Pardon this silliness, but I need to clear the air.

Earlier this week I posted about a couple of statements on Christian Adams’ blog in which he falsely indicated that I had “refused” an offer to debate Fund and von Spakovsky about allegations in their book.  I explained that I never received such an offer much less refused to debate.

Afterwards I had a nasty Twitter exchange with Adams in which he pushed me to check with the press as to whether an offer to debate was communicated to me.  (This strikes me as totally beside the point as to the false statement about the refusal.)  I confirmed with Yale Press that no offer of a debate was communicated.  John Fund wrote to me that he had no idea where the allegation came from.

I demanded a retraction. I also tried to post a response on Adams’ blog explaining that there had been no offer communicated to the Press and no refusal by me.

This led to two Twitter posts from Adams.  First, “What part of “there will be no retraction” don’t you understand. I reported what I was told. Period.”  [In other words, I take no responsibility if I repeat false hearsay.]

Second, “Guess what. My blog. Not yours. You dont even open your posts to comment. Turn off the urge to control other people’s blogs.” [So this leaves on his blog the false impression that I never responded to his query about whether my publisher was approached about a debate.]

And with this, I’m done trying to have a rational conversation with Mr. Adams.  And of boring my blog readers with this nonsense.