Newsweek writer Niall Ferguson activated phase two of the "write a provocative, if factually flimsy and intellectually dishonest, magazine article" game plan this morning and did an interview to address the haters, of whom there are plenty. On the phone with Bloomberg TV from Martha's Vineyard (really), Ferguson predictably said his attempted takedown of President Obama, based on cherry-picked and misleading economic data, stands up to the thorough thrashings and wonky parsings it received yesterday. The "liberal blogosphere," he said, has a "tried and tested method for attacking an argument that it disagrees with ... to engage in nit-picking and claim to be fact-checking." Newsweek, meanwhile, is engaging in only the most superficial way possible.