Some trick

So we're watching Hardball tonight, and the guy who heads this USA Next organization was being interviewed about why his group was running this awful ad -- Daily Kos :: The anti-AARP campaign begins. And he said it was just a test to see how quickly the liberal blogs picked it up. Ha, ha.
So, they pissed off millions of senior citizens, just to "trick" the liberal blogs? And what, exactly was the trick? The smear that senior citizens don't support the troops? Or the accusation that they do support gay marriage? Some trick, guys. Boy, that'll really show those liberal bloggers.
What is actually going on here, I think, is that they are finally aware of the liberal blogosphere now, and they really are beginning to be afraid of its reach and influence.
Here's why -- look at The Truth Laid Bear site rankings

1) Daily Kos 454616 visits/day - progressive
2) Gizmodo 190803 visits/day - tech news
3) Gawker 175369 visits/day - another tech news site
4) Instapundit.com 169937 visits/day - rightwinger
5) Defamer 148761 visits/day - entertainment news
6) Eschaton 111109 visits/day - progressive
7) lgf: what's the ugliest part of your body? 93498 visits/day - rightwinger
8) Power Line 71059 visits/day - rightwinger
9) Wonkette 67229 visits/day - progressive
10) The Washington Monthly 44906 visits/day - progressive
11) The Smirking Chimp 39691 visits/day - progressive
12) Michelle Malkin 36861 visits/day - rightwinger
13) Blog for America 33746 visits/day - progressive
14) www.AndrewSullivan.com - Daily Dish 32716 visits/day - rightwinger
15) Wizbang 30237 visits/day - rightwinger
16) HughHewitt.com 29229 visits/day - rightwing
17) onegoodmove: I thought these things might be clues 24536 visits/day - progressive
18) Blogcritics.org 23515 visits/day - celebrity news
19) Blogcritics.org 23515 visits/day - celebrity news (maybe a typo here)
20) Go Fug Yourself 22467 visits/day - celebrity news

In the top 20 according to daily visits, seven are progressive blogs while seven are rightwing blogs. And yes, sure, the right-wing sites are getting lots of daily hits. But look at Kos -- 450,000 hits a day! Instapundit, the most-visited rightwing site, has less than half that number.
So almost half a million people every day are reading about how Kos interprets the daily news. And over 100,000 are checking out Eschaton, while 45,000 are reading Kevin Drum. Howard Dean's site, Blog for America, is attracting 35,000 visits daily. Pretty impressive, folks.