Salon's Alex Pareene [1] doesn't know me, but for the second year running he has given me a terrific Christmas present: the Hack List [2], his roundup of the worst political analysts and commentators in the business. Last year it was called the Hack Thirty [3], and I posted about it here [4]. This year there are just twenty hacks named, with a focus on their doings in 2011. Some names (like David Brooks) appear again; others from last year who didn't make the cut are included in an appendix: "Hack List Alums: Where Are They Now?" [5] Pareene builds a strong case against each honoree. He's merciless, and hilarious. My favorite of this year's takedowns was number 5, Katie Roiphe [6], who, he noted, has gained attention once again "for being a reliable source of controversial-sounding contrarian anti-feminist bullshit" who "also writes very badly about the Internet and people on the Internet who are mean to Katie Roiphe." Also very deserving is number 3 [7], who inspires this cheering observation: "One upside to Americas frothing populist hatred of intellectuals is that we dont produce many Bernard-Henri Levys."

(I love the present, but not the wrapping - Salon always manages to make it difficult for me to find the things I want to read, and impossible to find them again. Right now I can't find an easy way to link to more than the first five "hacks." I imagine they'll fix that eventually, but for now I recommend going to the list of Pareene's posts [1], finding the "earlier articles" link at the bottom, and moving backward that way.)

As a bonus, Pareene offers a reminder [8] that the late Christopher Hitchens "was disastrously wrong" about the Iraq War, and his death shouldn't prevent us from acknowledging that. His take on Hitchens is not a eulogy, but seems entirely on-target to me.