Blog Olympics

I read a lot of blogs during political season, and over the course of the year I can tell that I've landed on certain URLs more than the rest. The competition is over, the scores are in, and here's the medal ceremony:

• Bronze: Hullabaloo. In previous elections, Digby was boring, repetitive; she solved this a while back by making the blog a team effort, adding variety in both topics and sources. The quote blocks still run too long—okay, okay, we get the idea, we want to hear your point—but this is the site I go to first to find out what other sites are saying. Others in this class are Sadly, No! and Lawyers, Guns, and Money, but those are merely for humor as they monitor mostly amateur rightwing sites; Hullabaloo calls bull on "real" media and think tanks.
• Silver: Daily Kos. Formerly the undisputed champion, still the best for pure news, polls, and activism. It can be hard to keep up with because of its enormity, but the diary-rescue process at least provides a first pass at finding the quality that extends throughout the site.
• Gold: Who Is IOZ?. A ten even from the Bolshevik judge. Knocked the Rude Pundit off the podium this election cycle, through pith and insight and wit and encyclopedic knowledge. Warning for the faint of heart: not nearly as crude as the RP, but still plenty of faggotry (his word), pot, and correctly-pronounced French as well.