Posted by Nicholas Beaudrot of Electoral Math
As Ezra points out, the Koufax awards have their own built-in biases that make it a less-than-optimal way to find new blogs. They also make it hard to find great posts from early in the year, simply because those posts aren't in the forefront of readers' thoughts. That's part of the reason that I picked "Patriotism and Nationalism" for Best Post, so that we wouldn't forget some of the wonderful insights that writers made earlier in the year.
There are, of course, plenty of other quality choices. Two pathos-laden entries with excellent writing are "Monday Afternoon in the Welfare Office" and "Life and Death". There's a trio of posts that exhibit the "oh my God real life has started to imitate The Onion just a little too much" sensation in "The Real Fake News" "The Talent Show is Dead; Long Live The Talent Show", and "NBC, CNN Announce Merger". Digby's "Genie in a Bottle" is excellent. In the Katrina sub-category, we have "Black Bodies Remain Still", "And Then I Saw These", "Potemkin Photo Op", and "skynyrd did what they could do" . Our own Shakes has received props for "Liberals Will Save America" along with Billmon's "My Back Pages". And I love The Kung Fu Monkey's "Learn to Say Ain't"; it's both witty and insightful.
Still, I am hard pressed to change my vote from "Patriotism and Nationalism". As I've started to spend more time in the political arena, I find myself increasingly aware of how easy it is to build up false confidence in the popularity of liberal belief system. "Patriotism and Nationalism" was the best reminder that there's another world out there that has tangible reasons for disliking the Democratic brand.
