Kevin Drum’s 10th Blogiversary

The erstwhile CalPundit starts his second decade strong as ever.

Today, Kevin Drum starts his 10th year of blogging. Congrats to him on an impressive milestone and best wishes for the next decade.

Kevin, who started out blogging under the CalPundit label (in those days, bloggers were legally required to name themselves ___Pundit; the FCC subsequently relaxed the rules), was already a star when I started blogging just a few months later. He was among the first wave of professional bloggers, too, with his blog moving to and becoming the front page of the Washington Monthly before his move to his current home at Mother Jones.

In the early days, blogging was a much smaller community and the best were quickly discovered and appeared on each other’s blogrolls.  Cross-blog conversations were much more common as well. Aggregators like Memeorandum weren’t yet around and bloggers were always looking for other bloggers to read and link. We commented on each other’s writing regularly for years.

Kevin is one of the few long form bloggers from those days who didn’t burn out. Indeed, much more impressive than lasting ten years is that he remains as prolific as ever, continuing to put out several high quality posts on a daily basis. As someone whose own production has dropped off considerably, I’m envious.

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James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. al-Ameda says:

    is that the old Inkblot, or the new Inkblot?

  2. James Joyner says:

    @al-Ameda: The original; it’s an older photo.

  3. Anderson says:

    There’s a new Inkblot?

    … Drum is the liberal blogger whom I recommend to conservative friends, just as I recommend OTB to liberal friends.

  4. Ron Beasley says:

    CalPundit was one of the first blogs I read. He was also the first “big” blogger to link to one of my posts at my original blog, Middle Earth Journal. I was getting less than a hundred hits a day but one day I checked sitemeter and I had over 1000 hits all from Kevin.

  5. Drew says:

    From my perspective, this is a little bit too much “inside baseball.”. But I applaud anyone who goes from scratch and is around 10 years later.

  6. Peacewood says:

    Just in case it needs to be said: diminishing production is absolutely not a blemish on your record, James.

    In fact, you have performed admirably given your recent difficulties, and I enjoy coming here each day.

  7. Barry says:

    Congratulations to Kevin!

  8. Barry says:

    @Peacewood: I agree, James.

  9. Janis Gore says:

    Mr. Drum doesn’t have two little girls to look after. He probably envies you, James.

  10. Janis Gore says:

    How are the girls?