NICK CONFESSORE IS picking on TechCentralStation (well, really in the process of picking on James Glassman) over in the Washington Monthly.

It’s hard to know exactly what he doesn’t like about TCS — other than, you know, the fact that a lot of its authors disagree with his politics — but it seems to have something to do with the fact that it’s not a non-profit, instead relying on some sort of new innovation called “sponsors”(cleverly concealed <a href=”here on the TCS website!) to pay the bills. But he doesn’t really critique any actual articles, or supply much in the way of specifics.

All I’ll say is that I’ve written for TCS for nearly two years, and they’ve never told me what to write. Occasionally the editor, Nick Schulz, will suggest a topic — last week he suggested that I write something about the Federal Marriage Amendment, and I stupidly declined, not realizing what a big issue it would be this week — but it’s certainly hard for me to discern any Subtle Corporate Agenda in those suggestions.

Of course, if it were a really subtle corporate agenda, I might not notice. In fact, I might write articles that I thought were my own idea, but that really advanced the Subtle Corporate Agenda. But let’s not get paranoid, here. If that were true, I would have written a nonspecific article in some other publication, pretending at criticism but actually announcing that TCS was really good at advancing the agendas of its paying sponsors, thus encouraging more companies to become paying sponsors. Hmm. Hey, you don’t think. . . . ?

UPDATE: Daniel Drezner, who writes for TCS from time to time, wonders if he’s a paid lobbyist (not paid much, if he gets what I’m getting!) and observes:

One surprise for me, given that Confessore contributes to Tapped, is that he failed to mention Tech Central Station’s willingness to recruit its contributors from the blogosphere. Flipping through the authors, I saw a fair number of bloggers that are TCS contributors — Radley Balko, Joe Katzman, Lynne Kiesling, Arnold Kling, Megan McArdle, Charles Murtaugh, Virginia Postrel, Glenn Reynolds, Rand Simberg, Eugene Volokh, and Matthew Yglesias. I’d like to think that explains part of Tech Central Station’s success.

[Oh no! Drezner’s outed Yglesias, the TCS mole at TAPPED! –Ed. It’s a policy mag — with an ideology! I’m selling this story to Oliver Stone. . . .] And, as with Drezner, my only real interaction — except for an occasional email with the graphics guy — has been with Nick Schulz. I’ve never even gotten an email from Glassman, much less anyone else.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Sasha Volokh notes an ad from TomPaine.com sounding the same theme [TomPaine.com? Aren’t they funded by Bill Moyers, and doesn’t he “lavishly” fund The American Prospect which funds Confessore? — Ed. Shh. Leave the conspiracy theories to those guys. I’m sure it’s perfectly innocent.] and he’s thinking of suing them — for not using his name when they quoted his piece. Yes, “be sure you spell my name right” only works if you mention the name.

Megan McArdle weighs in, too. But the best line is from her comments section: “This is probably a sign that TCS is having a real impact: the ad hominems have started.” Heh. Indeed.

Michael Totten has comments, too.

Pejman Yousefzadah responds with a Fisking. Unlike Confessore, Pejman points to actual articles, and everything.

Personally, I think the whole affair looks like what my ethics book calls Petty Blifil. And thanks to the coolness of Amazon, you can follow that link and read what that means.