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

[serenity450]

"the unbearable Chris Matthews"?!

How could you? I LOVE Chris Matthews. If he weren't married, I would scoop him up in a New York minute.

[Bearzerker]

Kristol Bawls...
it's about time cause I was so fed up with Kristol Balls...
This guyz little pea sized nutz seemed to be feeding the entire radical right and Christian Fun-Da-Mental-ists world wide...

no wonder they were all in hissy-fit...
they've been intellectually starving for years!!!

[TheCult]

Oh the Kristols of the world are really shaking now, you've exposed them to sunlight and now we will all watch as they burn up and vanish into dust.......NOT. In a feudal society the aristocracy have their own way of looking at reality. You can criticize their intentions and personal character, and call them nerds and geeks and products of nepotism, you can rail against the darkness my friends (I just channeled McCain, ewww, I feel dirty) but guess what my children, the serfs and merchants may asquabble at their lot in life, as the aristocrats see it, railing against the demagogic banter of the Kristols of this world, but really what Kristol is doing is showing us all is the inner conversation of that class. Don't take it as propaganda, it's not, it's what they really believe. The Bunny's and Poppies, and Skippies and Sweeties, the Lord this or Baron that, live in their own perverse reality wherein the lives of the common rabble are of no great concern, really, of less concern to them then their pets.

[desertdweller]

Of course anything that Kristol says or writes is incomprehensible nonsense.. You haven't drunk the cool-aid!

[Unsui]

Great, great post. Got it in one...

[Tommygun264]

William Kristol is the very embodiment of every self-pitying, over-privileged neo-con who ever replenished his coffers at the expense of American public courtesy of the Bush administration, including the Commander-in-Chimp himself. Kristol has not only been consistently wrong in his pronouncements, but has issued them with an air of smug, self-entitlement so sickening that even the most overly compassionate, bleeding-heart liberal among us not only feels justified in taking pleasure in the anticipation his imminent fall from grace, but actually roots for the day when he is exposed as a charlatan and self-serving fraud. But we are only frustrated time and again to see Mr. Kristol rewarded by the perverse pyramid scheme of upward failure the neo-cons have constructed for themselves on Capitol Hill using the tatters of our once proud Democracy. All the while Kristol whines like the spoiled brat that he is about the difficulties he and those like himself must face in a world where despite all evidence to the contrary, evil liberals wield all the power and it is only through hard work and perseverance that the neo-cons have managed to pull themselves up by their own boot straps and survive.

[larry278]

Krystol is a blubber Bubba. That is a male who does sob sister stories. Phil Donahue was a blubber Bubba of the liberal persuasion who some say is semi-retired; others say Phil can't get a gig anymore-even on cable or ppv. The NYT may use Krystol to dumb down a sheet which was long ago considered to be America's newspaper of record & attract tabloid readers & advertisers who prey on tabloid readers. His Rupertship often states that he will drive the NYT out of business as he turns his WSJ into a general interest newspaper of record from America's only business/economic newspaper of record. Mr Murdoch is willingly allowing the UK's FINANCIAL TIMES's American edition take the place the WSJ formerly occupied.
One wonders if the NYT can survive as a smaller paper which appeals to a very small niche of readers. NY's tabloids are most competive & tough; they created the tabloid style of journalism which the NYT is timidly seeking to re-create. Since his Rupertship owns the very successful, tabloid, the NY POST, the NYT will be trying to battle a well funded tabloid owned by a master of tabloid journalism. Pinch, aka Punch or Pooch Sulzburger or Sulzberger is making a very risky bet. The family which owns the more powerful class of NYT stock could end Pooch's reign as publisher of the NYT if they see failure. Selling off the NYT's property at fire sale prices & ceasing publication of the NYT is also possible if Pooch fails.

[research]

Great post, but "conservatives" have always been the party of wannabe robber barons and emperors, at least back to Hoover. All the noise conservatives make it to "sell" you.

[MrJoyboy]

Even without saying a word, Billy Kristol can make you vomit. Something inhuman and reptilian about him with that permanent predatory grin.

[faust2001]

You effectively refute every one of Kristol's hypocrisies and self-delusions (he sounds like a spurned ex). But I do have one problem with your column--you end it by presuming that the New York Times has credibility. And this is based on---what?

[AlButerol]

Beautifullly written.

[leogorcey]

This is like Goebbles telling Hitler not to worry about the Russians at the gate because there will be a Frederick the Great moment and everything will be okay. The only reason Kristol was hired is because the NYT is becoming more and more irrelevant everyday.

[Proud2BIndy]

I would not be shocked to learn that William Kristol is a Scientologist.

He might as well be.

[KoolBreez]

Jon Stuart, giving credit to Kristol ,said it best: Kristol was wrong about Iraq before anyone else was wrong about Iraq.

A true pioneer..

[Dvmx]

Right on the mark, Ellis. Kristol is odious and delusional; clever like an obnoxious brat, but profoundly stupid.
The question is, why did Sulzberger feel obliged to give him a seat?