I'd like to recognize the following bloggers for making it through the entire mixed up, muddled up, shook up year of 2008 with their scales thoroughly uncontaminated by thumb prints.
Vastleft recognizes...
Avedon Carol (Sideshow)
Arthur Silber (Power of Narrative)
Bob Somerby (The Daily Howler)
... for telling it like it is, day after day after day.
One thing all three have in common is a readiness to tell an inconvenient truth for no other reason than that it's the truth.
Other Square House Awards go to:
Paul Krugman (New York Times), for Best Big-Media Blogger
Glenn Greenwald (Salon.com), for Best A-list Blogger
Anglachel (Anglachel's Journal), for Best Democratic Primary Coverage
And for Best Blogger I Can't Give An Award To, 'Cause We're On the Same Blog, Lambert Strether (Correntewire).
The selections are my own, made by putting the blogosphere onto a piece of wood and banging a few nails through it. Additional awards may be issued at any old time.
- vastleft's blog
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I just discovered Arthur about two weeks ago....
...and have been devouring his old postings ever since then. Really quite wonderful!
I've been a huge fan of Anglachel for about a year and can't wait for her to get back to posting on a more regular basis.
Shainzona
Arthur Slber is a gem
I think I am going to got there now...
His recent posts...
...just break my heart though. Throw him some kibble if you can...
Oh man...
That is heartbreaking stuff. :(
What Arthur Silber demands from me...
is that I look at, actually even see what he shows -- what mostly I try to hide not only from others but from myself. I'm always challenged, and the chinks revealed leave me uneasy and more. YET, I go back for that more, hoping -- NO, to a greater or lesser degree willing to let him make a dent in my consciousness. But too often I still turn away, saddened and scared by both our plights.
Arthur Silber, as single-minded as a teacher of the dharma, ready to crack me over my thick skull for even mentioning this.
[vastleft: thanks, BTW, for the post.]
Lambert blushes modestly
And wishes to add Susie and Big Tent Democrat.
And in the Big Media category, Froomkin, for reasons stated.
And back at ya, VL, Scourge of the Truthy.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Can I nominate Historiann?
Whose history background brings a whole new level to the issues?
I also nominate
Shakesville, for keeping it's sense of humor intact throughout.
And Patrick Lang at Sic Semper Tyrannis, for speaking out and speaking the truth (as he sees it) about the failed Bush admin/war criminals. He hardly addressed the primaries at all, but when he did, he played it pretty square, not caught up in the craziness of either side, no more Bush was enough for him I guess. And now he is doing the same with I/P (with friends on both side, but kind to neither when wrong). No easy feat.
-----------------------------
I'm not such a bad guy once you get to know me.
Anglachel was this year's find for me
lambert remains my favorite for his light, satirical quality.
Greenwald doesn't belong on the list...
his abysmal failure to address the debacle of the democratic primary (except when it benefitted Obama) means that, at best, he deserves an "honorable mention" for his work on torture and surveillance issues -- but at heart he's just another partisan hack.
_
I think that Riverdaughter deserves some kind of special citation -- The Confluence played a key role in establishing that there was a counter-narrative to that provided by the fauxgressive blogosphere (and the corporate media.) Her willingness to abandon her comfortable, high status position at Big Orange in pursuit of the truth should be given some kind of "profile in courage" award.
Glenn's sins of commission in the primary were few
He mostly steered clear of the primaries. The handful of times he did go there weren't, IMHO, his finest hour. But even when he wrote, perhaps, his worst post of the year (re: Bill Clinton's "Jesse Jackson" statement), he acknowledged the CDS problem, which few A-listers did.
He was a champ on Obama's FISA fail and "Called to Serve / Called to Christ" brochure, providing important pushback on Obama's weaseling on the Constitution.
All told, I've seen little on Glenn's site to shake my trust in his integrity.
I conceded...
I conceded the surveillance stuff.
Greenwald simply ignored the campaign infractions of Obama as soon as the primaries got underway. The "called to Christ/called to serve" thing was in South Carolina -- when Team Obama was throwing around accusations of racism at the Clinton campaign with abandon and (as you note) Greenwald himself jumped on THAT bandwagon with both feet.
To me, that's disqualifying -- and by providing an award to Greenwald despite his failures it devalues the work of the other folks you cited.
And Make Them Accountable?
http://makethemaccountable.com
Say, whatever happened to David Podvin?
I can't find his stuff anywhere now.
JFK has been shot, we miss him a lot
He always knew what to do
-- Philly Cream
Who dat? n/t
?
Who dat sayin' who dat?
Here.
It appears he has not written anything in over a year.
JFK has been shot, we miss him a lot
He always knew what to do
-- Philly Cream