Great comments. Now Somerby is attacking Paul Krugman about the bogus biological weapons trailors. All he had to do was read Henry Waxman's report to see that Cheney was making these claims until at least January 2004.
Posted by at April 14, 2006 02:10 PMMust be hard for Howler to see breakout blogs leave his traffic stats in the dust. Stirring up bullshit while targeting FDL seems like a sad way to go out.
Posted by Lorenzo at April 14, 2006 02:15 PMIt's well known that Somerby has a hate-on for Wilson. This isn't surprising in the least.
Posted by iamcoyote at April 14, 2006 02:20 PMI think you're missing one point.
There is a big difference between "Fissile materials" and yellowcake.
Weapons-grade fissile material is uranium that has already been significantly enriched or plutonium. If you have the material, a uranium-based bomb is pretty simple to make. Plutonium is tougher - you have to build a reactor, run it, separate the plutonium, and then the bomb design is far more exacting.
So, saying that you can make a bomb in a few months if you have the weapons-grade uranium is mostly a tautology.
But getting from yellowcake to weapons-grade uranium is a very difficult and expensive process.
Posted by E at April 14, 2006 02:25 PMBob Somerby jumped the shark ages ago. He was invaluable in the days when The Horse still had Media Whores Online up, but I think one too many low, mordant chuckles have done his head in. I think Lorenzo's nailed it, he's old news and now it seems he's just flailing about, hoping to hit some targets.
Posted by Henry Holland at April 14, 2006 02:57 PMBob Somerby is 10x as important any other blogger you can find. He is a gem. His work is still unparalleled and you all don't know what you're talking about.
Clearly, though I love Krugman, the phrasing of his initial paragraph was WRONG, and THAT'S what Somerby was talking about. It was demonstrably wrong.
Somerby doesn't make factual errors. Everybody else does.
Posted by Joe Caucci at April 14, 2006 03:23 PMI miss MWO, Henry; I did the same as you in the beginning.
Posted by iamcoyote at April 14, 2006 03:29 PMSomerby's a clown, but what exactly do you think "fissile material" is exactly?
HELLO?! It's uranium and/or plutonium.
I still disagree with Somerby, but your first point was wildly off the mark.
Posted by Alaskan_Pete at April 14, 2006 03:34 PMUranium in many of its forms isn't 'fissile' material, unless and until it has been 'highly enriched.' In particular, yellowcake uranium is not fissile material, as it has been barely enriched and requires much more, orders of magnitude more enrichment, before it reaches weapons grade.
Posted by sofla at April 14, 2006 03:42 PMIF I could grow wings, I COULD fly. And a lot quicker than in seven months to a year.
IF I could fly, I COULD drop a load of crap on Bush's head, or Bob Somerby's. Better invade my house and arrest me now, just to be safe.
Posted by mjshep at April 14, 2006 03:44 PMI used to read Somerby religiously but now hardly ever. I don't know of anyone who did a more rigorous job documenting the War against Gore, but he's always been a little weirdly weak on some critical issues (like trade) or weirdly weird on some trivial ones (Nicollette Sheridan's Monday Night Football ad). Then during the inception of the Judy Miller fiasco he seemed to go AWOL more and more, and since then I've rarely found it worthwhile to pull him off the shelf. His site could really benefit from comments.
Posted by ballgame at April 14, 2006 03:50 PMOnly an inveterate crystal meth user could post a daily screed of the length that Somerby manages. It also explains why he repeats himself constantly, and his weird grudges and paranoia.
Think about it.
Posted by dj moonbat at April 14, 2006 04:32 PMI realize that it is common practice for the corporate media and this administration to describe every dispute as an attack. It makes them look stupid. There are dozens of words in our language to describe a difference of opinion. Attack should not be one of them.
Posted by rose at April 14, 2006 04:43 PMI see two possible explanations for Somerby's precipitous decline (I have not read him for over 2 years, myself).
One is that he is consumed with bitterness at his increasing irrelevance in the blogosphere; two is that he is consumed with bitterness at his increasing irrelevance in the blogosphere, and as a consequence, has sold out. My bet is getting payola.
It seems to me that he really lost it around the time the Plame affair became big news. Why would he take such a visceral dislike to Wilson, on such a flimsy basis? It doesn't make sense.
How much money is he getting from Rove?
Wow, I just read his attack on Krugman.
He seems to have become functionally illiterate.. what he writes makes no sense.
Somerby doesn't make factual errors. Everybody else does.
Wow. I don't read the Howler and never have, but if that's your opinion handed to you by the blogger, then the both of you have serious ego and reality issues.
Posted by idiosynchronic at April 14, 2006 06:13 PMUh, I think it's irony.
Somerby likes to say 'Hey Rube', but he does not know what it means. It is carny slang that one of their people is being attacked and needs assistance. Nobody is being called a rube.