One of the Pacific Northwest's earliest and best lefty blogs shuts down

The venerable Washington State Political Report, founded by Vashon Islander and American patriot Carl Ballard in January of 2004 - and the recipient of the 2005 Neiwert Award for "Best News Digest" - just shut down for good last Friday, to our disappointment.

Why? Its creator says he's ready for something new:

I couldn’t be more thrilled with the competition both that I’ve discovered and that I’ve seen start up. Where once, writing about Washington State seemed like a narrow focus, now it seems quite wide. And there is some burn out writing the same sort of blog for a few years.

I’d like to keep doing local, but be meaner and more focused on the right wing. There’s already a blatherwatch, of course, but there isn’t anybody who calls bull on the unsound politics and the Bill Virgins of the world on a regular basis.

WSPR was one of the first blogs selected for syndication on Pacific Northwest Portal. A couple of months ago, with the debut of Version 4.0 (Seaside) in May of 2006, it moved onto the front page to help anchor the Washington State column.

Now that it's defunct, we'll have to replace it, and we're sorry to have to do so. From our perspective, WSPR filled a valuable niche in the local blogosphere. As we noted last December:

Want a quick recap of what's happening around the state and the Pacific Northwest? You'd better head straight on over to Carl Ballard's Washington State Political Report. The Report undoubtedly provides the regional progressive blogosphere's best news digest, with frequent links to what other blogs and traditional media outlets are covering, as well as brief commentary from Carl and his guest bloggers. Even better, the Report is easy to read and covers developments and news items that are often ignored by other progressive bloggers. Our thanks to Carl Ballard for continually and reliably delivering such a great abstract of local political news and views.

We're sad to WSPR go, but we hold out hope that Carl Ballard will remain an active participant in the regional progressive blogosphere. We'll be watching with interest to see what his next endeavor will be.