MY ARMY OF DAVIDS VIEWS COME IN FOR SOME CRITICISM at Government Executive magazine, which seems to view me as insufficiently friendly to big government. On the other hand, the author also thinks I work at the University of Texas, so I don’t feel terribly stung by his criticism.

UPDATE: Reader Bill O’Neill found something else to object to:

Even more characteristic of government bureaucrats than the (now corrected) error in your university is the following sentence from the review you linked:

“I was intrigued by the notion of who might want to beat big government — usually only tax cheats and other criminals are interested in that kind of racket.”

Do you think this pompous bozo believes he works for us, the taxpayers?

Yes, quite a few people found that sentence both revealing and objectionable. (Though I should note that Govt. Executive is published for government employees, but not by government employees). But Shoop did send me a non-pompous email on the error: “Jeez, that was a dumb mistake. My apologies. I’ll correct it.”

Quick correction is characteristic of the blogosphere and the Army of Davids, so maybe there’s hope for him yet.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Rand Simberg comments on the review, and observes: “It’s useful to note that when people criticize big government (at this website, the target is often NASA), it’s not (necessarily) criticism of the people who work for the big government. People, good people, respond to the situation in which they find themselves, and they also respond to the incentives inherent in that system.”

I’ve also noticed that some government people — and some journalists — respond to criticism of their employer or profession as if it were criticism directed at them, personally.