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Yesterday's NYT had an op-ed by a guy named Mark Medish, arguing that Iraq's massive foreign debt shouldn't be forgiven. In order to be a legit country, Medish wrote, Iraq "must respect one of the first principles of the rule of law: contracts should be honored." Or as the headline put it, "MAKE BAGHDAD PAY." Now here's the fun part: The Times describes Medish as "a lawyer, [who] was deputy assistant secretary of the Treasury from 1997 to 2000." As a blog called HipperCritical first noted, that leaves out one itty-bitty thing: A WP article Medish wrote last month described him as "a lawyer in Washington who was a senior Treasury and National Security Council official in the Clinton administration. He represents international corporate creditors of Iraq."
Bonus hypocrisy! Medish wrote an op-ed last year for the Financial Times arguing that Russia's old debt should be...yes, forgiven.
Eric Umansky writes Today's Papers for Slate. You can e-mail him at todayspapers at hotmail.com.
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