By the way, it is worth going here now. I thought it had all blown over and was going to let it go.One of the things Ben Smith wrote was:

A leading conservative blogger and commentator, Erick Erickson, said he shifted his stance in a key Senate race because the company that publishes his RedState.com is “socially connected” to former Virginia Senator George Allen.

I never “shifted” my stance on the race. And certainly do not desire to or intend to support George Allen.Second, here’s the back story I can now confirm on this — and it will no doubt leave your head scratching in a “WTF” moment.

Last week, after Streiff wrote a post on Gardasil and had some choice words for Michele Malkin, a guy named Dan Riehl decided if I did not apologize for Streiff’s actions, he would burn me to the ground.Actually, he direct messaged one of our front page contributors on Twitter and I received this email recollecting the conversation:

On the phone call he told me in no uncertain terms that it was his intention to “burn Erick’s integrity to the ground” if some sort of retraction isn’t made regarding the statement by Streiff that Malkin “left her integrity and intelligence at the door”He claims to have the support of fellow “prominent” conservatives who feel the same and support him.He made clear that he would “burn Erick’s integrity to the ground” by way of revealing certain things he claims to be privy to that shows that Erick “will not support certain issues and candidates at the behest of his bosses at Eagle.”I told him that i would pass along this information but could in no way guarantee it’s outcome.

I certainly wasn’t going to apologize for something Streiff did on the front page let alone be more or less blackmailed into an editorial position (this, by the way, is the second time in a year Dan has made a similar threat like this). I’d already put up my own views on the matter that clearly disagreed with Streiff. Anyway, I emailed some mutual friends to see if they could calm Dan down. Dan took that as me trying to have him fired, which was definitely not the case. Next thing I know, friends of mine are getting text messages and phone calls that various conservative radio show hosts, etc. are going to come after me. I’m guessing Dan latched on my emailing our mutual friends, convinced himself I wanted to get him fired instead of just calmed down, and decided to go all junior high cat fight on RedState and me. While I was out of town this past weekend a war of words on Twitter ensued with Riehl suggesting our founder, Josh Trevino, had sex with sheep, and the inevitable back and forth.I can now confirm Dan Riehl is the original source to the Politico regarding the Radtke story.Well played, Dan. Well played. The Radtke campaign owes you big time.Sometimes the collective forces of the internet act like junior high school girls.UPDATE: As an aside, and I think it is worth pointing out, the most disappointing thing about all of this was Dan’s willingness to drag others into this fight from Michele Malkin to others. I get he’s upset and/or jealous of RedState and thinks, I suppose, that we should be in the tank for Palin or should not have let Perry announce at the RedState Gathering or whatever the reason du jour is. But I think in these fights it is horrifying to drag in other prominent conservatives or to drop their names or have others drop their names — particularly using something like the apology he demanded as pretext to do what I’m sure he’d been waiting to do anyway.