This isn't the most interesting part, but as an aside I thought this was actually a fascinating possibility:
Finally, Cloud throws in a great many personal insults toward me and toward David Brock in the hopes of deflecting the criticism he has received of his work. My guess is that this is his first experience in receiving public criticism and he will grow to regret the intemperance of his remarks. In the meantime, even if his wild charges were accurate, they would do nothing to exonerate his article.
Given that I doubt any of us knew who the hell John Cloud was until a few days ago, this is probably true. It's quite interesting. Even when I was getting a couple hundred of hits per day I suffered a barrage of constant public criticism. I'm not complaining or whining, it's just part of blogging. You get used to it very quickly. It's interesting to me that someone working for a major news magazine could possibly have largely avoided it. Maybe it isn't the case, but...