A sock puppet, in Internet parlance, is a false Internet identity created for deceptive purposes.  Siegel, who had been writing a culture blog for The New Republic , had started using the pseudonym ``sprezzatura" on the blog's forums to praise himself and savage his critics.  In response to readers who had criticized Siegel's negative comments about TV talk show host Jon Stewart, ``sprezzatura" wrote, ``Siegel is brave, brilliant, and wittier than Stewart will ever be.  Take that, you bunch of immature, abusive sheep."

After a reader expressed suspicion that ``sprezzatura" was Siegel himself, he fired back, ``I'm not Lee Siegel, you imbecile."

When Siegel's deception was brought to the attention of New Republic editor Franklin Foer, the response was swift and draconian. Siegel's blog was terminated Sept. 1, he was suspended from writing for the magazine, and his past articles have been removed from the magazine's online archives.

Siegel is not the only professional pundit to be caught in a sock puppet scandal.  This year, Los Angeles Times business columnist Michael Hiltzik was stripped of his column and blog for using fake handles on his blog and those of his critics.  Economist John R. Lott, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, passed himself off as his former graduate student ``Mary Rosh" to defend his work and attack critics.


Wow.  I don't know whether to be disgusted, or pleased, that my bullshit chatroom tactics were replicated in the hallowed halls of The New Republic, The LA Times, and the American Enterprise Institute.  And those folks got paid for that "work!"

One thing I will say I have learned is that deception is the suicide of good intentions.  Once you lie, once you misrepresent, no matter how noble your cause, you have sidelined any legitimate role you could have in advocating it.  I will never compose any comments to articles on this site, and I certainly will never assume a false identity to write glowing praise of any of my own rants.  I pay family members good money to do that for me.

But I will say I find how seriously people have taken these other deceptions part of an unsettling pattern.  I mean, these were professional opinionators.  If they weren't dumping their perspective on the pages of major American publications, they'd be dumping it on the drunk next to them at the local pub.  They'd be dumping it on their wives.  They'd be having verbal throwdowns with old coots in their barber shop.  After all, these were not reporters.  What they write is utterly subjective.  Their currency is nothing more than the bile of their minds. 

Yet so many of today's opinion makers position themselves as grand players in world affairs.  Bill Kristol writes hyperventilated rants advocating the immediate invasion of Iran, regardless of the fact that we no longer have an available military to do it.  Thomas Friedman writes a book titled "The World Is Flat", and is praised as a forward-thinking messiah. 

Both of these men could be dismissed as naive fantasists, were it not that their ill-informed, completely subjective perspectives actually influence policy.  Bill Kristol has never worn a military uniform, yet is credited by many as the intellectual father of the war in Iraq—not to mention his claims on Iran.  Thomas Friedman has never had a job affected by the vicious trends of the global economy, like those in the manufacturing or service industries, yet his writing is considered essential for our leaders to understand how to design trade policy.

We give opinion makers in this country too much damn credit.  Catching them praising themselves in the comments section of their websites is refreshing.  It should serve as a reminder how unimportant all of them—including myself—really are.