Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark!

Quiet down, Spotty! Let's see why all these people are at the door.

Bark! Bark!

Shush! Well, it looks like they're here to see you, Spot.

Moi? Whatever for?

The Cucking Stool was just named Liberal Blog of the Year by City Pages.

Really? That's awesome! And look at me! I haven't been to the groomer in months!

You've never been to a groomer. Your hair is too short.

Oh, right.

Just go out and talk to the people.

Okay.

Spot wants to thank City Pages for the recognition and the award. One of the good things about reading a blog by a dog is that there is very little self-absorbed angst to be endured. Or self-absorption of any kind for that matter. Today will be an exception, for which Spot apologizes.

First off, Spot has a co-author, MNObserver. Spot complains bitterly that MNObserver, who is more connected to politics, especially local politics than Spot, doesn't post more often, but he's grateful when she does.

The Cucking Stool, which was an old English and colonial American "engine of correction," was used as a dunking punishment for a communis rixatrix or common scold. There is a picture of a cucking stool here. People have written to Spot to say that a cucking stool was something else, designed to expose the posterior of the communis rixatrix, but the legal commentator Blackstone supports Spot's usage. Although a communis rixatrix could only be a woman – you Latin scholars can figure that out – Spot includes the communis rix, too.

It is mostly politicians and journalists who have been forced to sit on The Cucking Stool: George Bush, Tim Pawlenty, Tom Emmer, Geoff Michel (Spot's state senator), Norm Coleman, Dick Day, Alberto Gonzales, Don Shelby, D.J. Tice, Craig Westover, and the Power Line boys to name a few. But Spot has a special place in his heart for Katherine Kersten and Michele Bachmann, the state's two pre-eminent common scolds.

Sometimes, Spot plays the canine Zen master and has a dialogue with his "boys and girls" in the plural, or a "grasshopper" in the singular. And sometimes, just for fun, Spot channels dialogues or telephone calls or adapts classic literature to the present circumstance. On special occasions, Spot has the power to hear Katherine Kersten or Michele Bachmann praying.

The Cucking Stool is especially incensed at Katherine Kersten's anti-Muslim tirades.

We occasionally award a Spotty™ to the author of an op-ed piece, a letter to the editor, or a blog post or comment that Spot wishes he had written himself.

Spot urges new readers to poke around a little. Check out Spot's favorite posts on the right, or put the name of your favorite communis rix or rixatrix in the search box, and see if he or she comes up.

Spot hopes you'll come back from time to time.

We all get by with a little help from our friends. Spot thanks all the paragons of virtue or vice, blogger mentors (every one of them a local blogger that you probably already know), helpers and friends, and the tipsters who made and make The Cucking Stool possible. Them and the tolerance of Mrs. Spot.

City Pages, thanks again. Spot is not the hippest dog in town, and your recognition means a lot to him.

Tags: Best Liberal Blog