Krugman: Credential of Critics Getting Better

New York _Times_ columnist Paul Krugman writes about a Ron Suskind's new book "The Price of Loyalty" that gives an "insider acknowledgement of the Bush Administration war hype":http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/13/opinion/13KRUG.html with interviews of former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill: bq. The question is whether this book will open the eyes of those who think that anyone who criticizes the tax cuts is a wild-eyed leftist, and that anyone who says the administration hyped the threat from iraq is a conspiracy theorist. The point is that the credentials of the critics just keep getting better... So far administration officials have attacked Mr. O'Neill's character but haven't refuted any of his facts. I remember back all the way to a year ago, when I was being interviewed for the radio and was asked by the host why the U.S. was about to go to war. I replied that the evidence of iraqi weapons of mass destruction was nill, that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11, and that this was a war for geopolitical control of oil and to give Vice President Dick Cheney's friends lots of money to rebuild/rebilk iraq. The host laughed at me (this was a right-wing network, did I mention that?) and gamely tried to steer me to the party line. Did I really believe Bush was worried about Saddam? It was clear to me then and even more so now that history will look back on this war as a pure power grab, the most blatant moment of U.S. imperialism (and yes the word fits) since the equally-bogus "Mexican-American War in 1846":http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican-American_War. Slowly the mainstream pundits start to agree...