Freakonomics' Steven Levitt caught up in a dustup between economists

reported by David Glenn (via Tyler Cowen):

But in late May, the Journal of Political Economy rejected a critique that Mr. Liebowitz had submitted of Mr. Oberholzer-Gee and Mr. Strumpf's paper. (In economics parlance, critiques of previously published papers are known as comments.) The editor who sent the rejection notice was Steven D. Levitt, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago and the co-author of the best-selling Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything. Mr. Levitt's term as editor ended on June 1.

The rejection enraged Mr. Liebowitz for two reasons: First, he believes that he has demonstrated serious flaws in the file-sharing paper and that the journal owes it to its readers to discuss those flaws. Second, he discovered that the journal had used Mr. Strumpf himself as one of the two anonymous referees for his comment. (The second referee gave a positive report and advised that the comment be published.) Mr. Strumpf's role as referee was revealed when a reporter for the German newspaper Handelsblatt asked Mr. Strumpf to reply to Mr. Liebowitz's criticisms. He e-mailed to the reporter a response that was substantially identical to the negative referee report.