Top Hot Air posts in 2011: 11-20

We’re finally getting into the top 20 posts with the most unique page views in 2011, and this set includes two election night open threads.  In 2010 I excluded those from consideration, but this year I kept them on the lists as we didn’t have too many of them — and those that made it onto the list were certainly meaningful to Hot Air readers.  It even includes what we thought was the greatest press conference of all time … at least until Andrew Breitbart upstaged Anthony Weiner.

• 20: Pelosi: Heck yeah, the government should shut down that scab plant in South Carolina – So sayeth the Democrat who ignored the overwhelming approval of union decertification at that plant two years earlier.  But she’s all about jobs … right?  Retirement can’t come quickly enough.
• 19: Open thread: The NY-9 and NV-2 special elections – The GOP reversed its losing streak in Congressional special elections with this sweep in September.  The Humpbot makes an appearance, and a good time was had by all except Anthony Weiner and the Democrats.
• 18: Comedy gold: The 13-second pause – Joann Kloppenburg might have felt that she “has been a winner in any number of ways,” but when you’re demanding a statewide recount and you can’t claim that you feel you won the election, it ends up looking embarrassing — especially when it takes 13 seconds to figure out an answer that won’t make you look foolish.  Er, too late.
• 17: White House lawyers who drafted secret Awlaki kill memo were critics of Bush’s war powers – There’s nothing like hypocrisy and vindication arriving at the same time.  Funny how the responsibility for keeping the nation safe tends to change your perspective.
• 16: Obama: We’re working on gun control “under the radar” – And, well, they still are.  This should surprise no one, but it should anger everyone.
• 15: Oh my: Prosser now leads in Wisconsin after Winnebago County adds 244 net votes to his total – It wasn’t that thin lead that generated the page views, but Allahpundit’s update when Wisconsin corrected its error and added the 7,000 uncounted votes back into Prosser’s column.  That was what prompted Kloppenburg’s 13 seconds of silence at a subsequent press conference, and it provided a wild night indeed for those following the state Supreme Court election/proxy fight over Scott Walker’s PEU reforms.
• 14: Video: The most insane tsunami footage yet – The catastrophes in Japan — quake, tsunamis, and near nuclear meltdown — are easily the most tragic stories of the year.  It might take a generation for Japan to recover from it, and the US West Coast may be soon receiving some of the remains of Japanese villages, piers … and the Japanese themselves.
• 13: The shame — and hypocrisy — of CNN – CNN took it upon themselves to scold conservatives for contributing to violent rhetoric leading to the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson — except that it did no such thing, and the imagery and terminology used by Republicans has also been used by Democrats for political purposes, as well as the media — including CNN.  Truly a shameful moment.
• 12: Open thread: Total recall – This was the epic facepalm moment for the unions, which dropped a considerable amount of money in an attempt to recall enough Republican state Senators to reclaim control, reversing the 2010 election.  They did manage to win two recalls, but still came up short of control, making the entire effort a big waste of money, and killing the momentum for recalling Scott Walker, at least temporarily.
• 11: Video: The greatest press conference of all time – And here’s the fourth Wisconsin post in this section, this time covering a presser that confirmed David Prosser’s 7500-vote lead in the state Supreme Court and set the stage for the recount that changed, er, nothing.

Don’t forget to check out our earlier posts for 41-50, 31-40, and 21-30!