{"id":2832,"date":"2008-07-07T12:33:07","date_gmt":"2008-07-07T17:33:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=2832"},"modified":"2008-07-07T09:09:33","modified_gmt":"2008-07-07T14:09:33","slug":"ill-write-nice-and-slow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=2832","title":{"rendered":"I’ll Write Nice And Slow"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maha – of “Mahablog”, a famously gutless leftyblog<\/a> and a leader in the “namecalling = facts and research” school of leftyblogging – wants to dismiss<\/a> the whole “we found yellowcake uranium in Iraq” story:<\/p>\n

The critical point is that Saddam Hussein couldn\u2019t do anything with this uranium because he lacked the equipment and technology to enrich it. So it had been sitting around for years in drums sealed by the IAEA. No nuclear program.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Right.<\/p>\n

Of course, the presence or absence of “equipment and technology” was a key bone of contention between about 2001 and the invastion, but…<\/p>\n

…oh, why bother.<\/p>\n

Justin Levine at Patterico has the essential response<\/a>:<\/p>\n

If Mahablog has a legitimate point, then why did Joe Wilson go to such great lengths to try and cast doubt on the very existence of the yellowcake Niger story? Why didn\u2019t he just say, \u201cIt is possible that Iraq tried to purchase yellowcake from Niger. But even though I can neither confirm nor deny this accusation, it is ultimately irrelevant since yellowcake is harmless and is not proof of anything significant regarding an Iraqi nuclear weapons program.\u201d?<\/p>\n

That is not the argument that Joe Wilson the liar made. There is a reason for this – reason\u2019s that people like Mahablog would rather not address. So I\u2019ll be happy to stay on his \u2018Idiot\u2019s Hall of Fame\u2019, let people read both posts, and decide for themselves.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Look – it’s pretty clear, five years\u00a0on, that Hussein didn’t have any functioning<\/em> WMDs when the tanks crossed the border.\u00a0 We know that he had <\/em>WMDs, because\u00a0he\u00a0gassed the Kurds in the eighties.\u00a0 We know he wanted <\/em>WMDs, because he was buying equipment to build them.\u00a0 We know he had uranium that, combined with that equipment\u00a0he was seeking (and, for whatever reason, didn’t deny having), could <\/em>have been made into one kind of bomb or another.<\/p>\n

If it were a criminal case, it’d be like finding a once-convicted, paroled Meth producer with 50,000 tabs of Sudafed.\u00a0 All\u00a0he needs is a stock pot, some tubing, and a few other chemicals…<\/p>\n

Oh, Maha’s counterattack?<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the Idiot\u2019s Hall of Fame:<\/p>\n

American Thinker<\/a>
\nDon Surber<\/a>
\nGateway Pundit<\/a>
\nPirate\u2019s Cove<\/a>
\nNeptunus Lex<\/a>
\nPatterico\u2019s Pontifications<\/a>
\nSweetness and Light<\/a><\/p>\n

The accumulated<\/em> IQ of the above bloggers adds up to about 47.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hm.<\/p>\n

Oh, the two grafs I pulled were the closest “Maha” gets to sentience.<\/p>\n

But please, “Maha” – can I be an “idiot” too?\u00a0<\/p>\n

(And note to Ms. O’Brien; she can’t ban my comments<\/a> when they’re on my blog<\/em>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Maha – of “Mahablog”, a famously gutless leftyblog and a leader in the “namecalling = facts and research” school of leftyblogging – wants to dismiss the whole “we found yellowcake uranium in Iraq” story: The critical point is that Saddam Hussein couldn\u2019t do anything with this uranium because he lacked the equipment and technology to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stupid","category-war-on-terror"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2832\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}