I've said many times that Wal-Mart should be more defensive in responding to the mountains of critics it has that cover just about every move the retailer makes. Well, although Wal-Mart pleases just as many people as it displeases, there will always be an avalanche of opinions on the company, from hiring practices to health care to its overall effect on the American economy, to how it treats employees.

With Paidcritics.com launching last week -- backed by Wal-Mart -- this website appears to target Wal-Mart Watch, a watchdog website that tracks much of what Wal-Mart does in the global landscape with fervency. Paidcritics.com says that Wal-Mart Watch is controlled and funded by unions that want to infiltrate Wal-Mart for union dues and control over employees. Wal-Mart Watch says that the retailer treats and pays most employees like dirt and could care less about employee benefits like a minimum level of acceptable health care.

So, has the mud-slinging moved out of the political race territory into the mainstream? Sure it has -- and I'm surprised it took this long. Wal-Mart has needed a public face on the defense for quite some time just to respond to the "other side". It's a good thing to have two parties on opposite sides of the fence watching each other -- this keeps things open and invigorating among other things.