Kristol Bawls

Fans of smug, mendacious propagandists for plutocracy and militarism: rejoice. William Kristol, who cannot write "get milk, rye bread" on a Post-It without doing so in bad faith, has delivered of himself a paragraph, in his quickly-becoming-self-parodistic column in the New York Times, which raises the envelope of dishonesty and stretches the bar of disingenuousness in exciting new dimensions:

The American conservative movement has been remarkably successful. We shouldn't take that success for granted. It's not easy being a conservative movement in a modern liberal democracy....

Especially when it's not remotely "conservative," but never mind. From the people who put the "con" in Neo-con comes the New Triumphalism: a whiny, self-pitying cry of victory as every element and detail of their project is revealed to have been a lie, a scam, a shakedown, a fraud, and a failure. Except, of course, for the money. Everyone -- from Rumsfeld to Cheney, from the chief commander of Blackwater to the Commander in Chief in the White House (who told the unbearable Chris Matthews, in pitch-perfect Idiot Sophomore, that he intends, as soon as he retires, to "replenish the old coffers") -- will have got their money.

What do the rest of us get? Validation: Reading Kristol, our every prejudice is confirmed. Conservatives (i.e., "movement conservatives," the neo-cons and their fellow travelers, not to be confused with actual conservatives) really are the brainy-but-repressed hyper-dorks of one's high school memory, for whom political debate is an act of revenge against reality, and feeling-right is inseparable from feeling-vindicated.

It's not easy to rally a comfortable and commercial people to assume the responsibilities of a great power.

This, with all the explicit pretension of Miss America announcing her desire to "help people," is the Neo-Con Fantasy: We are the fat, complacent beneficiaries of...dare one call it a too-successful bourgeois society? Whatever. In any case, They are the clear-eyed visionaries, who for our own good must trouble us to attend to History's summons.

Note, shown here in its native environment, the deep right-wing concern with "responsibility" as, inevitably, it applies only to others. A chicken hawk may be a chicken but, God damn it, he's also a hawk. He knows your responsibility when he sees it. Bonus points, too, for "...a great power," hinting at the favorite trope of wing-nut commentators (and hack science fiction writers) everywhere, i.e., that of the "mature society."

It's not easy to defend excellence in an egalitarian age.

Tell me about it -- especially when so many of those doing the defending -- your Kristols, your Podhoretzes, your Goldbergs and, yes, your Bellows -- are legacy hires and/or winners of the nepotism lottery.

It's not easy to encourage self-reliance in the era of the welfare state.

Here, in a mere 13 words (assuming "self-reliance" counts as one), is a book's worth of "conservative" hypocrisy and self-serving. First, the lofty moral intent, so beloved of missionaries and imperialists. Kristol has manfully taken it upon himself to encourage right behavior in others. No, don't bother thanking him. Virtue is its own reward.

But, as is always the case when reading neo-con prescriptions of how others should live, some vocab clarification proves helpful. Clip and save for future reference:

When billionaires get tax breaks, they receive "incentives." When working class families get food stamps, they're the perpetrators (and the victims, really) of "the welfare state." When government serves corporations, it's "a partnership." When government serves individuals, it's "socialism." When William Kristol rides his father's contacts and reputation to a sinecure insulated from any commercial or marketplace consequences -- and suffers not an ounce of setback for having been wrong about everything -- he's showing "self-reliance." When you ask that the FTC at least protect your children from poison in Chinese toys, you're encouraging "the nanny state." Clear?

It's not easy to make the case for the traditional virtues in the face of the seductions of liberation, or to speak of duties in a world of rights and of honor in a nation pursuing pleasure.

"Not easy"? Dude, it's freakin' impossible. But don't blame us, man. Where was Kristol on 9/11? Didn't he hear his beloved Preznit Bush encourage us to go shopping? Even Bush -- gun-slingin', straight-talkin' neo-con hero and, therefore, exemplar of responsibility, self-reliance, and traditional virtue -- conflated "duties" with "pursuing pleasure."

We have "unpacked" barely two column inches out of 16 and a half of this smooth-faced boobie's op-ed, and already it reads like the transcript of the ravings of a schizophrenic. After seven years of sheer failure, corruption, and ineptitude, Kristol sees something "remarkably successful." In the midst of a titanic repudiation of the policies and personalities he's championed for a decade, he wags his finger and lectures us on "duties." At the head of a parade of hypocrites, criminals, and torturers, he wishes to advise us about "honor." He gazes out his paid-propagandist's office window at a country beset with anxieties about jobs, money, health, aging parents, plunging real estate values, conniving drug companies, terrorism real and imagined and hyped, permanently high gas prices, rigged elections, and the real possibility of a generation succumbing to an inescapable downward mobility, and what does he see? "A nation pursuing pleasure."

Who does he think he is? Who does he think we are? And seriously, Pinch: What would this clown have to write to make him unworthy of the Times?

Cross-posted at What HE Said.

Comments

[WilliamGossett]

I am not a neo-con

BUT

They ARE in charge and they have been winning over and over again (a few hiatuses - Bill Clinton and the 2006 election.)

Interesting that their roots were Leon Trotsky, who was, of course, a Communist ostracized and murdered by Stalin.

Somehow Irving Kristol and Ayn Rand (Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum) learned to side with the "winners" and their gift at writing led them to the top of the heap as opposed to the underdog.

Look at Joe Lieberman? He, too has abandoned his roots with underdogs and will be on top - in the society of winners. I am sure he will switch to the GOP (or at least caucus with them) before the general election giving the remaining Senate term control back to the Republicans.

Anybody can be bought, so true for Kristol and Lieberman.

It looks like the writer (Ellis Weiner) is whining - not the neo-cons. They are gloating as they really have won afterall.

[lisakaz]

Beauty. I'd like to know (maybe!?) his definition of those terms he throws around. Very Orwellian, given "success" is being wrong about everything and "excellence" based on merit means never being responsible for one iota of it. Perfect embodiment of the line about that Patron Saint Bu$h: he was born on 3rd base and thought he hit a triple.

I cannot stomach these arrogant idiots! I've had to deal with 'em for far too long and it's maddening.

[dizzydoodles]

That is simply some lovely writing, exquisite logic, and deft "unpacking."

[illinoisan]

Nice evisceration. Thanks for reading this clown so I don't have to.

[avergejoe]

and we all should remember what a great patriot his father was!

http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2007/05/index.html

30 Years Ago, Neocons Were More Candid About Their Israel-Centered Views

Norman Podhoretz's statement in 1979 that neoconservatism arose in part out of a Jewish concern that the Democratic Party wanted to scale back the military, and this represented a direct threat to Israel's security. Yesterday I discovered a similar statement from neocon godfather Irving Kristol, writing in 1973 (in Congress Bi-Weekly, a publication of the American Jewish Congress):

Senator McGovern is very sincere when he says that he will try to cut the military budget by 30%. And this is to drive a knife in the heart of Israel... Jews don't like big military budgets. But it is now an interest of the Jews to have a large and powerful military establishment in the United States... American Jews who care about the survival of the state of Israel have to say, no, we don't want to cut the military budget, it is important to keep that military budget big, so that we can defend Israel.

Fascinating. Such dramatic language; and there is no quibbling or circumlocution about the fact that American Jews have the responsibility of protecting Israel. Compare Irving Kristol's comment to that of his son, William Kristol, when he was pushing for the greatest disaster in recent American history, the war in Iraq. In The War Over Iraq, the book he wrote, Kristol made a similar point to his father's, but in more careful terms. In reference to Saddam's attacks on Israel, he said that the United States must "act as if threats to the interests of our allies are threats to us, which indeed they are... act as if the flouting of civilized rules of conduct are threats that affect us with almost the same immediacy as if they were occurring on our doorstep."

I sense that Bill Kristol and Irving Kristol have the exact same view of the role of the US military when it comes to Israel's national security.

[ajax2]

I don't read Kristol in the Standard, I don't read Kristol in the Times. I don't read Kristol in the morning or any f...ing time.

[TommyMcCarthy]

This is a ravishing post....I love it.

Kristol reminds me of nothing so much as a Kipling-esque imperialist urging us all to "take the manly part" ....and "take up the white mans burden"

And has ther ever been a WHITER white man than Mr. Kristol?..­..........­..........­..........­..........­......tm

[CAPTAINSKIPPY]

Kristol might achieve a greater measure of objectivity if he would spend some quality time in Iraq where he could better demonstrate the practical value of his ideas. Can we FEDEX him there?

[lastcallmd]

Wow, to be as angry as you are, he must be hitting your buttons daily. If so, you might want to re-think some of your own clearly smug assumptions. I guess you can't see that you are his mirror image. Rage does that.

[armondarg]

Kristol adds a little more rag to the times.

[realpolitic]

According to Kristol: "It is not easy being a conservative movement in a modern liberal democracy." Yes, especially when your movement has captured the Supreme Court, the Executive Branch, and until your President's incompetence become too manifest to ignore, Congress.

"It is not easy to rally a comfortable and commercial people to assume the responsibilites of a great power." Why don't we just blindly follow the warmongering policies of his fellow neocons, almost none of whom have served, as Kristol wants us to do. In other words, Kristol will decide what is best for us.

"It is not easy to defend excellence in an egalitarian age" Yes, coming from somelike Kristol who has fallen upward his entire life, this line is revelatory. He has been wrong on every foreign policy prescription he has advised, but still received a coveted New York Times columnist spot. Born into privilege, he was always guaranteed a place at the table of opinion makers based on lineage.

"It is not easy to defend self-reliance in a welfare state." Yes, Kristol has pulled himself up by his bootstraps. He is the son of Irving Kristol, founder of the neoconservative movement, and has not strayed far from daddy's ideas and connections.

"It is not easy ...to speak of duties in a world of rights and of honor in a nation pursuing pleasure." Yes, all of us hedonists dance nakedly under the moonlight worshipping our pagan Gods. If Kristol knew anything of duty he would have joined the armed forces years ago, instead of sitting in a well-padded armchair sending others to die in foreign battlefields. How dare young people want to live when Kristol wants to send them abroad to die for a cause which only he can define.

Kristol's column almost screams of self-parody. He would like nothing better to live in a land of titles and nobility where, based on his family name, he can order others where to go, what to do, and how to die. Unfortunately, this country is America and he can not do that.

[Yorks]

Re Kristol NYT column - WHY is anyone adding to his click count? Ignore him and maybe he'll go away.

[rboylern]

I do believe Mr. Kristol is daft.

[HansB]

The Times hired Kristol to prove to any of its readers who may have doubted, that neocons are totally out of touch with reality, crazy, and dangerous. And Kristol is doing a brilliant job: every one of his articles exposes the lunacy of his movement better than a thousand editorials could ever do.

[Tulka2]

Ewwwww. Kristol is surely one of the most repulsive men on the planet. I understand your facination with him. In years past, it was impossible for me to switch past the televised Nixon. I watched Nixon like a hypnotized bird in front of a cobra. Watching or reading Kristol is like peeking in on an exorcism. Amazing, eh?