It's official: if you are linked by The Left (d/b/a "Happy Furry Puppy Story Time With Norbizness"), the chances of your winning the 2004 Weblog Awards (previously known as "The Awardies", "The Cable Ace Awards", the "Cross de Guerre with Palm Leaf", and "The 12th Annual Montgomery Burns Award For Outstanding Achievment in the Field of Exellence") are virtually nil. There is simply no other non-insane explanation for this phenomenon, as you will see in the following bill of particulars,:

-- in the Best Overall Weblog category, the combined votes of Talking Points Memo and Political Animal, whose hits are in the millions, are approximately one-eleventh the total of The Corner at the National Review, a repository of two-word posts, fake e-mails, and John Derbyshire. These cretins also are also outdoing the combined efforts of Reason's Hit & Run and Crooked Timber by 10-to-1 in the Best Group Blog category.

-- in the Best Humor Weblog category, Jesus' General, the only recognizable left-of-center site out of 15 nominees, is garnering only 5.5% of the vote, distantly trailing some tepid Onion-lite and Dave Barry-lite right-of-center sites. Even resident Martha Stewart in bondage fetishist, Jeff G. at Protein Wisdom, is getting smoked like a Doral Light by Fred Leuchter, proving that the curse of The Left makes no distinction in its thorough disembowelings.

[...]

-- Dan Drezner and Digby's Hullabaloo are being dealt humiliating set-backs in the Best of the Top 100 category. Sorry guys, it's nothing personal.