I found myself wondering why anyone typed so many words about this. Did you use a bot, or did you really think this was worth three screen loads worth of text?

... you need to get out more. She's just plain homely.

That these "journalists" wasted a week running this crappy contest or that you wasted about 1,000 words writing about it?

"...faster than a Diebold rigged for George W. Bush"

Finally came around to that conclusion eh?

Neither one of 'em.

Not exactly butt-ugly, but there should be ground rules and an initial detemination of attractiveness in such a 'contest'.

There, I've just written more than the subject deserves.

that that chick is hotter than Garance Franke Rutka.

I don't know what you're smokin', but Ms. Andrews not hot. Sorry, but that's the truth. As mentioned previously, Farhad, you need to get out a little more if you think she's "hot."

This article might have been worth a short blurb, at most. Please give us a solid article on who the best reporter in D.C. is.

Besides, everyone knows that WJLA's Pamela Brown is the hottest reporter in D.C.

so little substance.

No wonder our Republic is going down the toilet. What's next? A Hottest Self-Congratulatory A-Holes Contest?

Ooops. Looks like that's already been covered.

The definition of "hot" is very different for "reporters,"

or

These are very bad pictures.

The guy just looks scruffy. With that kind of beard and those glasses, all you can see is a beard and glasses. The woman is not unattractive in the picture, but she is far short of "hot."

I guess there is another possibility: DC "reporters" are an unattractive bunch, and these two are just the best of slim pickings. But that is not how they are described.

Blogging about bloggers blogging about other blogger's blogging.

Who the hell do you think you are? Glenn Greenwald?

I imagine that it was. Two decent enough looking people win a contest for "hotness"--their buddies were teasing them. And now they have to deal with having the results made public.

Nobody, however, should fail to get the joke--and Manjoo's weirdly over-the-top wowser!-ing of Andrews suggests that he didn't, thus inviting us, his readers, to pitch into the looks of this moderately attractive young woman.

I hope that those of you who felt you just had to go out of your way to let the rest of us know your opinion of the relative hotness of Mr. Capps and Ms. Andrews feel better about yourselves this morning. I am disappointed, however, that there were no "pointy knees" comments.

And congratulations on missing the entire point of the article: namely, that the level of "hotness" took a backseat to how many friends of yours knew how to run a bot. And (while I think the results were slightly more important to the participants than they let on) they certainly were all appropriately self-deferential about this silly thing.

And personally, I think she's cute.

...is always so amusing to me. Here in Madison, a local paper has a Page Two "celebrity" column that struggles to find enough names to boldface after name-dropping the mayor, the weatherman, and a B-lister who buzzed into town from L.A. for a charity event.

People like to believe in the integrity of their small circles, even if it leads to cannibalism.

clearly then the presidential election ought to be decided via Am I Hot or Not.

oh, and there's already at least one elected robot: governor of California.

there, my comments have matched the depth of this article. next please.

therefore I am speechless....Da, da, dah, dee, dee, dee, dummmm-b.

Might as well have a contest based on hotness -- no one in Washington DC appears to have any principles to be judged by.

Since when is the Ukraine the hottest democracy operating outside the rules and installing the unelected by cheating and manipulation? Getting these two admittedly nice and fairly attractive people "elected" by bots serves as a great metaphor for the US under George W. Bush. "Everyone knew that the only way to get ahead was to play outside the rules." Ew.

if you lived in Alaska. Or if you were imprisoned. Other than that, she's what you'd call, "average, but not fat or old."

breschau clearly demonstrated how to get an Editor's Choice star from Manjoo: Kiss up to him.

Yes, the point was that the "poll" was gimmicked. We noticed that. But we also noticed how Manjoo called two very plain looking "reporters" hot. We felt that his extended fawning over their very run-of-the-mill looks was an apt point to reflect upon, since this article was so pointless.

But I bet you are way proud of your star!

Maybe this is an easy target, but the whole thing strikes me as sad. It's as though all the nerds got together and had their own prom and elected their own homecoming king & queen. (I'm a nerd myself, and I'm embarrassed of such a spectacle.) The results page linked from the article was like a page from a high school yearbook with all the jocks and cheerleaders neatly cut out.

The insider-blog community, the social media-obsessed, the screen-name crowd--it seems to me like some kind of alternate-reality experiment where the uncool can become cool and end up just as stupid and ridiculous and cliquish as the cool crowd from whatever level of schooling formed in them this trauma and need to be part of 'the scene'.

There's a tongue-in-cheek aspect to all of this, and maybe this is too harsh an analysis. But it seems like a setting and age group that's just dying for seriousness and dignity and is instead plagued with self-referential in-crowd nonsense. I saw a sense of desperation, insecurity, and immaturity in so many of those photos; we all possess it--I'm not absolving myself from it--but we can all aspire to something better, especially in the public arena.

The spotlight of this article is only going to cause embarrassment to two kids who deserve to have this kept within their own circles. Manjoo's well-intentioned comment about how good-looking they are opened them up to a lot of scrutiny that they really don't need and didn't ask for.