Exunt Emmott

Posted on April 13, 2006 by andrewleigh

I’m behind on my Economist reading, so only last night read this brilliant valedictory from Bill Emmott, who edited the magazine from 1993-2006.

3 Responses to Exunt Emmott

Mork says:

April 13, 2006 at 10:36 am

I wonder how many others at the Economist continue to share his view that they were right to support the invasion. Given the tone and content of their recent reporting on Iraq, I’d say not many. Except maybe for their guy in Washington who seems to get most of his editorial ideas from the wingnut blogmire.

It does interest me, though, this clinging to the belief that although the whole thing has been a fuck-up from start to finish, folks were still right to support it, because they couldn’t possibly have known. I would have thought that, at the very least, the fact that his sense of what was going to transpire was so obviously wrong that it calls for a little self-reflection about what information he might have missed that would have resulted in a more accurate understanding of events, and maybe a little concern that having been so wrong about what the consequences of this would be, he ought to be a little more cautious in the future about supporting ventures with potentially huge downsides.
Mike Pepperday says:

April 14, 2006 at 5:19 pm

Only a single person so exit not exeunt.
derida derider says:

April 30, 2006 at 8:30 am

What Mork said. But on top of that, it was not only the warmongers’ known incompetence that should have rung massive warning bells – it was their flagrant mendacity. As Dsquared said in a memorable post, good ideas are not usually associated with lying like a rug about them.

As for the bit about “they should have done it properly” – ie massive mobilisation, a draft, repeal the tax cuts – that too is mendacious. If that had taken place there would have been no public support at all for this criminal venture. No, supporters of the war have to realise that the options were Bush’s war or no war, not some ideal of their imagination.

Am I bitter? You bet.