Monday, March 01, 2004
CLARE SHORT: LIAR? Well I suppose it was just waiting to happen:
Downing Street was also delighted when Ms Short was forced to backtrack on her claim about British agents bugging Mr Annan. In her interview, she admitted that the transcripts she saw of Mr Annan's private conversations might have related to Africa and not to Iraq.
Asked whether she could confirm that the transcripts related to Iraq, she said: "I can't, but there might well have been ... I cannot remember a specific transcript in relation, it doesn't mean it wasn't there."
Ms Short also admitted that her original claim, on Radio 4's Today programme last Thursday, that Britain had eavesdropped on Mr Annan may have been inaccurate.
It was just waiting to happen, because, as the British Spinner said:
she just seems to throw the Annan stuff on a whim
Also it slightly "odd" that Hans Blix waited for almost year until he made his claim that he was spied on just a day after Short's allegations.
Strictly speaking it's hypocritical of Short to rail against the inaccuracies and "lies" of the pro-war crowd when the only means of attacking them is seemingly to use inaccuracies herself and even ones that are exposed as such only days later. (I write "strictly speaking" because I personally find the charge of hypocrisy in politics quite superfluous, it is in the nature of the game that one moves positions tactically and will end up with contradictions now and then. If you want purity of cause become a monk, but steer well away from politics, which is inherently tainted by compromise and in which ideological purity is the hallmark of totalitarians.)
Downing Street was also delighted when Ms Short was forced to backtrack on her claim about British agents bugging Mr Annan. In her interview, she admitted that the transcripts she saw of Mr Annan's private conversations might have related to Africa and not to Iraq.
Asked whether she could confirm that the transcripts related to Iraq, she said: "I can't, but there might well have been ... I cannot remember a specific transcript in relation, it doesn't mean it wasn't there."
Ms Short also admitted that her original claim, on Radio 4's Today programme last Thursday, that Britain had eavesdropped on Mr Annan may have been inaccurate.
It was just waiting to happen, because, as the British Spinner said:
she just seems to throw the Annan stuff on a whim
Also it slightly "odd" that Hans Blix waited for almost year until he made his claim that he was spied on just a day after Short's allegations.
Strictly speaking it's hypocritical of Short to rail against the inaccuracies and "lies" of the pro-war crowd when the only means of attacking them is seemingly to use inaccuracies herself and even ones that are exposed as such only days later. (I write "strictly speaking" because I personally find the charge of hypocrisy in politics quite superfluous, it is in the nature of the game that one moves positions tactically and will end up with contradictions now and then. If you want purity of cause become a monk, but steer well away from politics, which is inherently tainted by compromise and in which ideological purity is the hallmark of totalitarians.)
