I'm sure Niall Ferguson is a fine historian. But his real talent, it seems, is for digging ditches. Paul Krugman and Jim Fallows have written good posts on this already, but it strikes me as worthy of further attention that Ferguson is now doubling down and defending his original argument that what "pretty much sums up" the 44th president of the United States is that, like Felix the Cat, he is "not only black" but "very, very lucky."

Basically, Ferguson's response to the original criticism was to write a snippy blog post, and then email Henry Louis Gates to confirm that Felix the Cat was not African American, and, thus, that Ferguson is not a racist. Swell. Emailing Gates for help is really a whisker's length away from an explicit "but I have black friends!" argument, but let's put that aside for a moment. Ferguson's response has also done an impressive job of missing the point.]]>