Brad DeLong is an economist I started reading when the NY Times put Krugman behind a paywall. He is erudite and a card-carrying member of the realist school of economics, you know that whacky version where you have to pay for the things you spend money on.

Anyway, he frames the debate well; you should read DeLong’s post. However, Mr. Wilkinson, currently teaching national security at William and Mary’s college, makes a connection that I wish to high heavens would be sounded to the rooftops:

I think we went into this war not too much unlike the way we went into the Spanish American War with the Hearst press essentially goading the American people and the leadership into war.