That Wacky Wacky Kristol Posted by Michael Cohen

Happy New Year to all Democracy Arsenal readers! Before we let 2007 get away from us, a news story fell through the cracks in the week between Xmas and New Year's that really merits some greater attention: The New York Times has hired Bill Kristol to write for its op-ed page.

When I saw this initially, I thought it was a joke. It's bad enough that we have the partisan hackery of Charles Krauthammer staining the op-ed pages of the Washington Post, but Bill Kristol! Honestly, has this guy ever been right about anything?

Glenn Greenwald (a person with whom I pretty much never agree and who has written a rather loathsome post today absurdly arguing that Mike Bloomberg "is basically just Rudy Giuliani with a billion or two dollars to spend to alter the election") has done a nice job of compiling just some of Kristol's more absurd pronouncements over the past several years. Here are a few of his greatest hits:

April 28, 2003:

The United States committed itself to defeating terror around the world. We committed ourselves to reshaping the Middle East, so the region would no longer be a hotbed of terrorism, extremism, anti-Americanism, and weapons of mass destruction. The first two battles of this new era are now over. The battles of Afghanistan and Iraq have been won decisively and honorably. But these are only two battles. We are only at the end of the beginning in the war on terror and terrorist states.

March 7, 2005:

Just four weeks after the Iraqi election of January 30, 2005, it seems increasingly likely that that date will turn out to have been a genuine turning point. The fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, ended an era. September 11, 2001, ended an interregnum. In the new era in which we now live, 1/30/05 could be a key moment--perhaps the key moment so far--in vindicating the Bush Doctrine as the right response to 9/11. And now there is the prospect of further and accelerating progress.

April 4, 2006:

What was striking, following the mosque bombing, was the evidence of Iraq's underlying stability in the face of attempts to undermine it. The country's vital institutions seem to have grown strong enough to withstand even the provocation of the bombing of the golden mosque.

What is most striking about each of these quotes is not simply how wrong they are, but how clearly they are driven by crass political arguments. Does Bill Kristol have any goal besides carrying water for the Bush Administration and attacking Democrats? It's hard to glean any other rationale for his existence then meeting these two goals. If so, what is he doing on the op-ed page of any major newspaper that strives for objectivity, no less the New York Times? Will Times' readers be informed by Kristol's adulation of George Bush and contempt for Democrats as personified by this piece from July 2007 - "Why Bush Will Be A Winner," which contained these informative and thought-provoking nuggets:

Bush pushed through the tax cuts of 2001 and especially 2003 by arguing that they would produce growth. His opponents predicted dire consequences. But the president was overwhelmingly right.

What about terrorism? Apart from Iraq, there has been less of it, here and abroad, than many experts predicted on Sept. 12, 2001. So Bush and Vice President Cheney probably are doing some important things right. 

Even if you're a judicial progressive, you have to admit that Roberts and Alito are impressive judges (well, you don't have to admit it -- but deep down, you know it).

And what happens when voters realize in November 2008 that, if they choose a Democrat for president, they'll also get a Democratic Congress and therefore liberal Supreme Court justices? Many Americans will recoil from the prospect of being governed by an unchecked triumvirate of Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. So the chances of a Republican winning the presidency in 2008 aren't bad.

With marvelous insights like these it's only a wonder that Kristol wasn't hired sooner.

What's even more galling about this decision is that there are so many wonderful writers on the blogosphere today, both on the right, left and in the middle, that are writing interesting pieces on national and foreign affairs. And yet, when searching for a new columnist the NYT has turned to a partisan hack, who over the past five years has been consistently wrong in nearly everything he has said about not only the war in Iraq, but most policy issues on which he chooses to comment. Good choice Pinch!

At the very least, this will allow me to create a new regular column for Democracy Arsenal  readers - That Wacky, Wacky Kristol!

Comments

[Mike M.]

What was loathsome about Greenwalds critique of Bloomberg? He's pushy and paternalistic and he adovcates all sorts of unjustified government surveillance of private citizens, including the installation of hundreds of cameras around the city just to enforce a congestion pricing scheme (imagine being subjected to surveillance just so the city can collect tolls) and under Bloomberg the NYPD have expanded "stop and frisk" contact with civilians who haven't done anything wrong. The police can demand your ID and frisk you without cause. Of course, racial profiling comes into play there all the time. If anything, Bloomberg is worse than Giuliani on civil rights issues.

[Caitlyn]

You would think that being editor of the Weekly Standard would give Kristol as much public outreach as he needs - and enough of a job. Do you think that the Times and the Standard won't be fungible outlets when it comes to his writing - probably appearing first in the NYT and then on the Standard's web site. Perhaps the Times just decided to subsidize executive salary at the Weekly Standard and this was a convenient way to do it.

[Michael Cohen]

"Bloomberg is worse than Giuliani on civil rights issues." Good grief! A little sense of proportion mught be in order - London has congestion pricing and all kinds of cameras to enforce it and I hardly think Ken Livingston is a scourge of civil liberties. Honestly, Mike get a grip.

For the record, BTW, I live in New York City and I am all for congeston pricing.

[Peace]

No wonder that the Times continues to lose readers because every year it appears that they go further to the right. Newspapers like the Times believe that they can get more readers by going to the right when in fact they just make their more liberal subscribers cancel their subscriptions. Those in the newspaper business don't realize that conservatives only read special publications like the Weekly Standard and listen to right-wing talk radio, but don't read the newspapers.

[Mike M.]

Are you okay with the stop and frisk stuff? Because Bloomberg's responsible for that. I generally like a cop to have to justify searching a person.

[Michael Cohen]

I like living in a safe city.

[Dan Kervick]

What's is bizarre about the wacky Bloomberg foray is that in Iowa and New Hampshire we see the Democratic candidates generating record turnouts at campaign events. We have independents, and even now significant numbers of Republicans crossing over big time to go for Democrats as Republicans commit collective party suicide. And yet a handful of corporate chieftains and retired old-timers have allegedly convinced themselves that the country is too "polarized" and is crying out for a third party run. This is daft. Do they honestly think an election in which no candidate achieves a plurality would produce a more "unified" nation? I'd love to know what's really behind this Unity '08 deal.

Anyway, the Rotten Apple is already playing too big a role in this election. Clinton, Giuliani ... enough already. How many New Yorkers do we need in this thing?

If Bloomberg wants to be President, why didn't he just run for the nomination of the party to which he actually belongs? But if he wants to launch a meaningless, dead end vanity campaign, so be it. It's up to him whether he wants to go down in history as a successful businessman and big city mayor, or as one of those eccentric third party goofballs.

[Dan Kervick]

I like living in a safe city.

If New Yorkers want to hand over their basic liberties because they've gone chickenshit after 9/11, that's a call they will have to make. But hopefully they will leave the rest of us out of it.

[Neil]

What a weird post.

Shorter Cohen: "I pretty much never agree with Greenwald but he's done the legwork on Kristol's wrong-headedness so i'll appropriate it"

Damn.

If you're going to trash someone, you should be substantive, not off-handed. And if you do, you certainly shouldn't feel free to appropriate their work after the fact. It's bad form. You can do better.

[tpo]

Bloomberg can best be described as faux...

Faux New Yorker

Faux Environmentalist

Faux Independent

Faux Non-sexist & the Un-bigot

Faux Everyman

Faux self-confidence of ever getting elected as a person living in sin with a religion other protestant who is against Gun Ownership....

These Quasi-aspirations display a real faux sense of the reality on the ground...mostly for us in NYC.

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[Herve leger]

If New Yorkers want to hand over their basic liberties because they've gone chickenshit after 9/11, that's a call they will have to make. But hopefully they will leave the rest of us out of it....

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Bloomberg is worse than Giuliani on civil rights issues." Good grief! A little sense of proportion mught be in order - London has congestion pricing and all kinds of cameras to enforce it and I hardly think Ken Livingston is a scourge of civil liberties. Honestly, Mike get a grip.