Vermonter Steve Benen, he the one time Carpetbagger and current Political Animal, has been pegged by Wikio.com (and picked up and amplified by ABC's "The Note" blog) as having the tenth most influential political blog in the country – rated even higher than DailyKos and Firedoglake, and only one notch down from Talking Points Memo.

 High praise indeed. I've always wondered why Steve – who has such a high profile nationally (you can catch his mug from time to time on Rachel Maddow's show, for example) gets so little recognition locally. The Vermont media crowd acts as though they never heard of him (well… he is just a blogger).  

Of course, Megan McCain (blogging daughter of John McCain) is on the warpath against Steve of late, for his daring to suggest that she was not as influential a national figure as former Vice President Dick Cheney (hoooooo-wee, is a trip to the Total Perspective Vortex in order for somebody). Sadly, Ms. McCain also did not make the wikio top 100 list. Neither did Cheney, for that matter. So there.

UPDATE: Steve is having scary flashbacks seeing his teenage self plastered across the internet for all to see. I assure you all he's much more respectable now, and in the interest of fairness, I will once again humiliate myself thusly (once again, via Facebook):