Brutally Honest

What am I, chopped liver?

Melissa Clouthier has a list of the 10 hottest new media guys on the right... she must've missed my own set of stud-muffin pics...

Just sayin'.

Not quite into The Top 100

Via Rick Klein at ABC's The Note:

... here’s an interesting tool I recently came across: From Wikio.com, it’s a ranking of political blogs -- emanating from everywhere from living rooms, mainstream media organizations, and the White House.

The rankings are compiled based on links from other blogs -- with extra weight given to blogs that rank higher via Wikio’s formulas, and based on how recently an item is published. Blog rolls aren’t taken into account, so only fresh postings impact the rankings. http://www.wikio.com/about-us

One of the intriguing aspects of this list is that it puts everyone in the same pot. The list has mainstream media blogs -- from ABC News, CNN, The New York Times, and others -- alongside well-known partisan bloggers -- Michelle Malkin, FireDogLake -- and even government-run bloggers, like WhiteHouse.gov’s.

We got a sneak peek at the latest rankings -- due to be published Friday -- below. It’s a fun list to analyze: Huffington Post has the top spot, with the liberal Center for American Progress’ Think Progress and the conservative National Review’s The Corner right behind.

My colleague Jake Tapper’s Political Punch blog also cracks the Top 10. The Note -- which launched as a blog in December, after serving only as a morning tipsheet before that -- is No. 30 (and climbing); George Stephanopoulos’ Bottom Line blog is No. 39, and the now-discontinued Political Radar blog is still No. 40, because of (presumably) older links to the site.

So where, you might be asking, is Brutally Honest?

Sure, I'd like to be higher but I've been in this 'sphere long enough now (since 2003) to know that aspirations like that can be a trap. So I just keep on keepin' on... and I try to have fun with it.  And the neatest thing about it all is my regular readership... some of you have been around for quite some time and to you I give a hearty thanks.

I've yet to find out what the bottom of Wikio's rankings are so that I can get some sense of where my ranking is... nevertheless, I'll take it and run with it but clearly, as this The New York Times piece published today touches upon, the 'sphere is strewn with the bodies of abandoned blogs:

According to a 2008 survey by Technorati, which runs a search engine for blogs, only 7.4 million out of the 133 million blogs the company tracks had been updated in the past 120 days. That translates to 95 percent of blogs being essentially abandoned, left to lie fallow on the Web, where they become public remnants of a dream — or at least an ambition — unfulfilled.

...

Richard Jalichandra, chief executive of Technorati, said that at any given time there are 7 million to 10 million active blogs on the Internet, but “it’s probably between 50,000 and 100,000 blogs that are generating most of the page views.” He added, “There’s a joke within the blogging community that most blogs have an audience of one.”

Given all that... I'll take my Wikio ranking and pronounce that all is good.

A hearty welcome to the 'sphere

Hope you regulars will head over to the sis-in-law's new place and say hi.  She's decided to chronicle her goings on as she moves toward motherhood.  From what I've seen thus far, she's quite the verbsmith and can paint with words quite nicely.

An example, this nursery rhyme put together for her soon-to-be that I think well describes her as a bit of a baseball fanatic:

Hush little baby, don't say a word.
Red Sox gonna kill some Orioles birds.

And when those birds no longer sing,
We'll show the Yankees our home run swings.

And when New York no longer shines,
We'll beat Tampa Bay in the bottom of the nine.

Sleep little baby, that is all.
Cause Canadians can't play no real baseball.

And when our bats no longer swing,
Papi will show you his Championship ring.

I'll set aside my personal thoughts as to the girly-men status of the BoSox and simply state that I think all of you should join in welcoming her to the blogosphere.

1,000,000!

Brutally Honest has logged it's 1 millionth visitor today, something that I think worthy of commemorating if only with a quick mention.  If all of those visitors were cows and you stacked them 96 cows tall, 145 cows wide and 72 cows deep, they'd stand nearly halfway up the Empire State Building (it's gotta be true, I found it on the Innernet).  But I digress.

For some blogs, logging a million visitors takes about 2.6 days, something I find to be incredible.  For Brutally Honest, it took a tad more than 5 years.  But let's not dwell on that rather depressing comparison.  I'm bigger and better looking than Mr. Reynolds anyways.

I just want to take a moment to thank all of you who drop by and most especially you regulars (and you guest bloggers) who are about as close to being family as you can get without sharing my DNA.  And you know who you are. 

Hugs to the females, thumbs up and a hearty handshake to you males and a perplexed-tinged look of gratitude to those who don't fit in either camp. 

Thank you from the bottom of my Brutally Honest heart and here's hoping you'll never leave this place with an attitude of not wanting to return.  And if that be the case, here's hoping the best for you and yours.  God's best.

Oh... and visit number 1,000,000 lives somewhere near a place called Liberal, Kansas.  I kid you not.  SiteMeter wouldn't lie.

Irony

Brutally Honest's traffic has been steadily climbing for some time, spurting forward during the run up to the election, then falling back some and more recently rising once again.

The number of visitors had reached an average that allowed me to become a paid member of the Pajamas Media Network.  Though I was a founding member, one of the first blogs to sign with them, it was an unpaid signing because I was a low-traffic blogger.  That changed somewhat recently when my quarterly hit rates reached a level needed to become a paid member.

All that to lead to my revealing what I received last night from Roger Simon:

Dear Rick,

As you know, last September Pajamas Media began a new initiative in Internet television called Pajamas TV.  When we started with our RNC coverage from Minneapolis, we noted that we would be in a Beta Phase through the first quarter of 2009. In the last few months we have strengthened the PJTV lineup with shows covering Media Bias, Education Bias, Middle East Update, Sharia and Jihad, Powerline Report, Ask Dr. Helen, Hugh News, Poliwood, Conservatism 2.0, Economy and Finance, National Security, and others.

As the end of the first quarter approaches and we near the production phase of Pajamas TV, we will continue to build our emphasis in this area. As a result we have decided to wind down the Pajamas Media Blogger and advertising network effective March 31, 2009.  The PJM portal and the XPressBlogs will continue as is.

Since our ad relationship continues for the time being, you should note that in order to be paid for the 1st quarter of 2009, you must leave the current Pajamas ads up until 12:01AM April 1.  We will be sending you information in mid-March on removing the ads.   As of April 1, 2009, you will be free to arrange syndication or re-sale deals.

We thank you very much for participating during the formative years of Pajamas Media and we look forward to working with you in other ways. One of those is, of course, Pajamas TV.  If you have any ideas in that regard, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Our best wishes in the new year and again our deepest gratitude for your participation in Pajamas Media.

Sincerely,

Roger L. Simon
CEO, Pajamas Media

Sigh.

Alice the Camel's moved her humps...

... well, her blog home anyway...

Change your bookmarks, change your blogroll... go see her here.

Tell her I said yo.

BH linked to by The New York Times

At least at the moment though I suspect this won't last long. 

So I grabbed a quick screenshot:

 

The post linked to is this one.

More evidence that The Old Gray Lady ain't what she used to be.

Heh.

 

The 10,000th comment on Brutally Honest

Belongs to Mommynator.

Big thanks to all my loyal readers and commenters.

Pleasant surprise in my referrals list (UPDATE)

A little more than five years ago I began this blog on a whim. Five years... it's amazing really. I've seen a lot of folks die off... and lots of new people start up.

I don't know how new Random Thoughts is in the 'sphere but this morning I saw that she had linked to me and I was pleased (oh how pleased) to see I was in her blogroll and not one of them humongous rolls that wear out your mouse's scroll wheel but a nice short one with some serious heavy hitters on it.  And there we were.  Awesome.

And it took me back.

I'll probably never get the traffic that an InstyPundit or a Malkin gets... and at times that's upsetting... but when I see someone who can string words together cogently, it's a great thing and when I then see that they have me listed on their rather tiny blogroll... well... that's icing man.

So, I've put Random Thoughts on my blogroll and hope to check in with her often.  Here's a sampling of what I believe to be seriously good stuff:

My children have all independently expressed dismay to me over the way George W. Bush has been publicly despised. Neither they nor I can really understand the level of venom cast at a duly elected man who has served his country for eight long thankless years. We haven’t seen him break his marriage vows by dallying with an intern, nor lie under oath in court, nor fail to act as Commander in Chief. In contrast, we’ve seen President Bush offer steadfast leadership and unwavering compassion in our nation’s worst days.

Michael Gerson at the Washington Post lists Bush’s considerable though ignored accomplishments, and offers a heartfelt summary of the character of the man:

Many liberals refuse to concede Bush’s humanity, much less his achievements.

But that humanity is precisely what I will remember. I have seen President Bush show more loyalty than he has been given, more generosity than he has received. I have seen his buoyancy under the weight of malice and his forgiveness of faithless friends. Again and again, I have seen the natural tug of his pride swiftly overcome by a deeper decency — a decency that is privately engaging and publicly consequential.

Before the Group of Eight summit in 2005, the White House senior staff overwhelmingly opposed a new initiative to fight malaria in Africa for reasons of cost and ideology — a measure designed to save hundreds of thousands of lives, mainly of children under 5. In the crucial policy meeting, one person supported it: the president of the United States, shutting off debate with a moral certitude that others have criticized. I saw how this moral framework led him to an immediate identification with the dying African child, the Chinese dissident, the Sudanese former slave, the Burmese women’s advocate. It is one reason I will never be cynical about government — or about President Bush.

For some, this image of Bush is so detached from their own conception that it must be rejected. That is, perhaps, understandable. But it means little to me. Because I have seen the decency of George W. Bush.

My children and I honestly don’t understand the Obama love any more than we understand the Bush hate, though apparently they’re two sides of the very same coin. The extremes are unsettling; these are mere men, after all, human beings neither worthy of worship nor deserving of execration.

As Jeffrey Scott Shapiro of the Wall Street Journal notes,

It seems that no matter what Mr. Bush does, he is blamed for everything. He remains despised by the left while continuously disappointing the right.

Yet it should seem obvious that many of our country’s current problems either existed long before Mr. Bush ever came to office, or are beyond his control. Perhaps if Americans stopped being so divisive, and congressional leaders came together to work with the president on some of these problems, he would actually have had a fighting chance of solving them.

Like the president said in his 2004 victory speech, “We have one country, one Constitution and one future that binds us. And when we come together and work together, there is no limit to the greatness of America.”

Therein lies the key to a healthier future for our country. And we on the right side of the political aisle can lead the way.

Lead on RT... lead on.

I'm with ya.

UPDATE: In my local paper this morning, this Leonard Pitts column:

We should be ashamed of how poorly we have treated President George W. Bush.

That, believe it or not, is the thesis of a bizarre opinion published the day after the election in The Wall Street Journal by one Jeffrey Scott Shapiro, described as an investigative reporter, a lawyer and a former intern for, of all people, John Kerry. It's one of two rather eye-opening Journal pieces, actually; the second, following just days later, was by a former presidential aide named Jim Towey. Under the headline Why I'll Miss President Bush, he sang hosannas to the decency and compassion of W., even going so far as to invoke Mother Teresa.

Which is, shall we say, a rather novel take. But it is Shapiro's piece that will give you whiplash. In his view, Bush has struggled manfully in the service of an ungrateful nation, reached out in a spirit of true bipartisanship and received for his efforts nothing but ''crushing resistance'' and constant scorn.

Shapiro writes: ``The treatment President Bush has received from this country is nothing less than a disgrace. The attacks launched against him have been cruel and slanderous, proving to the world what little character and resolve we have. The president is not to blame for all these problems. He never lost faith in America or her people, and has tried his hardest to continue leading our nation during a very difficult time.''

And reading that, you wonder . . . well, you wonder a few things.

• First, you wonder how old Shapiro is. Because he sounds very young. I'm talking smudge-of-acne-cream-on-the-cheek, fake-ID-at-the-club young. Which, presumably, he is not, given his pedigree.

• Then you wonder -- fear, might be the better word -- if this is but the vanguard of a new wave of revisionism, a preemptive strike against history, if you will, to impose a sunnier, more forgiving view on the last eight years than the facts will support. If so, we should gird for a very long rest of our lives.

• Finally, you wonder, wearily, if it is really necessary to tally yet again the sins of this president. If Bush's approval ratings sink any lower, they will emerge in China. That's not accidental. And when his reign of error ends on Jan. 20, it will come eight years too late and not a millisecond too soon.

For my money, of all the things he has done that have damaged this nation -- we're talking lies and alibis, torture, the loss of American prestige, watching passively as New Orleans drowned, censoring science, politicizing the Justice Department, a ruinous war of choice in Iraq, spending with all the discipline of an 8-year-old in a candy store -- arguably the most damaging legacy this president leaves is that he has undermined truth itself. After eight years of Bush/Rove politics, we live now in a nation where fact doesn't mean a whole lot, where it is OK to believe the ''truth'' that serves your political ends and jettison any that does not.

Because these days, truth comes in two flavors. We have red truth and blue truth, but we are fresh out of the truth, the facts, unimpeachable and inarguable. Instead, Bush has overseen a government of legendary intellectual incoherence, where ideology is valued above competence, accountability is valued not at all and one is daily dared to believe the evidence of one's lying eyes. Bush seems to agree with Stephen Colbert: Reality has a liberal bias.

Now, we are offered one last single-digit salute to our collective intelligence in the form of this grotesque suggestion that we should be ashamed of how we have treated Bush. If anyone should feel shame, it is Bush and the cadre of sycophants that has enabled him for eight long years.

It's a Bush Derangement Syndrome thang... you wouldn't understand.

83%?

The analysis is in:

We think http://www.brutallyhonest.org is written by a man (83%).

Well, we do have some female guest bloggers.