I’ve delayed this one, because it struck me as some guy pretending to be someone else on the internet. Patterico has the story, and it’s some LA Times columnist named Michael Hiltzik posting on the Internet, replying to himself with the name Mikekoshi, and posting elsewhere with that name. Patterico has him dead-to-rights, though I can’t see the point.

But the weirdest thing about Mikekoshi is the way that he and Hiltzik praise each other, and back each other up — all the while pretending that they are different people. I have already mentioned how Mikekoshi defended one of Hiltzik’s first posts on his L.A. Times blog, and how Mikekoshi argued with a critic of Hiltzik’s on L.A. Observed.

But the admiration doesn’t just flow one way. Hiltzik has also praised Mikekoshi — when Mikekoshi was (in Hiltzik’s estimation) showing up an enemy of Hiltzik’s in an argument.

And it’s all documented in detail, with links and everything.

Hiltzik posts in response at his own blog:

The right-wing blogger Patterico has apparently worked himself into a four-star ragegasm (Tbogg’s inimitable coinage) at the notion of anonymous or pseudonymous postings on his website by me. This is amusing, because most of the comments posted on his website are anonymous or pseudonymous. “Patterico” is itself a pseudonym for an Assistant Los Angeles District Attorney named Patrick Frey. Anonymity for commenters is a feature of his blog, as it is of mine. It’s a feature that he can withdraw from his public any time he wishes. He has chosen to do that in one case only, and we might properly ask why. The answer is that he’s ticked off that someone would disagree with him.

If I had to take sides based on whatever, I’d side with Patterico, as I very much enjoy his site; but that’s not the case.

I’ve known people who have posted on blogs pseudonymously – nothing nefarious about it — and most commenters use a pseudonym. If a guy wants to pose as a third party to make arguments defending himself, I cannot see the problem. The arguments made are what they are, and if he has to post them as a third party to have them considered, and that’s what he wants to do, fine. And if you can trust him less for having done so, that’s fine as well. If the Los Angeles Times wants to fire him for it, that’s between them and Mikekoshi.

It’s all in good fun, I suspect.