(1) Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute (and a Contributing Editor of National Review), on his Pajamas Media blog last Thursday: "BREAKING NEWS --Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, is dead."

(2) Pajamas Media, front page, last Thursday: "A source close to Pajamas Media has learned that Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has apparently succumbed to the cancer that hospitalized him last month, as exclusively reported by Pajamas Media, at age 67." (The phrase "still unconfirmed" added at the top only once nobody else touched their "exclusive").

(3) Michelle Malkin's Hot Air, last Thursday: "This is either going to be a two-ton feather in Pajamas’s cap or a major embarrassment. I have my fingers crossed for them."

(4) Associated Press, today -- Headline: Iran's Ayatollah Appears in Good Health -- "Tehran, Iran - Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, looked thinner than usual and sounded as if he had a cold, but seemed otherwise in good health when he appeared on television Monday. . . . On Monday, Khamenei addressed hundreds of citizens of Qom, a holy city 80 miles south of Tehran, who gathered outside his residence in the city center."

Pajamas Media is a $3.5 million embarrassment that was launched in 2005 by right-wing bloggers Roger Simon and Charles Johnson (of Little Green Footballs). It was supposed to be some sort of "credible" right-wing media outlet, an alternative to the dreaded "MSM." Yet they have done nothing of even minor note since their inception (until now). As a result, news accounts from real media outlets -- like the one today from Associated Press -- refer to reports from Pajamas Media as mere "Internet rumors."

In light of this latest humiliation, it's obviously necessary that they be downgraded still further in the credibility department. But what is lower than "Internet rumors" when it comes to the credibility of a report? It seems like it's necessary to create a whole new level of unreliability just for Pajamas Media. Anyone minimally familiar with the right-wing blogosphere would have predicted -- and did predict -- that a "news outlet" that grows out of that credibility-free swamp is destined for ignominious failure.