are more than welcome to take five seconds to scroll up the page and re-read what the intended purpose of the evening's panel was supposed to be, then try to wrap your mind around that one.

PJM's PR-smart decision to keep the extremist on their blog roll out of the media spotlight was ultimately why the cocktail hour preceding the event drew more partisan snark and swipes at "the left" than the actual panel. Luckily, the right-wing blogosphere has these level-headed pseudo-intellectuals to wrangle them all—a benefit not granted to us rowdy leftists, as I gathered from an overhead comment by Michael Totten to Pamela: "these liberal kids, they go from job to job, and they have no time to study. ... No wonder they have no idea about spreading democracy."

The whole evening, the small dessert table prominently featured a gigantic, heaping bowl of Marshmallow Fluff. Maybe it should be PJM's new mascot.

Cross-posted at xoverboard.com