I do wish some commentators better understood that lefty blogging has soared in the last three years for the same reason subscriptions to Mother Jones and the Nation have gone up: George W. Bush is president. In the 1990s the American Spectator, National Review, Rush Limbaugh etc reeped huge benefits from the fact that Bill Clinton was A) in office and B) behaved like Bill Clinton. Sure there are individual talents and unique merits to various writers and institutions, but there’s a larger tide out there too. The lefty blogs are benefitting from an activated base as much as they are because of the transcendent genius and irrefutable talent of this or that blogger.