Pajamas

A few days ago former CBS News executive Jonathan Klein blithely dismissed the prototypical blogger as "a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas." Subtext: network news executives dress very well; bloggers are more slovenly and less professional.

On April 9, 1865, in Wilmer McLean's parlor, Appomattox Court House, Virginia, Gens. Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant attended to business. The accounts are remarkably consistent: Lee stood erect in a new general officer's dress uniform with sword; Grant slouched in an old mud-spattered private's uniform, no sword.

Then Lee surrendered to Grant.

A century passed. The US brass running the Vietnam War dismissed the Vietcong guerrillas as pajama-wearing "Charlies." Saigon is called Ho Chi Minh City now.

Enough about pajamas.