Times drops a bombshell

The New York Times' bombshell about the Bush adminstration's release of nuclear secrets is causing shock waves throughout the known world. For example, take a look at this morning's screaming large-font headline on the HuffPo:

BUSH ADMIN POSTED NUCLEAR BOMB BUILDING GUIDE ON INTERNET…

They were of course referring to the DOCEX and Project Harmony websites that Weekly Standard reporter Stephen Hayes had so doggedly forced into existence early this year.

The big righty bloggers have already weighed in and slapped this thing around a bit, so there's little to be added other than commenting on the reaction. Talk Left is comparing this release to "how to build a bomb" by anarchists:

I remember when the Government complained about the Anarchist's Cookbook website with instructions for building a bomb, among other nefarious items. But how does that compare to this

Josh Marshall asks if we've "had enough". Mr. Atrios says, "Well, it'd be funny if it wasn't, you know, serious." (emphasis added) and proceeds to call the people involved in this interchange stupid. It's the Kerry syndrome, I guess.

But it shouldn't be surprising. This group has generally made Iraq the central theme of their campaign to flip power, therefore anything that ever surfaces suggesting Saddam might have been any more threatening than say the Hamburglar will immediately be ridiculed into the ground. Actually it's surprising they aren't running off with a meme about this being a Rovian October surprise, but that would further strengthen the DOCEX information.

So far it looks like the mainstream media, CNN, AP, even al-Reuters are proceeding with caution. They probably understand the backlash potential of an admission that something in Saddam's possession could have been do darned dangerous, along with the hypocritical sitation the New York Times has placed itself regards releasing damaging information--such as the SWIFT banking program.

They may also realize that by claiming, "well, they were documents from 1991" it doesn't remove the Clinton administration from scorn, since Bill continued to bomb Saddam at every opportunity right til his last days in office while democrats were out barking up the threat.

Before proceeding any further it would be irresponsible not to acknowledge the fact that release of such material seems, well, irresponsible. Indeed. And even though one intelligence official said, "it gets you from point A to point B if you already have a car", seemingly an effort to lessen the impact, the same could be said for the information if imparted to AQ by Saddam. We need to be logically consistent.

That's why to me the bottom line here seems to be relevance. As others have indicated, by printing this story the Times has instantly given credibility to the DOCEX portal, which should make the average person question why they haven't taken an interest in it before. What's that you say? They've looked at it before? Oh, right:

Its many thousands of documents included everything from a collection of religious and nationalistic poetry to instructions for the repair of parachutes to handwritten notes from Mr. Hussein’s intelligence service. It became a popular quarry for a legion of bloggers, translators and amateur historians.

And now it's finally fit to print for the Times.