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

[raymundorassilon]

William Kristol is a bombastic imbecile who doesn't know what the hell he is talking about most of the time. THE NEW YORK TIMES probably hired him as the token right-wing-nut to contrast and make their left-leaning stance look better compared to a fool and a knave like Kristol. Kristol is irrelevant, superfluous, foolish, arrogant, stupid, and criminally inclined, and those are some of his GOOD qualities!

[blueshift]

And this is why I canceled my subscription to the Kristolized NY Times, and blocked them at my firewall. This is the best the MSM has got? If they lack the editorial judgment to provide at least a threshold standard of quality, then I neither want to reward them with my cash, or even my eyeballs.

[seejake]

The NY Times has been doing more than enough to make itself irrelevant. Not the least of which giving ink to Kristol, or Judith Miller.

[Doubtom43]

I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why anyone at all pays any attention to this windy clown. I mean, what in hell are his credentials anyway? Does anyone even know?
How does he get a platform of any kind much less in that fish-wrapper the NYT? Is it a family thing or just a "tribe" thing?
Why are Kristol's opinions any more cogent than mine or those of anyone else? What, exactly, is his connection to wisdom?

[superba]

Awesome post, Ellis. Hilarious. Will forever enjoy the image of Bill Kristol's doomed attempts to write an honest shopping list.

[AdamsBrain]

As a woman who came of age in the 1960's, I can attest that this type of 'bright-on-paper' conservative male has been around forever. His usual inept come-on was to invite a female object to some sort of wacko political club - a bright (that was me) female object, who in his wistful domineering mind was supposed to fall into bedroom passion over his creepy brain. Of course, liberal males used political events like anti-war rallies to try to seduce female objects, but they were more successful, since they at least pretended to be sensitive. Ultra conservatives are still po'ed over this.

[ibsteve2u]

Kristol kaptalism is economic rape disguised as conservatism.

[JPar]

It seems to me that the extreme right wing of the Republicans have actually hijacked the name “conservative”.

Politicians Cheney & Delay, advocacy ‘journalists like Bill Kristol and the conservative talk radio commentariat (Limbaugh, Hannity, Savage, Coulter, Ingraham) really are more in the mold of a soft fascists – and I really don’t mean to use the word ‘fascist’ word in the pejorative WWII sense. If there is a less loaded word I could use I’d like to learn about it, but I can’t find a more apt term.

In the old days, real conservatives certainly didn’t go around looking for enemies, looking to demonize whole segments of society having different political views.

The fascist philosophy however is one of intolerance, eschewing compromise, militarism, plutocracy, the exalting of leaders past and present.

And if any reader thinks this is over the top, just tune in any of the ‘commentariat’ on your AM dial for a few days. It is weirder than you can believe.

It is sad to see these people take over the Republican Party.

[BevDavis]

Absolutely perfect post - love your writing and sense of humor - and in this case, sense of the ridiculous Kristol whose mug we must now see on the pages of the "newspaper of record"...­oye!

just fabulous!

[pastgone]

Excellent, Ellis! Keep it up.

[sir ken g]

Yes it was a good idea for the NYT to give Kistol a chance to expose his idiocy to us all.
At first I thought Rove in Newsweek was a bad idea too. But after reading a couple of his pieces realize that the lizard-talk Rove has to say does not work outside of damp undisclosed locations.

[TLV]

Kristol represents the group of greedy slime-balls who relied on the testimony of an alcoholic taxi driver to take us to war against a sovereign nation that now lay in ruins. Who needs to elaborate on that?

[Hoelder]

Isn't this really perversion? Turning the issues upside down? I do not think this is a honest misinterpretation of reality but a justifying of the rich and powerful taken money from the lower classes? Rationalization of greed has always been a favorite among the restoration governments in history. One of the key issues in Christian churches is to the metaphor of a rich man rather going through a needles eye than into heaven. This is a classic example of rationalizing greed. It is a high jacking of the expert matter.

[TheLar]

SUPERB POST! Kristol deserves this public mocking. He's disgusting, but his arrogance is illuminating. It's a peek into just how deluded these muderous cowards are.

He's the typical abuser: I'm doing this for your own good, etc.

Hopefully I'm recalling the quote and the speaker correctly, but I believe it was Jon Stewart who said it best: "Oh Bill Kristol. Are you ever right?"

[KarenM]

For some reason, I can't seem to find this editorial by Kristol in the NYTimes online.

Could it have been removed? Or is he now only in the print edition?