As February draws to a close, we at DCist pause to reflect upon how our brethren in the politically-oriented blogosphere spent another month in the zeitgeist. From the scalping of Eason Jordan and the outing of Jeff Gannon, to the victory lap being taken by the bloggers who forced the imminent departure of several CBS News bigwigs, bloggers are once again back in the news. The tenor of this recent coverage, however, is decidedly different. The mainstream media, who painted bloggers as cute scrappers during the election cycle, have injected no small degree of fearfulness and worry into their coverage—perhaps even a little ire. “Where is the journalistic oversight?” they wonder, “Where are the standards?” This DCist, who can picture the precise way Maureen Dowd might launch a ravenous jihad against a tray of canapés at a Kennebunkport soiree, would like to offer the so-termed MSM these encouraging words: Don’t panic. Once bloggers start getting invited to all the swank parties in the Kalorama Triangle, we’ll sell out, too. And faster.

Still, February was a big month for the political blogosphere, which is why it’s a curious coincidence that America’s foremost political blogger spent the month offline. We speak, of course, of DC’s own Ana Marie Cox, that dirty-mouthed Dorothy Parker who presides over the Capitol Hill gloryhole known as Wonkette. Cox left behind her perch at Clarendon’s Murky Coffee this month to spend the twenty-eight days -– a period which we ironically note was sufficient to both detox a sauced up Sandra Bullock and turn Britain into a nation of bloody mouthed zombies –- writing a book of some sorts.