Roger Pielke Jr has posted reflections the continuing rumpus over the Heartland emails. As ever, his thoughts are well worth a read:
If the faked document happened to be produced by a climate activist or scientist (as some are already suggesting), then the leaked Heartland documents will go down in history as one of the more spectacular own goals in the history of the climate debate (with the consequences proportional to the stature of the faker). The faking is likely to overshadow whatever legitimate questions may have been raised by the release of the documents. Imagine what would have happened if the UEA hacker/leaker had made up a few emails to spice up the dossier.
This also struck me as wise:
This sort of thing feeds into the worst imaginings of skeptics and blinds them to the fact that there are real issues here despite the frequent over-egging of the pudding.
Meanwhile, Roger has also asked Gleick direct if he was the faker:
I emailed @PeterGleick to ask if he faked the Heartland document, no reply yet. I offered to publish his confirmation or denial on my blog.