Atrios' "Wanker of the Day" has long gone from being a biting slam at a perceived enemy, to a backhanded honor at a foe whose words have cut too close to the bone. It's the lefty version of Andrew Sullivan's old "Begala Award" or "Sontag Award," which the Brit would give to honorees back before he discovered the Bushies ran torture camps. In other words, it's an honor to win the damn thing; only pundits and bloggers who won't shill for The Cause get so recognized.

Today, the WOTD went to Richard Cohen, for a post-Oscar column chastising his brother pundits for labeling Al Gore as a prevaricator and exaggerator during his Presidential run in 2000, and all but calling the former Veep a hero for his patience and integrity. What's wrong with that, you may well ask? Well, according to Media Matters, a website whose typical post goes something along the lines of "Giuliani Interviewed by ABC News, Not Asked About Bernard Kerik or His Three Wives," Cohen didn't mention that he too was critical of Gore during the 2000 campaign. Its examples: that he criticized Gore after the first debate for implying that he had visited the site of Texas wildfires with the head of FEMA, when, in fact, he had only visited the state of Texas with an assistant head, and that in two 1999 columns written more than a year before the election, Gore seemed to him to be uncomfortable in his own skin.

To show how exactly wankerific Cohen is, Media Matters went so far as to point out that Cohen had specifically exonerated Gore of the charge of him being a liar, discrediting some of the more bogus charges against the Vice President during that election. But Atrios either ignores that part of the post, or doesn't get this whole "nuance" thing, and gives Cohen his eighth WOTD, many for reasons just as specious and petty (including this column, in which the evil pundit comforts a girl who dropped out of school after failing algebra).

So in the world of Prof. Black, anyone who has ever said anything critical about Al Gore is not only immediately suspect, but a "wanker" to boot. Don't like him picking Joe Lieberman as his Veep? Wanker. Thought his dithering response to the recount in Florida cost him the election? Wanker. Hold the mistaken belief that his stage moaning and mannerisms helped him pull defeat from the jaws of victory in his first debate with Bush? SuperWanker !!!

I believe that Black originally desired that the WOTD Award be cutting and incisive, instead of a cheap stunt to avoid actually posting something thoughtful and substantive, which Kevin Drum or Digby do almost every day. I think a certain laziness creeps in when you run one of the uberblogs, a temptation to just go through the motions and belch out random "Wanker of the Day" or "Heh. Indeed" or even just "Threads," mixed in with a link from Media Matters or a clipping from Glenn Greenwald or Tom Maguire (and to understand the full extent of the falloff in quality, take a look at Eschaton in the week before the onset of hostilities in Iraq, here). You already have the traffic coming in, so why bother giving a rat's ass if what you're doing is elevating the public discourse.