Friends and Allies Of Rome Part II: Michael Hiltzik Runs

Again, up and out of bed. I see that Hugh took my advice from this morning's rambling post:

UPDATE: My producer just spoke with Michael Hiltzik to invite him to appear on the program. He declined.

The Times' editor, Dean Baquet, also spoke with my producer. Mr. Baquet thanked him for calling and extending the offer to appear, which Mr. Baquet declined. Mr. Baquet added that there was "no comment from the paper at this time."

For those keeping the scorecard, that's called running scared.

And there won't be any ramblings this time around. My head's clear of the cold meds, and I'm still hopping mad.

Why, you ask? Haven't others--even some Republicans--pumped up their own egos in similar fashion, you ask? First of all, if there were such among the GOP trhat did that, I'm unaware of it. Secondly, this isn't a partisan issue. To me, to Marcie, and to the whole blogosphere, it's personal.

Let me just give you an idea of what I'm talking about. Bloggers work. Period. To some, we may seem like a bunch of know-nothings causing problems and all-too often shrieking like a banshee. OK, I'll even grant you that a few are like that. But to the majority of us, we're not. We're level-headed, and we're professional. Being that way contributes to how we work. We watch the media. We watch our elected representatives. And we call them on things we question. Like Dick Durbin comparing our troops to socialist/communist thugs. Like John Kerry lying about his exploits in Vietnam. Like Dan Rather peddling phony documents to a nation at the tail-end of an election cycle. We do our work. We do our research. And we put a helluva lot of time into it. Whether we're disseminating a news piece, or analyzing the political landscape.

We do our job. And many times, if you're small fish like us, it's mostly thankless. But there are bright spots, and there are shining stars. Malkin, Reynolds, Morrissey, Frey, Liebau, Johnson, Hewitt, Rossett, and the list goes on. They're the elites. And every story they cover, every issue they touch on--from personal (like Hugh's fixation that the Indians will win the World Series), or professional (as Claudia Rossett has done on the Oil-For-Food scandal)--involves a level of reasoned thought and sensibility.

To date, Michael Hiltzik has shown exactly the opposite. And today, thanks to Patterico he has shown us that someone can go lower than expected.

Michael Hiltzik has created two pseudonyms: Mikekoshi and Nofanofcablecos.

Yes, he used them to go after his critics. Among them being Patterico. And Patterico puts together the puzzle clearly on his site, which leads me to why I take it personally. He used the same phony names on his own site, in his own comments section, to attack those critics, and parrot his thoughts. In fact, go read his answer to the accusation, and you'll see that:

#1--It's not a denial
#2--The way he addresses the issue is completely irrelevant to the charge we have.

He basically "lied" to those who read his site. He deceived them. Which means, again folks, he doesn't get it.

Credibility is key to a blogger's success, and whether small fish like us stick around. If we do something--intentionally--on our site that is deceitful, our credibility is gone. We're not nutters, and we prove that everyday. So do the rest of the bloggers out there. As a blogger who works hard on his site, that means a lot to me. And the reaction of the LA Times and Michael Hiltzik shows that neither one of them understands what it means to be a blogger. Worse yet, with his non-denial, and the "no comment" from Mr. Baquet, that tells me that a national newspaper is OK with lying to it's readers on the Internet.

So, yeah, I take this a bit personal. As a matter of fact, the more I keep reading about this, I'm starting to get a tad surly.

Publius II

ADDENDUM: Welcome Hugh Hewitt readers. TY for stopping by. Feel free to comment. And be sure to check out Marcie weighing in on Hiltzik here. She has an interesting take on "art" imitating real life.