Wal-Mart Jumps Down Into the Mud: Steven Silvers draws attention to a Wal-Mart site (actually operated by the front group Working Families for Wal-Mart) called paidcritics.com that he says “comes right out of the Swift Boat playbook.”

He doesn’t mean that entirely as an insult. In fact, he thinks Wal-Mart has scored some points by turning the transparency tables on its critics, and to an extent I agree. The reality is that organized labor uses front groups the same way companies do (Wake Up Wal-Mart is the mirror image of Working Families for Wal-Mart) and that they should be subject to the same skepticism and the same ethical standards.

The problem I have with paidcritics.com is not its content but its tone. It is, as Silver says, “a name-calling, nastily aggressive little website.” I can’t help thinking the same points could have been scored—and more effectively—without the snide ad hominem attacks. Wal-Mart might also have taken the moral high ground by highlighting these facts itself, rather than through a proxy organization.