Hear, Hear!

Ten Years of AOSHQ Awesomeness

Back when I was working the national desk at the Washington Times, I’d read Ace of Spades and say, “Wow. That looks like fun. He’s writing about politics and making dirty jokes. I could do that.”

So after I actually quit my job and started blogging, Ace’s inspiration was alway there. R.D. Brewer takes us on a trip via the Wayback Machine to the AOSHQ Primitive Era, before he got all respectable and shit.

George W. Bush was in the White House, Republicans controlled both houses of Congress, Howard Dean was running around Iowa as if he were a Serious Contender, and it was safe to ridicule Democrats while making masturbation jokes.

Good times, my friends, good times.

I could just go to Ace's, and cite that, but this way, I get an FMJRA for this week at The Other MCain, in obeisance to Rule 2 of Stacy's 5 Rules for Getting a Million Hits in Less Than a Year:

Ace was integral to my following the blogosphere, and ultimately becoming a blogger, albeit a much lesser blogger.

I first became aware of blogs during the Rathergate scandal in 2004.  Somewhere in the course of that fight (in which I took the anti-Rather side) in an online argument, I probably followed a Drudge link off to the blogs.  Of course, the most exciting part of affair was the discovery by Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs (LGF) that the memos being cited as evidence that President G.W. Bush had used his families influence in his National Guard duty were almost certainly produced on a "modern" computer using Microsoft WORD, instead of the manual typewriters of the time.

I began to follow several blogs that took the issue up like pit bulls, and eventually forced the issue into the mainstream media's view, and lead to Rather resigning in disgrace.  Two of the prominent blogs among that group were the Ace of Spades, and AllahPundit.  LGF has since wandered off the reservation into eccentricity, and AllahPundit, who originally had his own site, disappeared for while, with occasional guest appearances at Ace's, and ultimately reappeared at Hot Air, to the extent that an anonymous blogger can reappear.

Meanwhile, Ace has kept it up day and night since then (with an excellent crew of co-bloggers), with humor, a little smut, and incredible insights in people and politics.  Here's to 10 more years of the Ace of Spades.