Ritholz, comments and asshats

Barry Ritholz reposted an attack on Megan Mcardle that I just didn't get. I posted a comment that didn't agree with him and a followup comment was replaced by a link to the comment policy...eg don't be an asshat.   http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2012/09/fisking-mcardle/

So here's that followup post:

 maybe there is some other article with clear evidence than the one you are pointing to, but just reading through point by point, I don't see any evidence of anything, just supposition
: -first point: weird attack on her father, and she went to an expensive school (is she a sleeper agent paid by the koch's for 30 years?)
-she changed in college from liberal to conservative (like most of us. you mean unicorns don't make rainbows?)
-a link to her old blog, a months worth of posts. huh? -she was rejected from the foreign service, meaning she didn't get the job that all liberal arts students want. -she made an unfunny comment during 2003 about war protesters (haven't we all)
-she was trained by some sinister organization in journalism (IHS @ george mason university) -she wrote articles against dodd frank (I wish everyone had and that crap wasn't passed) a bloomberg article starts off saying koch is against it, ooh, sinister, but a better summary was buried:
"A provision in the bill known as the “end-user exemption” is of particular concern to industry groups representing Koch, Lockheed Martin Corp. and Caterpillar Inc. The rule would exempt companies that use derivatives to hedge their risks in commodities, currencies and interest rates from posting margin, or a deposit against default, on over-the-counter trades." so now Caterpillar is evil too?
 -then several points that you could argue either side. eg I'd agree that putting large inheritance taxes just makes wealthy people hide their money. -she was against things that would 'improve voters lives ...like obamacare' . me too. and most americans too -
 -"In February 2009, McArdle led a propaganda campaign in her Atlantic blog to discredit investigative journalism exposing the first Tea Party protest in February 2009 as an Astroturf campaign backed by the Koch brothers and FreedomWorks. " There's no source for any of this. Is the tea party astroturf? who says? half of my facebook friends are in the tea party.

 -her fiancee works for freedom works. so what. -she wrote an article attacking a book about a writer that went bankrupt. read the comments in that link, it is more enlightening
 - she married her husband. is where he works a conflict of interest?
 - a crappy anecdote about meeting a black man who approves of gentrification....and?
 -attacking a ny times article that is huffy about formaldehyde, the koch's apparently love formaldehyde, but only since 2005 when they bought Georgia Pacific. is that causality?

 If you are going to accuse someone of conflict of interest shouldn't you have something, like, evidence? her marriage and where her husband works are both on her wikipedia page, that seems like disclosure. If there is something else, i don't see it from the links provided.