"Alexander Russo Is The Best Blogger Ever."

Sometimes when readers here or (more often) on my Chicago blog are using the comments section to slam something I've said, or gotten wrong, I feel indignant at being abused in my own home and have the urge to defend myself.

Occasionally I pipe in to say, "hey, wait a minute." But I always reveal that it's me defending myself. Apparently that's just what amateurs do.

Under frequent and substantial attack on his own site, a New Republic blogger named Siegel apparently took to signing onto his own blog -- under a pseudonym -- and defending himself vigorously and anonymously against his critics (New Republic Suspends an Editor for Attacks on Blog). But he wasn't very subtle about it, which is part of how he got caught. For example, criticized for what he'd said about Jon Stewart's Daily Show, Siegel wrote in (as someone else) that “Siegel is brave, brilliant and wittier than Stewart will ever be. Take that, you bunch of immature, abusive sheep.”