A correction and apology to Tom Friedman

A week or so ago I referenced a David Rothkopf blog post from Davos about a Tom Friedman faux pas. It turns out the post was in error. I’ll just reprint what Rothkopf e-mailed me: Several elements of this Davos Diary were picked up and run in other places, which is gratifying. However, in one ...

By , a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School at Tufts University and the author of The Ideas Industry.

A week or so ago I referenced a David Rothkopf blog post from Davos about a Tom Friedman faux pas. It turns out the post was in error. I'll just reprint what Rothkopf e-mailed me: Several elements of this Davos Diary were picked up and run in other places, which is gratifying. However, in one instance, it is embarassing. In the item on the panel on Middle East nuclear proliferation chaired by Tom Friedman of the New York Times, it suggests that Friedman made a statement that suggested that none of the nations in the area should have nuclear weapons and that this was a source of embarassment re: Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf, who was on the panel and whose nation does. Had the entry stated that it was Afghanistan's President Karzai who made the statement, it would have been accurate. That is what I intended to write and what my brain actually recalls having written. Being as how it was the truth and all. If it came out of my head otherwise or was somehow altered along the way, I apologize. Readers of the blog may recall I sustained several blows to the head along the way and anything is possible. Suffice it to say, Friedman ran the panel wonderfully with a light and informed touch and Karzai's misstatement was humorous and even he responded to his error with somewhat more grace than I have responded to this one. Apologies to Friedman for propagating the original error.

A week or so ago I referenced a David Rothkopf blog post from Davos about a Tom Friedman faux pas. It turns out the post was in error. I’ll just reprint what Rothkopf e-mailed me:

Several elements of this Davos Diary were picked up and run in other places, which is gratifying. However, in one instance, it is embarassing. In the item on the panel on Middle East nuclear proliferation chaired by Tom Friedman of the New York Times, it suggests that Friedman made a statement that suggested that none of the nations in the area should have nuclear weapons and that this was a source of embarassment re: Pakistan’s Pervez Musharraf, who was on the panel and whose nation does. Had the entry stated that it was Afghanistan’s President Karzai who made the statement, it would have been accurate. That is what I intended to write and what my brain actually recalls having written. Being as how it was the truth and all. If it came out of my head otherwise or was somehow altered along the way, I apologize. Readers of the blog may recall I sustained several blows to the head along the way and anything is possible. Suffice it to say, Friedman ran the panel wonderfully with a light and informed touch and Karzai’s misstatement was humorous and even he responded to his error with somewhat more grace than I have responded to this one.

Apologies to Friedman for propagating the original error.

Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School at Tufts University and the author of The Ideas Industry. Twitter: @dandrezner

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