Brad DeLong, former Clinton appointee, plays a bit of a fast one. He offers up a piece by Max Hastings in the Telegraph (registration required) that is critical of the Bush administration, leading it with this comment:
Britain's genuinely conservative Daily Telegraph is now filled with unhappy campers...
But he does not bother to mention that Hastings has been opposed to the war from the beginning (Telegraph registration required), whose position was that Britain had no alternative to going to war except to have a decisive break with the US at a time it simply could not afford to do so. Hastings has continued to be hostile (reg. required) to the Bush administration.
So DeLong wants to pass off a column by a war opponent as an "even the conservatives are now critical of Bush on the war" line. Hastings was hostile from day one, and buried down at the bottom, Hastings sort of admits it. Well, well, well. Very Clinton of him. (I will concede that DeLong may not have known about Hasting's views. But they could be found easily enough using Google.)
UPDATE: Well, well. In the comments, Patrick Sullivan notes that Krugman has pulled the same scam. Is he cribbing from DeLong? Here is the line:
If this same lack of accountability extends to matters of war and peace, we're in very deep trouble. The British seem to understand this: Max Hastings, the veteran war correspondent — who supported Britain's participation in the war — writes that "the prime minister committed British troops and sacrificed British lives on the basis of a deceit, and it stinks."
I was too busy marking exams to read Krugman today. (Why do I read DeLong more regularly than Krugman? Because Krugman writes about nothing anymore but his Bush obsession. DeLong mixes his Bush denunciations with all sort of fascinating stuff.)Posted by sjostrom on June 03, 2003 06:56 AM
Comments:
Why am I not surprised to find in today's Paul Krugman NY Times column:
" Max Hastings, the veteran war correspondent — who supported Britain's participation in the war...."
Posted by: Patrick R. Sullivan on June 3, 2003 01:17 PM [Permalink]
