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The Otaku friend of that blogger should realize that "anime" in Japan is just a generic term that equates to the english "cartoon". At the same time "manga" is just a generic term that translates into "comics".
So there's absolutely nothing strange if Japanese consider "the boondocks" an anime and if you show them an X-men comic they'd still call it "manga".
But it's not like they think they're the same thing, it's just that they do not consider those terms to be specific of Japanese productions.
For example, what if I'd tell you that in my country "comic" is a word strictly used for american comics? If I were to show you a "comic" produced in my country you'd probably still call it "comic" because "comic" to an english speaker is an umbrella term. Even manga are comics by strict definition.
That still doesn't mean you won't be able to see the difference in style and philosophy or that you don't think there's any difference.
At any rate the main reason of the distinction between manga-comics and anime-cartoons is a matter of country of origin. The terms "manga" and "anime" were adopted into english to allow people to distinguish about the different products in a simplier manner than saying everytime "Japanese cartoons" and "Japanese comics".
By extension the terms were later used to identify a particular style that was proper of "manga" and "anime" and that was significantly discernible from the style seen in american productions.
Now let's be honest here: the styles are different. While there surely are some borderline cases, everyone, even someone who isn't an "otaku" or that cares about cartoons and anime at all would be able to tell the difference between a typical japanese cartoon and a typical american cartoon at first sight.
But as with every definition of a particular "style" when you start to break it apart and overanalyze it, you'll end up finding so many borderline cases and exceptions that they'll make you think whether a distinction should be made at all.
But that's the same thing it could be said about music. Is this rock, glam rock, grunge, progressive rock, hard rock, metal, heavy metal, power metal, nu metal?!
There are probably thousands of debates like that. It's probably better to consider the definitions of styles general ideals and the products themselves something that can be more or less be identified as one or the other but never with absolute precision.
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