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[Previous entry: "Quote of the Week"] [Main Index] [Next entry: "Pernicious conflation"] 30 May 2003: "Fisk contagion"
Bill Herbert over at has an interesting observation on a piece in the Independent which purports to quote US Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz as saying in an interview to be published in an upcoming issue of Vanity Fair that the administration focused on the WMD justification "because it was the one reason everyone could agree on." The comments suggest that, even for the US administration, the logic that was presented for going to war may have been an empty shell.The only problem, as Bill adroitly demonstrates by means of the interview transcript, is that Sam Tanenhaus, who wrote the article for Vanity Fair, has taken some liberties in reflecting Wolfowitz' exact words, and Usborne didn't bother to corroborate this. I would have thought there were enough people saying the wrong things in the administration that soi-disant journalists wouldn't have to rig their words to make a point; compounding the error on the Independent's is the fact that the article in question came under the heading of "news," as opposed to "opinion." Not that I think it's permissible to misquote people in opinion pieces either, but it's indicative of how deep the Independent has sunk. Alas, I have little doubt this will become another tidbit to be circulated around à la Maureen Dowd's "quote" of president Bush. After all, they read it on the internet, so it must be true. |
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