Blix’s question marks

Former UN weapons inspector Hans Blix’s interview with Sky News has been quoted widely. Particularly his claim that Tony Blair did in fact “sex-up” his famous dossier presenting the case for war:

I would never dare to accuse any statesman of bad faith unless I had absolute evidence of it. I do think they exercised spin.

They put exclamation marks instead of question marks. There were question marks but they changed them to exclamation marks. And I think they got the political punishment for that. They lost a lot of confidence. Both Bush and Blair lost a lot of confidence.

The bit about the question marks being turned into explanation marks is undoubtedly meant metaphorically but quoted as a grab will be taken very literally. Of course, in many ways it amounts to the same thing. Andrew Gilligan must be laughing long and loud.