But you do know that ‘Hey Rube!” is a warning call used by circus workers warning when there’s a fight brewing between crew and townies?

Which is why I’m standing here in the daylight, blinking, and holding a cut down pool cue, looking for the fight.

If your contention is that Joe Klein has time and again some very stupid/wrong/misguided comments, then you will not get any argument from me.

If your contention is that your Rockets Head Glare article
http://www.firedoglake.com/200…..head-glare
gave the readers an accurate portrayal of what was said on the Sunday Talk shows, then you are totally wrong.

Read some of the comments at the end of the rockets head glare article. Go listen to the podcast and read the transcripts of the shows.

The daily howler is correct.

He attacks the entire left blogsphere because they won’t obey him. That makes him the proximate enemy. [edited a bit by CHS — what part of play nice did everyone not understand?] We’re the underdog, we can’t afford y’all.

If you’ve got a problem with how pushback is being handled, use the goddam email. Otherwise, you just work for the right.
.

The tragedy of Somerby is that he really, genuinely wants to be a fact-checker, but he’s really not up to it. He’s just not bright enough to understand what’s being said. He doesn’t have a head for facts and tries to hide that behind a gee-whiz rhetorical style that wouldn’t fly in a highschool newspaper. He really wants to defeat right wing misinformation, but he’s not up to it.

The hubris of Somerby is that only he is allowed to uncover the sins of the right, only he is allowed to determine how we can fight back. If you don’t do it his way, he attacks. He’s in charge. For the sake of his own status, he’ll attack other Democrats before he’ll attack Republicans, all while passing on Republican talking-points. In this sense, he’s the Joe Lieberman of the blogsphere. If I felt like being charitable, I’d say that Somerby is just too stupid to know when he’s being used to pass on Republican talking points.

And so Somerby is as useless as the journalists he attacks. He’s either too uneducated or too full of himself to be useful in the guerilla war we wage against corporate misinformation.
.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…

Sincerely,

Chris G.

This is NOT about Somerby! It’s about accuracy and about focus. Let’s let the Republicans deal in personalities while we deal with ideas. Haven’t you all learned anything from the Dean Scream? A political assignation if ever their was one, based purely on personality devoid of substance?

Coming on this thread and making snide remarks about Somerby the person is a terrific way to avoid his point, and these types of useless, masterbatory remarks simply show he was correct whether you still read him or not.

Dissing Somerby without giving any hearing to his actual points is no different than the way you all treat Nader. And let’s face it, where has all of the Nader-”bashing” left us — democrats and otherwise?

Chris G.

- Yes, his writing style can grate. He is repetitious and, at times, condescending. But he is extremely thorough.

- He is arguably a pioneer in the use of Lexis/Nexis to make a case, which is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the volume of proof he presents helps to make his arguments very solid. But you have to wade through a lot, and his writing style can sometimes make the experience tedious. To be fair, sometimes I also find him to be entertaining; as he says, it’s “a matter of judgement.”

- He is prone to pissing off people who should be on his team, and, sometimes, he’s hypocritical. He took on Atrios once for using salty language, but he’s engaged in it himself more than once. He has gotten into spats with Drum and Marshall that I consider to be silly. But he has also been right in many of his criticisms – sometimes, your worst critic is your best friend.

- He writes a lot. It would be impossible for anyone not to screw up now and then when they put out as much as Somerby.

- He calls out libs on what he perceives to be their BS, and at times he is nit-picky (I agree that the venom he aims at Joe Wilson is disproportional to Wilson’s failings). But he does so because he has higher standards for the left than for the right, and that’s a GOOD thing.

- No one has better documented the awful way the press acted during 2000, and he contributed mightly to the pushback in 2004.

To me, Somerby remains very valuable for two reasons:

1) He has shown, more than anyone, that the problems the left has in getting out their message have to do with the MAINSTREAM press, and not the right-wing noise machine. Debunking the wing-nuts is important, but it’s not enough.

2) He has – again, more than anyone I see – issued a call to the left to begin to attack the coronation of McCain NOW. In this, I think he is quite prophetic – this election is in serious danger of being lost at this moment because few on our side are focusing our attention on stopping the “Straight Talker.” That has to start TODAY, or we will lose again in 2008.

Last thought: when Wonkette first appeared on the scene, the left bloggosphere seemed to be pretty pleased. Somerby was the first major blogger I can think of to call Anne Marie on her crap (yes, I’m sure there were others, but he stands out in my mind).

He turned out to be right. He may annoy, he may hector, and he may be wrong – really wrong – on more than one occaision.

But I think he still is perceptive and should be heeded. I just wish he’d stop shooting himself in the foot – he could have a lot of clamor for his book around the blogosphere if he was just a bit more diplomatic.