Kristol slips even further from reality
Reading William Kristol’s latest screed in the Weekly Standard, one is tempted to pause and double-check the source. Is the content from a random right-wing blog, some nutty talk-radio show, or a leading DC establishment player in one of the most widely-read conservative political magazines in the country?
I naively thought I could no longer be surprised by Kristol’s columns, but his latest gem pushes the envelope to new depths. Did you know, for example, that American liberals were not only responsible for Khmer Rouge’s crimes, but our withdrawal from Vietnam also created the conditions for the Islamist revolution in Iran in 1979?
Kristol concludes:
[A]ll honor to George W. Bush for following in Reagan’s footsteps, grasping the nettle, and confronting the real lessons and consequences of Vietnam. The liberal media and the PC academics are horrified. All the better.
As the left shudders, Bush leads.
There isn’t even an argument to refute here; it’s just childish cheerleading and empty sloganeering.
A couple of months ago, Kevin Drum noted, “The Bill Kristol phenomenon is a stellar example of what a nice suit and a sober tone of voice can do for you…. [H]e’s smart enough to talk in more soothing tones. As a result, he gets columns in Time magazine, edits his own widely-read magazine, and shows up constantly on television.”
But with columns like these, Kristol’s penchant for “soothing tones” is gone. He’s just a sycophant, blithely touting a dangerous policy that doesn’t work, and bashing those who dare to disagree.
Does Kristol actually believe his own fluff? I’m inclined to think so, but as Jonathan Chait explained this week, it may not matter. “Kristol’s good standing in the Washington establishment depends on the wink-and-nod awareness that he’s too smart to believe his own agitprop. Perhaps so. But, in the end, a fake thug is not much better than the real thing.”
This will catch up to him I hope. He isn’t credible with anybody who is sane.
“Just a little patience” with your civil war? Gee, where have we heard that before? Let JP count the ways…
“The liberal media and the PC academics are horrified. All the better.”
Thank you Bill Kristol for defining what passes for conservatism in your “movement.” It reminds me of an interview I heard with a 70’s rocker who was asked in a radio interview “what is rock ‘n roll?” The response was absolutely brilliant. “Rock ‘n roll is whatever pisses off your parents!” Every new generation of music always upsets what came before because every generation needs to rebel against what came before it in order to find its own voice.
Enter Kristol, who defines that conservatism is whatever pisses off anyone who is not a conservative. It is not it’s own ideology. It has no philosophical base nor set of principles. It’s sole reactionary purpose is to piss someone else off. And judging by the results of conservatism, it is succeeding. But eventually every rebellion has to settle down and not just be against something but to find a purpose for itself and be for something. That’s called growing up.
But Kristol, Bush and the rest of their high school clique prefer to revel in their own perverse anarchism like a bunch of kids smoking pot behind the high school and breaking windows. It’s just too bad they are leading this nation at a time when we’d be better off if the adults were in charge.
There isn’t even an argument to refute here; it’s just childish cheerleading and empty sloganeering.
And this is new, how?
The neo-cons don’t make arguments or engage in debate the way sane people understand it these actions because to them, there is nothing to argue or debate about. Bush Good, Liberals Bad. Neo-cons make statements and then attack anyone who disagrees.
Repeat ad nauseum.
Kristol thinks of himself as a member of some private senate in which Bush is Caesar and parades around him in his imagination wearing his long white tunic and being hailed as part of Caesar’s great consul. The reality is that he is a maggot who couldn’t survive in the real world, one that wasn’t bought and paid for from birth, whose views and comment are consistently wrong so he pretends he never said them or searches for obscure ways to support them.
Khmer Rouge’s atrocities were a direct result of our genocidal bombing campaign of Laos and Cambodia. Kristol would have us exchange Viet Nam for America if it meant he could just once be right. Humans are not human to Kristol. They are events in his imagination where he is always the great consul. He is more like Ann Coulter’s rightful Uncle.
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Wow.
This is fascinating:
First remember that Steve Clemons post on Kristol that contained this observation:
Kristol was sitting a row behind me, talking on his cell phone with someone who apparently shared his optimism. “‘Precipitous withdrawal’ really worked,” I overheard him say, clearly referring to the president’s use of the term in that morning’s press conference. “How many times did he use it? Three? Four?” he asked his interlocutor, and the conversation continued with a round of metaphorical back-slapping for the clever phrase they had “come up with.“
From that we can conclude that Kristol is patched into Bush’s new brain.
Hard-wired if you will…
Now read the Carpetbagger’s Kristol quote with this insight in mind:
[A]ll honor to George W. Bush for following in Reagan’s footsteps, grasping the nettle, and confronting the real lessons and consequences of Vietnam. The liberal media and the PC academics are horrified. All the better.
Kristol is astroturfing!
He is simultaneously feeding forlorn ideas into Bush’s new brain AND arguing their net worth in his column!
At the very least:
The stinky little freak should issue a disclaimer.
[Note to Jon Stewart:
Next time you have this stinky little freak on,– remember this tawdry bit of disingenuousness.]
All hail Monsieur Nicolas Chauvin!
Do any of these gasbags have credibility? All Republicans and neo-cons lost any credibility when they chose the GOP over country. Their disaster of governance screwed those Americans who are middle class and poor and who serve in the military. Mr. Kristol, you are goddamned right that the left shudders as Bush leads the United States of America into the abyss!
The reason there were purges and executions in Viet Nam after we left is because we left our friends behind to be purged and executed. The lesson to be learned this time is to bring the Iraqis who are working with us and for us out with us.
The simple truth is that ten years from now Muqtada al Sadr is going to be in charge. We can help him and have an ally or we can fight him and have an enemy. Simple.
Either way we bring out all the Iraqis, and their families, that are helping us > no purges.
here’s the thing to note: this weeks speechifying and commentary have made clear, this really is all about vietnam to them.
Briliant Howard. Truly brilliant!
Often the simple and obvious evades me.
Bush on the surge:
“The success of the past couple of months have shown that conditions on the ground can change — and they are changing,” he said in his weekly radio address.
Translation: The last 3% of the war has worked out really, really well.
And:
“We cannot expect the new strategy we are carrying out to bring success overnight.”
Translation: It’s only taken us five years to figure out that Shinseki was right in the first place.
The people who are grasping the nettle are the troops, their loved ones and those of us who will pay the bills for this folly. The Kristols and the Bush’s are playing for time so that when someone else (Likely a Democrat) is finally forced out of Iraq they can say that their fine policy was subverted by those same liberals who lost Vietnam.
“[A]ll honor to George W. Bush for following in Reagan’s footsteps, grasping the nettle, and confronting the real lessons and consequences of Vietnam”
So, Bush is selling weapons to Iran, too?
I don’t know– writing too much about this guy is like an exercise in futility after a while, isn’t it?
It’s like searching for a job in an area where you’re being blacklisted, or your friends tearing you down for not being Superman, and living an optimally self-actualized life, when you’re being sleep-deprived at home. In those circumstances, what’s actually stupid is trying to do everything and provoke the hastening of your own brain-death. It becomes the friend’s duty to help out and find you a quiet couch to sleep on, not your own to magically make everything perfect with a single touch.
Republicans are forever Young Republicans.
The Republicans are so entirely wrong these days and yet they’re trying to revise history so that they were NEVER wrong. McCarthy was a patriot. Nixon wasn’t a criminal. Vietnam didn’t happen the way it happened.
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Will someone please delete the racist, anti-Semitic garbage left by “jew-wise”?
If he and his ilk are Ron Paul supporters, that’s all I need to know about Ron Paul.
“All honor to George W. Bush for following in Reagan’s footsteps!” –Wm Kristol, 2007
“All power to the soviets!” –The Bolshevik Party, c. 1917
Sorry, the similarity just struck my ear.
18. How much do you get paid to go dropping these little bombs into leftwing threads, there to be snagged by cherrypickers? I’m guessing not a few cents per. You’re clearly not worth much.
18. Only thing worse than a paid liar is an incompetent paid liar (incompetence: the watchword for everything right wing since Bush took power). At least try to fake it better, okay pal? Real antisemitism hasn’t been that flatfooted since, I dunno, 1945 or so.
Admins notified. All sites should have an “alert” button by now–too much of this crap coming out by lackwits like this.
Bill Kristol – my eyes automatically roll when I see, hear or speak his name.
People are certainly free to believe whatever they want – even if it isn’t based in reality; what’s disturbing is that this is the reality for people like Kristol – he’s been working on this for so long that he can’t stop believing in it, and admitting that it’s not working, or that it was never going to work threatens his entire sense of who he is.
Kristol isn’t a stupid person – heck, if he were stupid – he and all the rest of the PNAC-ers – it would be easier to marginalize them. But these are people with a vast network of government, political, military and media connections – it’s like they’ve plugged into all the outlets and there’s no room for anyone else.
Bush isn’t leading – he’s been led by clever people who know how to push the right buttons. Kristol is one of them. Bush sees it as support for him – Kristol knows it’s support for their agenda and Bush is the tool.
This has been the longest presidency EVER.
How about Kristol’s opening line portraying “the left” like “a pig in muck”. Anyone with a knowledge of the history of anti-semitism is aware that the pig has been used to portray Jews negatively for centuries. Yet here, Kristol, who is Jewish, deploys the insult.
Kristol is like someone who wants someone or people he doesn’t even know to live up to his own standard of perfection. He’s as unrealistic as someone who, finding himself in an insanely difficult situation, tries (like an idiot) to get as many people as possible involved in it, and then acts like he doesn’t understand when they (quite rightly) act as if what he’s talking about is totally insane, and don’t want to get involved. He’s the epitomy of the whole conservative stance on the Iraq war, and a host of other issues.
I wish B.K., his sycophants, and all their idiot friends would get out of town.
Iran /contra affair, do you think those weapons are now killing our own troops, Mr. Kristol, and with another 200,000 arms missing under bush’s watch I would say, YES!
Kristol’s sci-fi altered states and if only Kristol could get anyone to buy into the late, worthless Rovism, failed and gone political game of blame. If only Americans could just se it that way but they won’t – Vietnam is a nightmare relived cause of Bushism.
Kristol is running out of time to get that hydrocarbon framework law sighned – the PNAC promised it all to Big OIL – Bushe’s big oil pipedream buy in.
Too late, it’s too late – Bush *uck up again, and again, and again – Big OIL’s FU just in time for Sen. Warners “bring the boys home” for Christmas presents.
Tick-tock- out of time.
Oh the lies Bush told his campaign contributors. The lies, the lies, the lies.
mullah cimoc say:
who own weekly standard mag? A: Rupert Murdoch
how many time weekly standard make the profit? A: Zero
What am real purpose of weekly standard if not for making the profit? A: So obvious weekly standard propaganda organ for rupert murdoch organization?
Where from wife of Kristol? A; israeli citizen.
Am israeli intel real control of this kristol? A: this the big question and need investigation by usa fbi and cia.
for study ameirki might reading:
inside the company, cia diary by philip agee.
a man called intrepid by william stevenson.
google: mighty wurltizer +cia
Anyone with a knowledge of the history of anti-semitism is aware that the pig has been used to portray Jews negatively for centuries. — Quiddity, @24
Say what? I’m half-Jewish and had been indoctrinated (by my Jewish Mother) about anti-semitism ever since I was 4yrs old (a loooong time ago). Jews and pigs don’t mix; that’s true. Pigs (and pork) have been used, by goyim, to hassle Jews, for ages; that’s true too. But I’ve *never* heard of pigs as being “used to portray Jews”, negatively or otherwise. *Because* pigs and Jews do not go together. The prominent noses. The money. The side locks… But *not* pigs.
The phrase “happy as a pig in slops/muck” is a phrase that everyone uses, including Jews. Perhaps it was even crafted by Jews, since Jews wash and pigs don’t.
Please, troll, do take your fake concern elsewhere.
Did you know, for example, that American liberals were not only responsible for Khmer Rouge’s crimes, but our withdrawal from Vietnam also created the conditions for the Islamist revolution in Iran in 1979?
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Umm, gee, as I remember the rethugliCons were at one point congratulating their fellow rethug, Nixon, with extricating us from that bloody quagmire in SE Asia and saving American lives that would have been needlessly lost. But now that they think it’s politically advantageous, withdrawal form Vietnam was a mistake, AND it’s all the ‘libruls’ fault, eh? So, I guess by way of logic, that makes Nixon a liberal? Hey Kristol, do this still great Nation (no thanks to hacks like you) and the world a favor, go find a never-ending martini and try to drink it non-stop till it’s gone.
Just watched Rambo III.
There was mention of the Soviets fighting war without honor against Afghanistan.
Reminded me that we armed the Mujahideen , and then abandon Afghanistan to the Taliban.
“Al-Qaeda has its origins in the uprising against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Thousands of volunteers from around the Middle East came to Afghanistan as mujahideen, warriors fighting to defend fellow Muslims.” http://www.infoplease.com/spot/al-qaeda-terrorism.html
So when Al Qaeda turned against the western world, and attacked the US, we invaded the secular Iraq.
Not only has our fearless leader shown no honor, he has shown insane stupidity. We need a word for that…how’s bush. e.g. “Why would you do that? That’s totally bush!
That’s just bizarre. It’s as if he thinks we’re “re-fighting” the Vietnam War in Iraq — and trying to reverse the outcome of the Vietnam War in the process. Ah, what am I saying? “As if” … no, I’m quite certain that really is what Kristol thinks we’re doing. Or ought to do.
Even without the sinecure R. Murdoch has created for pseudo-intellectual hack propagandist Kristol, he would show up as a columnist for the Washington Times, National Review or some other neocon rag. His moon face would still spill over our TV screens, and the excrement spewing out of his mouth still treated seriously by the punditocracy. People like him are always taken care of by invisible forces the nature of which we can only guess at – the same forces that have converted a much more diverse and robust media of decades gone by into a propaganda machine for the right-wing.
Kristol’s overriding strength is his ability to look right into the camera and lie in his quiet way as if what he says is beyond question or reproach. When he is challenged he merely dismisses it as if the challenger is of inferior intellect, didn’t say what he did, doesn’t know what he’s talking about, or is just…inferior. Worse comes to worse, he changes the subject. For someone who has been so demonstrably wrong so often to be still taken seriously by both legitimate publications and producers of news programming is a scandal. But those invisible forces are everywhere and enduring.
Is he and the other neocon spawn refighting Vietnam in Iraq? Of course. Iraq is their last chance before they go to their authoritarian heaven (not a place I want to share with them, thank you).
Personally, I cringe everytime I hear his name, or worse when that imminently punchable face overflows my TV screen, and the lying, spinning, prevaricating and mendacity begins. I know what to expect from him. I’m only interested in how the other people at the table respond. Usually I’m very disappointed.
Personally, I cringe everytime I hear his name, or worse when that imminently punchable face overflows my TV screen…
Wish it was imminent. Alas, only eminent.
#3 petorado nailed it: “Kristol, Bush and the rest of their high school clique prefer to revel in their own perverse anarchism like a bunch of kids smoking pot behind the high school and breaking windows. It’s just too bad they are leading this nation at a time when we’d be better off if the adults were in charge.”
We have been “led” by the frat cheerleading preznit, his prank-playing sidekick (Rove) and their equally stuck-in-adolescence buds (the fearful Cheney most definitely) these past six+ years. Unfortunately we need people who have real ideas, real courage, who will come up with good policy rather than cheap political stunts.
Nice to know that our foreign policy is summed up in one word — spite.
L O fucking L
As the left shudders, Bush leads.
Yes, but who is following? If 3/4 of the country thinks you’re an incompetent boob, and you’ve had about 5 years to convince us that you are truly the “leader”, what kind of leader are you, really?
I’d be facinated to know what happens in a squad of soldiers if more than half of your squad doesn’t trust you/thinks you’re incompetent or stupid, etc. My guess is the leader gets replaced. The sooner the better. Extrapolate that up the chain of command and you get “Dear Leader.” I’ll bet the military would have dumped him years ago.
Bush leads
30 billion sent to Iraq for reconstruction so far, 8.8 billion of that missing.
I guess the only thing he is leading is the crime mob that’s systematically destroying all that American taxpayers get up every morning and work their asses off for every damn day.