The William Kristol Harmonic Convergence
Whiskey Fire, Attaturk:
Rising Hegemon: Let's hear it for unintentional humor!: Thers found this first, but this Bill Kristol protest of Todd Purham's Vanity Fair piece on Sarah Palin and Bill Kristol's need to take part in a daisy chain with Rich Lowry is a classic example of self-immolation:
Is there any real chance that "several" Alaskans independently told Purdum that they had consulted the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders? I don’t believe it for a moment. I’ve (for better or worse) moved in pretty well-educated circles in my life, and I’ve gone decades without “several” people telling me they had consulted the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
Bill, if your circle was in the habit of consulting the DSM-IV, you'd never be able to leave the house because of the restraining orders. In fact, you might want to clue Krauthammer, the psychiatrist, to its existence because I'm pretty sure the guy hasn't read anything on the topic since Carl Jung (or was it Carl Hungus?) died.
The Economit:
The curse of Bill Kristol | Democracy in America | Economist.com: WHAT'S the killer insult in Jonathan Martin's piece about the continuing battle over Sarah Palin's role in the 2008 election? The article is full of them, but this one from Steve Schmidt, John McCain's campaign manager, really stings:
I'm sure John McCain would be president today if only Bill Kristol had been in charge of the campaign. After all, his management of Dan Quayle’s public image as his chief of staff is still something that takes your breath away.
How vindictive is this? Bill Kristol, as the editor of the Weekly Standard, did more than almost any magazine editor in 1999 and 2000 to build up John McCain as a serious politician, not just a military hero (those guys often falter in presidential bids), but an innovative foreign-policy thinker who could shape the future of the Republican Party. He carried water for the 2008 campaign like a sherpa, even defending Mr McCain's disastrous decision to "suspend his campaign" during the financial crisis: "If the race is between an energetic executive and an indecisive talker, the energetic executive should win."
So Mr Kristol was the perfect press ally for Mr McCain. He's also somewhat dangerous for Republicans. The vanquished 2008 candidate had a fly-by-night attitude that led to all kinds of bad decisions—the campaign suspension, the pick of Mrs Palin, the idiotic month of campaigning with Joe the Plumber. He's irrelevent to the next Republican renaissance, but Mr Kristol is very relevant, and everything he says about Republicans—on strategy, foreign policy, health care, and probably the best way to pick a cantelope—is taken seriously. If Mr Schmidt is trying to warn Republicans, good luck with that: Mr Kristol has the stage.
Glenn Greenwald, October 12, 2008:
Bill Kristol in a nutshell: On October 5, [2008] Bill Kristol used his New York Times column to describe his telephone interview with Sarah Palin, during which they both agreed that the McCain/Palin campaign must attack Obama harder on his "associations," particularly with Bill Ayers. He ended his column this way:
I asked at the end of our conversation whether Palin, fresh off her own debate, had any advice for McCain. . . . "Have fun. Be yourself, and have fun. And Senator McCain can do the same.” She paused, and I was about to thank her for the interview, but she had one more thing to say. “Only maybe I’d add just a couple more words, and that would be: ‘Take the gloves off.’ ”
And maybe I’d add, Hockey Mom knows best.
On October 7, Kristol went on Fox News and urged McCain to use Bill Ayers to attack Obama in the debate:
I disagree with all of the advice that McCain is getting. . . . You have to talk endlessly about the economy. These attacks on Obama on Bill Ayers and possibly Reverend Wright don't matter. I don't agree with that. . . . McCain has got to tie the economic crisis to Obama's character and judgment and say: "who do you want in charge for four difficult years, who is up to the job -- is this inexperienced, liberal Democrat who has hung out with some pretty unsavory characters, is he the guy who you want him to run the country?" I think that's got to be the core of McCain's message tonight.
Though McCain didn't bring it up in the debate, since then, the campaign has followed Kristol's advice, talking about Ayers more than any other single topic. But now that it is conclusively clear that these attacks are failing -- that they are actually backfiring and making Obama more popular and McCain and Palin more unpopular -- Kristol went on Fox News this morning and attacked the McCain campaign for running what he called a "stupid campaign" and "a pathetic campaign" because the attacks "haven't worked" and they're "doing things that don't work and they keep doing them" -- without ever bothering to mention that he, Kristol, just last week, was one of the loudest and most vocal advocates for relying on these character attacks against Obama:
That's typical Bill Kristol -- not only chronically wrong about everything, but far worse, completely incapable of acknowledging mistakes. He just suppresses them, pretends they don't exist, and in that regard is the perfect face for the right-wing movement that is dying a painful, harsh and profoundly well-deserved death in front of everyone's eyes.
What we're seeing in this video is just the start of the angry recriminations in this movement as they seek to blame each other for what has happened. As John Cole puts it: "The coming circular firing squad is going to be fun." It's also likely to be protracted, bitter and brutal. Looking around at the utter destruction they've sown -- to our Constitution, to our economy, to our standing in the world, and to multiple other countries -- that is the only just outcome.
