We aren’t up for one this year (we didn’t deserve one, but watch out for us next year!), and I’ll be commenting tomorrow on some of my choices.

But the Battle Royal right now is between Michael Totten and Juan Cole for best Middle East and Africa Blog. It’s not just that Michael posts here, that he and I are on a page ideologically; or that that he’s a great, generous guy. It’s not just that he actually goes out and puts his eyes on what he writes about and offers original reporting, rather than recycled 1950’s international politics.

It’s that he’s an honorable guy, who plays straight in his writing and life. Cole, on the other hand – famous for ‘disappearing’ his mistakes (scroll to the bottom) on his blog, famous for whining about how MEMRI was lawyer-lettering him – only to have been outed as someone who had done the same thing to Martin Kaplan.

There are first-rate minds who live in second-rate people, and we excuse their behavior because of what they add to our store of knowledge, art, thought, or beauty. Note that I’m not saying I think Cole is a first-rate mind (I’m doubtful – but I haven’t read his real scholarship); just that I try and separate the thinking from the living. In Cole’s case, though, the living is problematic enough that I’d really hate to see the guy rewarded.

Plus, he’s massively wrong on Israel, on the role of ‘colonialism’ in modern international relations, and on pretty much everything he writes about US politics.

So go on over and vote early and often (you can vote every 24 hours).