Telling story: Some time ago, I got an ingratiating email from Ben Wattenberg, whom I've known for many years, asking me to add his new blog to our blogroll. Wattenberg is a hostile, of course, but I agreed out of my habitual niceness. However, when I checked while editing Don Collin's account of Wattenberg's flim-flamming our innocent colleagues at CIS—at a forum they themselves paid for!—I found that the slippery old beggar had quietly reneged on his end of the bargain and had failed to link back.

No surprise. Wattenberg is a cheap crook. I don't mean this pejoratively, needless to say. It's just a clinical description of a certain personality type. He's like a peddler who just can't stop himself cheating the peasants. It doesn't help, of course, that his wares are shiny but tawdry. He's a sloppy researcher and an emotional thinker. Here's my account of catching him in a typically sloppy falsehood when debating Alien Nation with him on his TV show - and how he edited out my embarrassing victory..

Now Wattenberg has written Don Collins challenging him to a debate, smearing us in passing as "the distinguished website VDare—named, how appropriately for the first white baby born in these United States".

Wrong again, Ben. As I explained in refuting an earlier attempt to insinuate racism, the first white baby was probably a Viking, Snorri Portfinsson. Virginia Dare was the first English child—and matters because America is built on English values. But Wattenberg no doubt dislikes that even more.

Wattenberg suggests I "second" Collins. I hope it happens, although Don may be too much of a gentleman. I, however, feel that in Ben's case I can overcome my WASP inhibitions.