In October 2002, the Washington Post’s Jim Hoagland wrote an editorial criticizing the CIA because it had (up until then) been unwilling to recognize the danger of Saddam Hussein. He said, in part:

it is no surprise that Bush has until now relied little on the Langley agency for his information on Iraq. There is simply no way to reconcile what the CIA has said on the record and in leaks with the positions Bush has taken on Iraq.

Actually, Hoagland’s point at the time was that many of the old guys at the CIA were entrenched in their ways, and were simply unwilling to stick their neck out on things like "Saddam has WMDs" and so forth. In Feburary 2004, the same Jim Hoagland wrote an editorial, again criticizing the CIA. Why? For feeding faulty intelligence to Bush!

The truth in Machiavellian terms is worse: Bush and Blair accepted and actually believed the flawed intelligence that their spy bosses and senior aides provided

But I’m only skinning the surface here. Brad DeLong actually takes the two Hoagland articles — one from October 2002, and one from February 2004 — and runs them side by side., so the hypocrisy leaps out at you. No spin required. THAT’S how it’s done, fisker-wannabes.