This is one of the most entertaining stories in the blogosphere right now — Nick Coleman’s attack on Powerline, TIME’s “blog of the year,” and the huge response it got.

My favorite part:

I asked the editor what standards Coleman’s column was subject to at the Star Tribune. He said he didn’t know; he would have to research the answer to that question and get back to me. But they do have standards, which is of course a relief!

That is similar to the response Don Luskin got from the opinion and “public” editors at the New York Times, only much funnier.

Jim Geraghty summarizes:

Imagine that you are writing a novel. You write a scene in which a newspaper columnist wrote that his Internet-based critics had no “professional standards” and then got one of his central arguments wrong because he didn’t bother to check what he assumed about his critics. After the errors are revealed, neither he nor his editor can say what “professional standards” his column is held to.

Most book editors and readers would shake their heads at that scene — it’s not believable, stacking the deck too much. Newspaper columnists aren’t that sloppy or reckless with the facts. Editors don’t just let them write whatever they feel like - they edit.

Like the story of the CBS memo, this is turning stranger than fiction.

Heh.