Now, I’m not one who normally goes out on a limb to defend Paul Krugman. Heck, I’ve called him a snakeoil salesman in this weblog, so I’m hardly the world’s biggest fan. But I also think Eugene Volokh is right to disparage Neal Cavuto’s immature response to a drive-by insult at the end of Tuesday’s Krugman column in The New York Times.

I don’t disagree with Cavuto’s basic point—“Your World,” his daily Fox News show, has a designated commentary segment, and Cavuto’s comments were made during that segment, so he’s not under any obligation to be objective there, just as Krugman’s column’s presence on the op-ed page (and, some might argue, in the Times itself) relieves him of any obligation to be “fair and balanced” in that column. But I think Cavuto could have produced a more mature response. Similarly, I think Donald Luskin’s “Krugman Truth Squad” feature at his weblog and NRO would be far more effective if he limited the name-calling and stuck to the (frequent) instances where Krugman is clearly wrong or is distorting the truth to serve his left-wing agenda.

James Joyner agrees.