My colleague Joan Connell’s end-of-year review highlighted those issues that Nation.com readers found of most importance during the course of this past year of alarming news and amazing reporting on the Iraq War, the rise of private mercenary firms, the burgeoning business of disaster capitalism, the imploding of the GOP and the disappointments of the Democrats, and an increasingly vulnerable environment.

We’re also running an end-of-year poll asking readers to weigh in on their year’s MVP–Most Valuable Progressive.

Here are the candidates:

• Al Gore, for raising the alarm on climate change.
• Valerie Plame, for weathering a scandal that ultimately exposed the lies that led us to war.
• Joshua Micah Marshall, for a principled and well-reported alternative to mainstream media.
• Dennis Kucinich, for putting peace and social justice at the center of his presidential campaign.
• Michael Ratner, for legal challenges to Gitmo detentions and illegal wiretaps.
• Amy Goodman, for the courage to tell the really important stories.
• Markos Moulitsas, for demonstrating the power of the netroots.
• Dick Cheney, for demonstrating the need for progressive leadership.

Click here to vote. And please use the comments field below to let us know about all the worthy candidates we undoubtedly left out.

I also wanted to recommend Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon’s sixteenth annual P.U.-litzer Prize Awards dedicated to recognizing the “truly stinkiest media performances of the year” and the Alternet staff’s roundup of the most popular videos of the year.

Thanks for reading (and acting!) in 2007 and happy holidays!