Genuine (but false) thought

Writes Brad DeLong: "some in the Bush administration appear to have genuinely (but falsely) thought to be on the verge of developing nuclear weapons."

This statement may be true of the White House kitchen staff but I find it hard to believe that anyone in a position of authority (including St. Colin) reasonably believed that Saddam had WMD's and the ability to deploy them against this country or anyone else for that matter. There's ample evidence of that coupled with the long standing neo-con desire to take out Iraq as a threat to Israel and give us a compliant central location in the Middle East.

DeLong's blog is excellent and his skill as an economist is impressive but like a lot of folks he underestimates the ability of the Bushies to manufacture a crisis. The Mayberry Machiavellis are in reality a bunch of very clever people who know how to use emotions and the media to advance their causes.

It's difficult and expensive to collect information and Joe Average Citizen is at a disadvantage, given the demands of everyday life and crappy reporting that passes for news in most of the media, when it comes to evaluating the spin that emerges from every administration. This administration has exploited the gap between need to know and available information to the max. Lying has become an art form.