Let me apologize on behalf of President Clinton, then-Treasury Secretary Rubin, then-Deputy Secretary Summers, the Treasury Department, and the Democratic Party that this Mark Medish guy was ever hired to work for the government. Lawyer-lobbyist scum:
Posted by DeLong at November 6, 2003 09:41 AM | TrackBackGipper Skipper By Eric Umansky: 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: The bio-line in a WP article Medish wrote last month said, "Medish a lawyer in Washington and 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.
November 5, 2003
Editors' Note - NYTimes
An Op-Ed article on Tuesday about Iraq's foreign debt should have more fully disclosed the background of its author, Mark Medish. Mr. Medish, an international lawyer and former Treasury official, represents corporations that are owed money by Iraq.
I accept the apology. Thanks. No hard feelings.
I note you have done much more to restore cordial relations between the right- and left-wings of the national turkey than the ex-President himself has accomplished. (... how was it, again, that a apparently underqualified intern landed a cushy Pentagon GS-9 civil service job (with EXCELLENT health insurance benefits? How come the issue was always perjury, and never patronage?
ANYHOW, (not that this next question applies at ALL to this topic) but what shall we make of McDonalds' heiress Mrs Ray Kroc's bequest to NPR? Surely a sane inheritance tax would have done an infinitely superior job of distributing that much money to worthier enterprises?
Posted by: Pouncer on November 6, 2003 10:04 AMMaybe he has changed his mind on these issues. After all, Treas. Sec. Alexander made the same argument as he just made about Iraq's debt. You are right that he is inconsistent but perhaps some one told him about the Hamilton view after he wrote his Financial Times oped?
Then again Anne raises the point about conflict of interest. Thanks Anne.
Posted by: Hal McClure on November 6, 2003 11:30 AM"ANYHOW, (not that this next question applies at ALL to this topic) but what shall we make of McDonalds' heiress Mrs Ray Kroc's bequest to NPR? Surely a sane inheritance tax would have done an infinitely superior job of distributing that much money to worthier enterprises?"
Since one of the aims of an inheritance tax is that at least some of the inheritance goes tax free to charities and public service groups I guess it worked.
I agree with you that Tripp should simply have been thrown out on her butt.
Posted by: Joshua Halpern on November 6, 2003 04:40 PMNice to see Brad acknowledge that former Clinton officials can be just as sleezy as he always accuses the Bush people of being.
Posted by: Bruce Bartlett on November 6, 2003 04:50 PMAre you saying that the Bush people who cooked up the steel tariff aren't sleazy?
:-)
Posted by: Brad DeLong on November 6, 2003 06:18 PMSince you're in apology mode, is that the only action of the Clinton administration you feel obliged to apologise for, Brad?
Posted by: PJ on November 6, 2003 07:34 PMSince you're in apology mode, is that the only action of the Clinton administration you feel obliged to apologise for, Brad?
Posted by: PJ on November 6, 2003 07:34 PMGosh, I think we may finally be getting someplace. The polarity inflicting American politics would be greatly reduced, if we see a few more apologies from both both the Clinton and Bush camps.
Anyway, would Medish argue that the oil contracts Saddam Iraq signed with Russia should be honored ?
Posted by: Andrew Boucher on November 7, 2003 12:13 AM