Monday, October 25, 2004

I, for one, welcome our new Blog Overlords

The Washington Post's 2004 Best Blogs Readers' Choice Award winners have been announced. Given that the WaPo has traditionally been a fuzzy Linus-blanket for Beltway liberals, it's interesting to see that its readers have such excellent taste in blogs.

First of all, Best International Blog was awarded to my friend Charles Johnson of little green footballs (LGF) - cyclist, patriot, Lizard King, uber-mensch, web designer par exemplar; a champion of Civilization and a relentless observer of its worst malcontents. Charles stepped up to the horror of 9/11 and looked it straight in the face, and he hasn't backed down since. Or even flinched. "War-blogging" would be infinitely poorer without his work, but Charles is not just another blustering hawk. Those who would visualize peace must confront the deadly enemies of peace, and he is a tireless scout on that front. This has earned him the emnity of various ankle-biters, bed-wetters, and other faint-hearted folk - which he has met with humor, grace, and redoubled effort.

Nietzsche said "In order to be great, one must have great enemies." I think Charles is great anyway.

He's not boring either, hence his honorable mention for Most Original blog, second only to the excellent James Lileks.

National Review's house blog The Corner swept the other awards. This was well deserved, too - among the old flagship political journals, NR is the only one to really understand the potential of the blogosphere.