EITHER THIS IS A DREADFUL HIT PIECE, or the Heritage Foundation has some explaining to do. Or perhaps Heritage’s shift in attitude toward Malaysia had something to do with 9/11, which Edsall allows for.
UPDATE: Economist David Levy emails:
The fact that Gerry O’Driscoll witnesses to an attempt to rig the Heritage data on world ranks persuades me that this story is very serious indeed. Gerry is an economist of terrific integrity whose best known paper points out that Ricardo did not believe in the Ricardian equivalence which he proposed!
If the Post had used google on the Mont Pelerin Society it would have discovered something else …
Hmm. Stay tuned.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Grim, on the other hand, writes:
There may be a connection, but there is a good explanation apart from payoffs. I’ve not been offered a dime from Malaysia (or anyone else), but my own opinion of the place has been on the improve for quite a while.
The context that is missing from the article is this: Mahathir Mohammed, who had been the ruler of the place for more than twenty years, stepped down in 2003. Under his rule, Malaysia had been anti-Western, largely closed and inward looking. Mahathir was strongly anti-US and anti-Israeli, the latter spilling over into genuine antisemitism on occasion. As soon as he appeared to be making moves to retire — and especially since his actual retirement — Malaysia began looking better.
Read the whole thing.