TIME.com's First Annual Blog Index

All hail HuffPo, the political blog against which all others are now compared. It wasn't always that way. Back in May 2005, when millionaire Greek socialite Arianna Huffington launched her eponymous blog, many derided it as a dilettante's vanity project. But in surprisingly short order, HuffPo has become one of the most popular and widely quoted sites on the web, its influence easily rivaling that of many mainstream media outlets. HuffPo's megamix of mostly liberal professional columnists, celebrity dimwits, political visionaries, party hacks, uncomfortable truth tellers, marginally successful but still struggling freelance writers, and just plain folks seems absurdly haphazard, but has proven to be the web's killer editorial model. If you don't what like you read here, just take another Huff.

Sample Huffington Post: The fact remains: the surge is not working. Indeed, it is an abject failure on many fronts...Just as the Athenian army was lost in the quarries of Sicily, the American army is being lost in the deserts of Iraq.