I had no idea…

That the Weblog Awards had been generating so much blogger reaction. I just assumed everyone would, like me, wheedle here and there for votes (good naturedly) and have fun with it.

Not so. Alexandra writes of some rather disingenuous, Sean Pennesque “These awards don’t mean anything because they’re given out by (conservatives!) the establishment,” tirades coming from the left, even as they still wheedle for votes. Nice. One wonders – if a lefty were to put together something as time-consuming as these awards, would they even open the categories up to conservatives? In REAL categories, I don’t mean in snotty ones.

Alexandra nicely slices and dices, so I needn’t do so here, but I will agree with her that it is sad to watch the fearless and hard-working Michelle Malkin lose to Kos – one is a genuine site of investigation, reportage, follow-up and opinion, and one is a non-stop snark attack. The explanation, of course, is that the Malkin vote has been split between her and Ed Morrissey (chiefly) as they are both such superb sites. I had decided to vote for each one on successive days, but once I saw that Morrissey really had no chance, I began to vote for Malkin exclusively. In these awards, as we see elsewhere, splitting the vote does not work to our advantage…a good thing to keep in mind in 2008, when a split vote will once again have the effect of putting a Clinton into office. Conservatives had better remember that.

This stuff is supposed to be fun. It would be “fun” to win, but I have to be honest, if I can simply keep the “finalist” thingie on my sidebar for the year, I’ll be content. That’s a big enough deal. And it’s too bad that some folks simply can’t stop the ideological posturing long enough to enjoy things a little. I think when you can’t lighten up and must find the need to suck the joy out of everything, you’ve pretty much become a Dementor, as described by J.K. Rowling in the Harry Potter series. (Paraphrased) “Dementors feed on souls; they suck everything from you and leave you feeling as though you can never feel cheerful again.”

Sad.