> "Out of context" can be misleading. Or, more exactly, context can be
> a way of burying a truth. To take a less incendiary example than
> Wolfie's quote, how about Greenspan's famous "irrational exuberance"
> remark. It was buried in a dull speech on central banking in a
> democracy
[...]
> But "irrational exuberance" was the real truth of that passage, and
> the rest was chaff.
>
> Back to Wolfie. Yeah, there's a difference between NK and Iraq. But
> even though Iraq has lots of oil, sanctions limited how much it could
> sell, and the oil infrastructure was ravaged by sanctions and war.
> The real truth of the passage is "The country swims on a sea of oil."
> The context is a distraction.
I still think Wolfie was taken out context.
The Guardian portrayed this as a "stunning admission," as if Wolf. accidentally let the truth slip out. But that's not what happened at all, and the context shows it. You may believe the "real truth" of the Iraq war was oil, or that Wolfie's real motive was oil, but in this quote he's not admitting that. He's making a boring point about the diff. between NK and Iraq.
Even if some policymaker really is motivated by oil, he's not "admitting" it every time the word "oil" comes out his mouth.
Seth