Well, the Economist is a newspaper with an officially non-neutral stance. I can hardly view it "the worst form of manipulation" when it's not different from every blog and personal column ever in this sense.
As to the Iraq war, it might have been the case that they supported the invasion right at the beginning (someone could point me to links), but since the casus belli turned out to be bogus I can't remember reading anything but denunciation of the war from the Economist.
Yeah, but since the casus belli was ALWAYS OBVIOUSLY bogus, that's on them. Saddam held the world dicatatorship record for "number of times deterred as a rational actor after a little brinksmanship". He could have had the keys to the Russian arsenal and still not nuked anybody. Someone can say, with integrity, that they thought Iraq was a good strategic decision aside from the WMD nonsense, and can even say with integrity that they still think it was. Saying "Oh, I believed the intelligence and thought he was an imminent threat" is admitting up front that you can't read past the first 5 words of a headline.
As to the Iraq war, it might have been the case that they supported the invasion right at the beginning (someone could point me to links), but since the casus belli turned out to be bogus I can't remember reading anything but denunciation of the war from the Economist.