Some Stats to Ponder

From TTLB's ecosystem report (number of inbound links in parentheses):

1.Instapundit.com (4200) details
2.Michelle Malkin (3308) details
3.Captain's Quarters (2488) details
4.Power Line (2437) details
5.Daily Kos: State of the Nation (2435) details
6.lgf: active anguish in a context of flux (2270) details
7.Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful Things (2245) details
8.Hugh Hewitt (1800) details
9.DRUDGE REPORT 2005® (1778) details
10.Wizbang (1722) details

Putting aside Boing Boing, which isn't a political blog, and Drudge, which is sort of a news site, seven of the eight most-linked blogs can be claimed by the conservative-libertarian camp. But Daily Kos, the only Leftist blog among the eight most-linked political blogs ranks first in traffic, whereas Wizbang (eighth of eight) ranks only 38th in traffic (from TTLB's ecotraffic report, link ranking in parentheses):

1) Daily Kos: State of the Nation 580069 visits/day (5)
2) Gizmodo: The Gadgets Weblog 230286 visits/day (89)
3) Instapundit.com 138604 visits/day (1)
4) Gawker 136833 visits/day (162)
5) Eschaton 126234 visits/day (12)
6) Defamer, the L.A. Gossip Rag 117552 visits/day (317)
7) lgf: active anguish in a context of flux 97539 visits/day (6)
8) Go Fug Yourself 95870 visits/day (240)
9) Michelle Malkin 88491 visits/day (2)
10) Wonkette, Politics for People with Dirty Minds 68667 visits/day (45)
11) Power Line 66210 visits/day (4)
12) Crooks and Liars 61848 visits/day (75)
13) A Socialite's Life 52320 visits/day (2245)
14) Blogcritics.org 48976 visits/day (54)
15) The Washington Monthly 48151 visits/day (17)
16) Scared Monkeys 47599 visits/day (256)
17) Pink Is The New Blog | Fingers Firmly On The Pulse 43402 visits/day (1948)
18) The Smirking Chimp 43042 visits/day (616)
19) Riehl World View 38904 visits/day (424)
20) Hugh Hewitt 36317 visits/day (8)
21) Blog for America 33746 visits/day (1288)
22) www.AndrewSullivan.com - Daily Dish 33164 visits/day (24)
23) Captain's Quarters 26798 visits/day (3)
24) Lifehacker 25173 visits/day (420)
25) Drunken Stepfather :.:.:Vida Guerra Amateur Pictures:.:.:Vida Guerra Naked Pics:.:.: Cellphone Hack: 20679 visits/day (7851)
26) PoliPundit.com 18265 visits/day (64)
27) The Irish Trojan's blog - Brendan Loy's homepage 17765 visits/day (711)
28) BTF's Baseball Primer Blog 17681 visits/day (4619)
29) Jesus' General 17611 visits/day (129)
30) The Volokh Conspiracy - - 17582 visits/day (11)
31) Famous Recipes on World Famous Recipes - If you are looking for famous recipes then you came to the 17414 visits/day (9133)
32) Recipes - World Famous Recipes 17364 visits/day (615)
33) Confirm Them 17174 visits/day (1942)
34) RedState.org 17174 visits/day (9929)
35) MyDD :: Due Diligence of Politics, Election Forecast & the World Today 16117 visits/day (130)
36) Drudge Retort: Red Meat for Yellow Dogs 16041 visits/day (4977)
37) Taegan Goddard's Political Wire 15909 visits/day (174)
38) Wizbang 15873 visits/day (10)

Other Leftist blogs also garner more traffic than several of the most-linked conservative-libertarian blogs. (You'll have to find the Lefties for yourself; I'm not going to mention any more of them by name.)

Why the discrepancy between the link rankings and the traffic rankings? Here's my hypothesis: Conservative-libertarian blogs get more links because they're considered more authoritative. Leftist blogs get more traffic because Lefties flock there, in search of reassurance for their views.

That hypothesis is consistent with the prevalance of vitriol-saturated posts and comments at Leftist blogs. Buzzards of a feather do flock together.