Four years and counting

February 22, 2007

Yesterday, I published my 10,000th blog post, and tomorrow is the fourth anniversary of the start of The Carpetbagger Report, so I thought I’d take a moment to offer a quick progress report to readers. (I generally avoid navel-gazing posts; consider it a once-a-year-indulgence.)

To borrow a presidential cliche, the State of the Blog is strong. Over the last year, traffic has grown considerably, and the comments section has flourished. The relative success of the blog has led to a variety of other terrific opportunities for me over the last year, including writing articles for the Washington Monthly, The American Prospect, and The Guardian, becoming an editor for a blog at Salon.com, guest blogging for Kevin Drum and John Amato, contributing to the Huffington Post, and even participating in a bloggers’ meeting with Bill Clinton at his New York office. It was, to put it mildly, an incredibly exciting year.

As for major changes for The Carpetbagger Report as we enter its fifth year … I don’t plan on making any. Ms. Carpetbagger and I have considered tweaking the design here and there, but in general, my plan is to keep things pretty much the same. To be sure, if a major media outlet asked me to write an in-house blog (a la Drum, Sullivan, Greenwald, Wolcott), I’d jump at the chance, but in the meantime, I’m not going anywhere. If you keep reading, I’ll keep writing.

I still find it challenging to work on building the site’s reach and visibility, and I’d like to do more to boost exposure. Regardless, I’m thrilled to have a sizable audience and a blog that’s starting to have a greater impact. I’ve been working about as hard as I can to build a successful site, and it’s encouraging to see the efforts pay off.

And to reiterate a point I emphasize every year about this time, I’d also like to take a moment to thank all of you for being here. Whether you’ve been reading for four years or four days, it’s a real honor.

I appreciate your interest, support, and encouragement, and I’m grateful that so many of you are willing to peruse my daily tirades.

And now, back to the news….

Congratulations! And keep up the good work.

  • i’m a relatively new reader, CB, but i want to thank you for providing me with the news-source i’d always been looking for. you made the elections much more interesting for me, and being able to find out the truth about the news is very important. thanks again, and congratulations.

  • What’s wrong with navel-gazing? There are anti-navel-gazer discrimination laws, you know.

    CB – congrats on the milestone. It shows a lot of hard work. Thanks for giving me something to put at the top of my “Favorites”. Sadly my work output has decreased since I started reading…or maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

  • This is the first political blog I check out every day. Keep up the great work, and when you do hit Kos-like Interwebs demigodhood, try not to forget the little people.

  • This place has become a must-see for me, multiple times throughout the day.

    Congrats on your anniversary and for the the consistently good product you produce and provide day after day after day – many of us cannot function without it!

  • Congratulations. Been reading for years, rarely comment, though. This is the only website I check daily. (To read all the comments, of course, lurking quietly in the wings waiting for my moment to strike with precision and… oh look, a cookie!

  • I really enjoy this blog, and I think the main reasons are that: 1) you’re not afraid to pass along good posts from other blogs, like Huffington and TPM; 2) you provide a lot of detail and analytical depth, rather than just knee-jerk reactionary outrage; and 3) you have an amazing recall for historical details that illustrate just how self-serving and two-face the current crop of klepotcratic Republicans are.

    Keep up the excellent work!

  • This really is a great site, and I especially enjoy the choice of topics for the Sunday discussions.

    Thanks for all of your great work!

    And when are you going to start giving equal opportunities to other citrus fruits. What color is a blood orange, or a kumquat, perhaps a Meyer lemon or grapefruit?

  • Congratulations, CB. After half a century of following my favorite sport, the last four years have been a delight thanks to your format and hard work, not to mention all the terrific commentary you inspire.

  • Thank-you for writing CB; I know you have made my life more sane by providing me with great reporting and a place to vent and rant. Thank-you also for allowing reader comments because your great writing inspires interesting, well written, and thoughtful comments.

  • Congratulations,

    I agree with Steve’s (#5) comment on daily blog must-reads.

    Your style is informative, timely, witty, and succinct with fresh perspectives and great features.

    As a writer myself, I appreciate your work and wish you continued and greater successes in year five.

    Thanks,

    Tim (aka colonpowwow)

  • Many congratulations on the success of your fine blog. Keep up the good work; I’ll be here reading it.

  • Let me add my congratulations.

    You’ve been a must read for me since before the 2004 election, and I look forward to your insights every day.

  • Good job, keep it up. God bless the blogosphere!

    By the way I hope we all take a moment and express solidarity with our fellow bloggers not just here but also around the world, one of whom was sentenced to 4 years in prison just yesterday for calling Hosni Mubarak a dictator (..which he is. There, I said it.)

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6385849.stm

  • Thank You!!! Congratulations. You are at the top of my polit blog list. Steve your insight and comments are awesome and help me understand this crazy thing we call our govmit (as of late). Keep up the good work. You are dong a great public service. Thanks again.

    Ron

  • I said it before and I’ll say it again, I don’t know how you consistently write quality content day in and day out. However every you do it, I am grateful you do. Congratulations to the hardest working man in the left blogsphere.

  • I’ll add my congratulations as well. If I only have time for one blog to read, it MUST be this one.

    And thank you for keeping the site relatively simple. This makes it much easier to access and read via my blackberry when on the road!

    Four More Years!!!! Four More Years!!! …. (etc.)

  • From what I understand, one good way to increase a blog’s exposure is to invigorate one’s blogroll by adding quirky, yet little known bloggers who use bionic brain implants to achieve a level of logical analysis previously unattained by mortal bloggers. Not only does it show that you’re still in touch with the common man, but it adds a certain je ne sais quoi that each blog so desperately needs. That’s the word on the street, anyway.

  • Steve, thank you very much for all the effort you put in here to inform us about so many political issues.

  • “As for major changes for The Carpetbagger Report as we enter its fifth year … I don’t plan on making any.”

    Excellent! It’s just perfect the way it is. There are other fine blogs out there and I read them regularly, but I never post on them. TCBR is just the best there is, not only for the quality of the posts but of the commentary as well.

    Congratulations, CB. You keep a’writing and we’ll keep a’reading.

    Perfect. 🙂

  • Congratulations!

    I’ll chime in with all the other praise– you’re the one site I visit every single day, and you consistently highlight the stories that matter. Thanks for all the work you put into this site.

  • Thanks, Mr CB.
    Yours is the only regular blog I read, because it’s the best political one I have seen. Your writing is concise & insightful.
    And your commenters (hey, even the trolls) are really good.
    Keep up the good work, and best of fortune to you.

  • Steve and Ms. Carpetbagger,

    I join with all your faithful readers in saying congratulations for 4 great years and 10,000 postings! You do a great job of keeping us aware of many stories that are ignored or buried in the corporate media.

  • what everyone else said and i look forward to many many more posts to come. and thank you for never deleting my incessant cursing of those fucking thieves, otherwise known as bu$hCo. xxx

  • Happy Birthday, Carpetbagger! I don’t comment much, but your blog is my first stop every morning. 🙂

  • If you keep reading, I’ll keep writing.

    Guaranteed! Thanks to you and Ms. Carpetbagger for the great blog and congratulations on your milestone!

  • Congratulations. I honestly don’t understand how or if you sleep. You literally cover every single thing going on in the national scene, and do it with depth and breadth. I’m constantly surprised by your diligence.

  • As I said to a friend of mine last week who had e-mailed me “breaking news” (to him) of something we had been discussing here for the previous week: “for a busy guy like you, 30 minutes a day with the Carpetbagger Report will give you everything you need, it’s the only blog you need.” So he started trying it on Monday and last night I had a response e-mail from him to that one with 2 words: “you’re right.”

    Keep it up.

  • Steve and Mrs. Carpetbagger:

    Congrats on your fourth year anniversary.

    Keep up the good work. I’ve enjoyed your commentary for almost four
    years, when you, Kevin, Josh and Kos were lonely voices in the Bush-created wilderness. Now that the American people are coming to their senses and the GOP is finally on the run, please don’t slack up.

    Best wishes and I look forward to many more years of sharp commentary.

  • Three cheers!

    Like many of the other commentors, I stop here first thing in the morning. It’s better than coffee!

    Here’s to your continued success!

  • CONGRATS!!

    As someone who’s posted stuff on here that crosses so many lines they turn into dots, I’d like to personally thank you for your tolerance of my stupidity. 🙂

    I’d also like to thank you for the amazingly measured way in which you post — they are not too long, not too short, and well-reasoned. Just please do us a favor: STOP CALLING THEM TIRADES!

    Your posts are not, in any sense of the word, “tirades.” They may be mildly sarcastic, but tirades they are not. Trust me … I know tirades.

    Also, the fact that you have done this for 4 years and are still going strong amazes me. Hell, I’ve only been blogging for 19 months and my site will be gone in a week — the energy it takes to keep up with the news cycle is just too much for me to exert.

    While I still love blogging and will start a new one — non political — I have found that commenting here and a few other places allows me to share thoughts without doing any of the heavy lifting. Yeah … I’m lazy. Again, the fact that you have that kind of energy truly is stunning (to me, at least).

    So keep it up, a big thanks to Mrs. Carpetbagger for her contributions, and don’t change a thing!

    Well, except maybe expanding your blogroll a bit to include some dedicated CB commentors, but that’s nit-picky … 🙂

  • I wound up here after following a link from the Washington Post. (It went to another blog which linked here, can’t remember which one.) Since then its been first thing in the morning, last thing at night a few times in between. It is hard to read about the follies of BushCo (TM) even though I know I should. Carpetbagger has provided the perfect “sanity buffer.”

    It was also a great haven during the latest election cycle. NOT THAT I WAS NERVOUS OR ANYTHING. 😉

    Thanks for the great service and if I may, thanks to your community of commenters.

    Here’s to four more!

    tAiO

  • CB,

    You’re blog is one of the first things I hit every night for US News. It is also a shining light of American intelligence along with the Daily Show and Colbert Report. As a foreigner, this site keeps reminding me that not all Americans are not the Bush idiots we outside of the US assumed you guys were after 2002.

    Keep up the good work.

    To parody those stupid WSJ TV ads:
    “If I didn’t get my daily fix from The Carpetbagger Report I’d cry…”

    Feel free to use that as an endorsement.

  • Congratulations Carpetbagger and of course, congratultions also to the lovely Mrs. Carpetbagger!

  • “me that not all Americans are not the Bush idiots we outside of the US assumed you guys were after 2002.”

    Should read:

    Remind me that not all Americans are the Bush idiots we outside of the US assumed you guys were after 2002.

    Chastised and stupid.

  • Who the hell do you think you are? Taking credit for writing what is undoubtedly written by political angels who oversee and protect this country is vain indeed. This is the first blog I ever started reading several months ago and haven’t stopped reading daily since. I knew it then and I know it now. Recognized it immediately. There is a collective force, a collective unconsciousness that uses people in order to become manifest in the consciousness of our daily lives. This force has used you in order to manifest its protective guidance; to make truth and understanding known to those seeking it. You dog…admit that you just wake up in the middle of the night to find this blog written, that you are just as astonished as everyone else to read what you find here, that you are the most rested person writing today as you must sleep so much so much can be written. But on the off chance that I’m wrong then just keep it up…and good job.

  • (Looking at the number 10,000) I can’t believe I read the whole thing.

    Wow, 4 years and 10,000 posts.

    Remembering back to when TCR had no comments sections, no revenue, no “Read more” expander, No RSS, semi-anonymous blogging, and less than a dozen readers, I have to say that even then I knew there was something about your writing. There was just something about the way to took a topic, analyzed it, expanded on it, questioned it, and shared it that felt like the debates/discussions I’ve had with a cousin of mine so many times before. To those whose minds thirst for knowledge, for information, for analysis, for discussion, for debate, for intelect, and for understanding, this blog is highly addictive drug. I always knew that if people found out about your blog, they’d keep coming back for more, and they’d tell their friends.

    The changes you’ve made have been gradual and have always been carfeully considered to ensure that they make everyones experience better. I’m glad to hear that you aren’t rushing in to make changes simply for the sake of change. I know that any changes you make will be carefully considered and will only make our experience better.

    Congratulations on 4 years and 10,000 posts, but more importantly congratulations to all your readers for finding there way here. This is the only blog I reccomend to people and I reccomend it to everyone. One of the best surprises I’ve had was when a recently hired co-worker referenced TCR in a discussion and he had no idea I was a regular reader. To know that this blog has become well known enough that people are reccomending it to me affirms the belief I’ve always had that people who don’t read TCR regularly are generally 1) those who haven’t had the privledge of being informed of it’s existance yet and 2) those who lack any desire to know what is happening in the world and how it will affect their lives.

    TCR is more than just a blog. It’s a community. It’s a brand. It’s a symbol. To me it represents the concept of an “Informed Electorate” better than anything else I’ve encountered.

    The only question I have is: Where do I purchase a baseball cap and T-Shirt?

    – Danny
    (Reader since Feb 2003)

  • The only question I have is: Where do I purchase a baseball cap and T-Shirt?

    I’m pretty much broke, but would buy a CBR hat in a second — and wear it … often.

    CafePress is calling your name, CB …

  • Congratulations CB (and the largely unsung Ms. CB)! This has become my only daily must-read… so you must be doing something right.

  • Thanks for all the love, guys.

    As for CafePress…if anyone wants to come up with some kind of logo, feel free to. Neither of us are very creative in that way, which is why we don’t even have one of those little icon thingys for the web browser (fav icon).

    Or if there’s anything else you want the t-shirt to say, by all means send it to us. Hmmm, perhaps this is a good contest idea….

  • I just found this great quote:

    “Jesus Christ was a carpetbagger.”

    – Albion W. Tourgée, Ohioan, friend of President Garfield, represented Plessy in Plessy v Ferguson…

  • As for CafePress…if anyone wants to come up with some kind of logo, feel free to. Neither of us are very creative in that way, which is why we don’t even have one of those little icon thingys for the web browser (fav icon).

    I have the skillz …

    Okay, kinda. I also have a plug-in for Photoshop that makes the “favicon.ico” file necessary for the favorites image, so if anyone makes a good logo, I can adjust it or send them the plug in.

  • Honestly, I’d be thrilled with a blue cap with grey trim with either “TCR” or “The Carpetbagger Report” embroidered on it. Would wear it everywhere just hoping that someone would ask “What’s TCR?” That would be all the opening I’d need to introduce someone to the best political blog on the ‘net.

    Same with the T-Shirt: blue shirt, grey trim, “TCR” over upper left torso (where a pocket would otherwise be) and “The Carpetbagger Report” written on the back.

    If anyone has a better idea, that’s fine too, but if obsessing over a “logo” is going to prevent me from getting a cap and shirt then to he-doublehockeysticks with the logo.

  • I’d just like to add my thanks, Carpetbagger. There is one blog which I religiously tune into every day that I am at a computer, and it really is this one. The commentary and analysis is almost always spot on, and the trolls are few enough that the comments section stays relevant. I really have to thank Kevin Drum for linking to you a couple of years back, because this was truly a gem of a find.

  • Thanks a million CB. You have really built this place to be a must-stop shop, at least for those who are progressive leaning. Your efforts are very much appreciated.

  • It doesn’t have to be a fancy logo, I just figured something better than just TCR in Arial. On a cap that is fine, but a t-shirt? Seems a bit lame to shell out $$ for.

    I’ll poke around and see what I can find CafePress-like stores/merch. Who wants to work, anyway?? 🙂

  • Congrats to our favorite political pusher who keeps all of us addicts coming back for more. And thanks for getting this community of posters together on a daily basis to populate the comments section with good insights, better humor and outstanding outrage (at times.) No wonder the MSM hates you — your reporting puts them to shame and after coming here to TCR there’s just no going back to believing everything or even most things reported in the MSM.

  • Congratulations on the 10,000th to the CB crew! (All two of yas…) Just to echo many of the other commenters here… this is my first stop every day and I feel cheated if I don’t manage to read everything posted here each day.

    Not only is this the place for some of the absolutely smartest writing and political analysis on the net, but generally insightful (and funny) commenters as well. It is a nearly perfect place in a very imperfect, and frightening world. Thanks for helping put things into a more digestible perspective, CB! Here’s to many more productive blogging years!

  • I just discovered your blog a month or so ago. I don’t know where I’ve been. But it’s one of the ones I read several times a day now. Thanks for your great work, and I look forward to reading for years to come.

  • Au contraire, thank you! I try not to miss a post, and I’m pretty successful. I spread your excellent journalism to friends and to themotleyfool.com. You deserve a wider audience and I’m confident that before long you’ll have it.

  • I used to read THE NEW YORK TIMES in the morning. Now it’s you and Josh Marshall. Congratulations, CB, and may you have many more successful years.

  • Congrats again, CB. I have one small design suggestion. How about a link back to the front page at the bottom of the comments pages? Other than that, don’t change a thing.

  • CB – Congratulations and thanks so much for your hard work. You’re a life line to sanity for so many of us.

  • I can’t go a day without The Carpetbagger Report!
    Thanks for sharing your thoughts/opinions/concerns with us.

  • Congratulations!

    I almost always lurk. I discovered your blog about three years ago I think and it’s my first stop everyday to find out what’s happening in the US. I appreciate your rational discussion of serious issues without descending into over-the-top rhetoric. (I usually get my fill of that on other blogs after I’ve gotten the facts from you. )

    Please keep up the good work. I don’t know how you manage to write so many posts each day, but I am very grateful to you.

  • One more thing. Thank you to all the regular commentators. I love the sense of community here and after reading for so many years I can almost guess who wrote a comment from the style and voice. You often add greater perspective to an issue and I always walk away feeling more enlightened.

    Please do continue to comment because it’s very much a part of this blog’s charm.

  • Let me put in my “congratulations” for your time in the blogosphere, along with a personal thank you for featuring my blog at Daou last year. You know I’m one of the daily faithful readers, and I certainly appreciate the relevancy of your posts (and Morbo’s and the others), and hope you continue strong. Most of all, thank you for the work and time you put in to make this a great site. Also, a big high five to the commentors. Some of the best I’ve read, across the board.

  • Congrats Mr. and Mrs. CB!!!

    I do so appreciate your intelligent, evenhanded, and well-informed posts…like so many others, I flip on the PC in the morning and check out “Carpetbagger” first (usually…lol) to get my bearings…

    Thanks again for all your invaluable work.

  • Keep up the good work man. I found this place by following a link at Crooks and liars and ever since that day your blog is the second blog I read (C&L is first so I can start teh downloads). I’m extremely happy that you’re willing to invest so much of your time here. The country would be a little worse off without you.

  • Well Done CB. You keep a steady stream of thought provoking posts coming and cut to the chase. The quality of a post is not determined by its length or pretension. Also like the fact that you often express yourself with vigour. The lying, callous, greedy sanctimonious opponents of fairness, tolerance, and reason deserve no kid glove treatment.

  • Congratulations and a big thank you, Mr and Mrs CB. Steering me to this blog was the best thing my personal ‘puter-guru (son) has ever done for me:) You aren’t the only one, but you’re the best

  • I started reading the CB last year and it has become a daily habit – multiple times a day. Great writing and great insight! Congratulations!

    • Comments are closed.