A story that has generated little attention in the mainstream media was the most popular subject among bloggers last week.

From November 23-27, 40% of the links in blogs were to a November 24 Fox News report about the pending court martial of three Navy SEALs who captured a wanted terrorist in Iraq, according to the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. Many commentators, who tilted conservative, expressed outrage that the men are being prosecuted for an alleged assault against Ahmed Hashim Abed, the reputed mastermind behind the 2004 killing of four Blackwater contractors. Some of them blamed President Obama for allowing the case to proceed.

Until this week, Iraq had been largely absent from the news-among both new and traditional outlets. So far in 2009, it has not appeared at all among the top five weekly subjects in the blogosphere and in the mainstream press accounted for less than 2% of the coverage, according to PEJ’s News Coverage Index. Even last week, virtually all the online commentary on the court martial case linked to one report on Foxnews.com, with few other mainstream media outlets doing independent reporting on the story.

The Iraq story accounted for more than three times the links as the second-largest story for bloggers last week: the Senate’s November 21 vote to begin floor debate on the health care reform bill-a procedural victory for those pushing for comprehensive reform. Bloggers saw the vote as significant, and many used the opportunity to voice support or opposition to the reform effort.

The No. 3 story for bloggers (at 9%) was a BBC report about an iPhone virus, mainly affecting users engaged in online banking with the Dutch bank ING. The subject of global warming was fourth (at 8%), though the subject debated was not so much warming itself but the hacking of private emails from a British climate change research. And fifth (at 5%) was the revelation that a Belgium man believed to have been in a coma for 23 years was actually conscious the entire time.

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin-in the news for her book "Going Rogue"-was the top attraction on the video sharing site YouTube last week. She was the subject of two of the top five videos, although not necessarily in a positive way. The top video, viewed more than a million times, came from the liberal organization, New Left Media. The