Responsibility

Colin Powell has finally admitted that the claims he made to the UN Security Council were wrong and based on faulty intelligence.

Crooked Timber draws an interesting contrast between the different standards of responsibility demanded of the media and practised by politicians in these sorts of cases. If the Daily Mirror publishes photos which later turn out to be fakes, heads must roll. If politicians build a case for war on information which later turns out to be false, that's just business as usual. But I guess the difference is that we still expect some truth from the media, even from the tabloids. Wheras it was Powell's job to get up there and lie to the UN, to sacrifice his credability so Bush could have his war.