The Nation is a special place for many reasons, one of which is that we’re not traffic-driven–raw data on how our stories perform doesn’t dictate (though of course it does inform) our coverage.  But like any web editor, I study’s analytics on a (tri!)daily basis, and even a cursory look at our most popular stories shows that Nation readers rank among the most intelligent and informed of those of any publication anywhere. Readers’ priorities, it turns out, are a lot like the magazine’s.  Any list of stories our readers like best is heavy on the investigative, the reflective, the complex, and the…well….long!  Your commitment to in-depth, quality journalism, your intelligence, your thoughtful responses, and your attention spans distinguish you.  So, just in case you missed any of our greatest hits of 2010, here’s a list of some of our—and your—favorites!

Isabel Macdonald, Lou Dobbs, American Hypocrite
While he railed against "illegals," undocumented immigrants tended to his estates and prize horses.

Eric Alterman, Kabuki Democracy: While a Progressive Presidency Is Impossible
Even with supermajorities in both houses of Congress behind them, American presidents cannot pass the kind of transformative progressive legislation that Barack Obama promised in his 2008 presidential campaign. Here’s why.

Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater’s Black Ops
Internal documents reveal the firm’s clandestine work for multinationals and governments.

Dana Goldstein, Grading ‘Waiting for Superman’
The celebrated film tells a familiar story about unions and schools—but misses what’s new.

Christopher Hayes, Deficits of Mass Destruction
The Iraq War was never really about weapons of mass destruction, and the fight against the deficit is not actually about fiscal responsibility. It’s a shell game for gutting the welfare state and redistributing wealth upward.

Melissa Harris-Perry, The Misunderestimation of Sarah Palin
As American life becomes more and more like reality television, could product placement of a candidate become the surest route to the presidency?

Thomas Geoghegan, Ten Things the Dems Could Do to Win
Why the party needs to have a plan, keep it simple—and do something for the base.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, No to Oligarchy
While the middle class disappears and more Americans fall into poverty, the wealthiest people in our country are using their wealth and political power to protect their privileged status at everyone else’s expense.

Greg Mitchell, Blogging the WikiLeaks Release: Day 1
Greg blogged the reaction to the latest WikiLeaks dump daily for over a month.

Corey Robin, Garbage and Gravitas
Ayn Rand was a melodramatist of the moral life: the battle is between the producer and the moochers, and it must end in life or death.

Greg Mitchell, Matt Lauer Interviews George Bush
Matt Lauer’s softball Bush interview disappoints.

Leslie Savan, Fox News Won’t Admit that Republicans Voted Against 9/11 Rescue Workers
When they do something so vile that even Fox commentators can’t stomach it, Republicans become They-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

Peter Dreier, The Fifty Most Influential Progressives of the Twentieth Century
The radical ideas of one generation become the common sense of the next. Peter Dreier honors the people who moved progressive ideas in America from the marginal to the mainstream.

Nathan Schneider, God, Science and Philanthropy
The politics of the Templeton Foundation’s "Big Questions."

Alfred W. McCoy, The Decline and Fall of the American Empire
Domestic and global trends suggest that in 2025, just 15 years from now, the American century could all be over except for the shouting.

William Greider, Obama Without Tears
The president needs to learn to play hardball.

Robert Reich, Unjust Spoils
Surging inequality, not Wall Street banditry, is the underlying cause of the Great Recession.

Naomi Klein, A Hole in the World
The BP disaster reveals the risks in imagining that we have complete command over nature.

William Greider, The AIG Bailout Scandal
As Elizabeth Warren’s devastating Congressional report reveals, the Federal Reserve used taxpayer money to bail out the insurance giant, instead of forcing the major banks to clean up the mess they helped create.