Adam Smith on the Liberal Hawks of Slate

From Glenn Greenwald:

Lessons not learned: I'm not sure that applies to all of them, but certainly almost all. There really is no more toxic combination than the ability to urge war and simultaneously be shielded from all costs and consequences. Adam Smith put it perfectly in his 1776 An Inquiry into the Nature And Causes of the Wealth of Nations:

In great empires the people who live in the capital, and in the provinces remote from the scene of action, feel, many of them, scarce any inconveniency from the war; but enjoy, at their ease, the amusement of reading in the newspapers the exploits of their own fleets and armies. To them this amusement compensates the small difference between the taxes which they pay on account of the war, and those which they had been accustomed to pay in time of peace. They are commonly dissatisfied with the return of peace, which puts an end to their amusement, and to a thousand visionary hopes of conquest and national glory from a longer continuance of the war.

Or, put another way, we must not withdraw from Iraq ever, sayeth the Washington establishment.

Adam Smith sez: Friends don't let friends read Slate.

Why oh why can't we have a better press corps.

Comments

[MaryCh]

Thanks, Dr. DeLong, for forwarding another example of George W. "Ix-nay on the axes-tay even during War" Bush improving on the historical standard, this time spelled out by Mr. Smith: Americans' "... amusement of reading in the newspapers the exploits of their own fleets and armies" has remained undiminished by the presence of even a "...small difference between the taxes which they pay on account of the war, and those which they had been accustomed to pay in time of peace."

What does W know about this whole taxes-war nexus that eludes the rest of us?

[howard]

actually, friends do let friends read dahlia lithwick and fred kaplan.

i don't think there's anyone else at slate friends let friends read....

[Measure for Measure]

I might add that Slate's Explainer column is also typically diverting.

That's the problem with Professor DeLong's media-bashing. Slate and the New York Times are both collections of solid material and, alas, inanity.

Barring talented editors and resource-endowed fact-checkers, what we need is superior news aggregator technology.