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

[SamBrown]

Great piece of writing.
I am ashamed to say that I bothered to read that Kristol column, and was as incredulous as Mr. Wiener, but I wasn't able to express it as well.
I just cursed alot.

[SupremeIdiot]

Who does he think we are?

Why he thinks we're the unwashed masses who go to a dead-end job that we hate, come home to a wife and kids we loathe and sit on the couch swilling beer and watching American Idol.

He thinks we're idiotic boobs with no curiousity, no intelligence and no knowledge.

He thinks we're children that he, and those like him, need to shepard through the cruel world.

Who does he think he is?

He believes he's the ubermensch by virtue of his wealth, power and education. He believes he's part of a new ruling class that has been put in place by the grace of God and Manifest Destiny.

What is reality?

They're the sad little trolls who in high school sat in their rooms playing with their army men and wishing they could touch a girl's boob someday. They're bitter, deranged and priviledged creeps.

[courgood]

Right m'f'in on!!!
Mr. Weiner - so as the Times might even begin to compensate for their bizarro-world, immoral choice, they should reserve space for your replies right next to every one of Kristol's blathers. The beauty is that this piece was such a thorough take-down they could just reprint it over & over.
This should be required reading for every voter right before they pull the lever.

[Edgy]

Thank you for so eloquently expressing EXACTLY what I feel about this pathetic neo con cretin, who has helped so much to destroy this wonderful country.

Good God willing, we will have a Democratic president again in November.

[robeson]

I don't read Kristol in the Standard, I don't read Kristol in the Times, I don't read Kristol in the morning, I don't read Kristol anytime.

[burythehatchet]

Dan Quayle's gift that just keeeeeps on giving.

[isis]

I wonder where he gets his ideas about the seduction of liberation and welfare. When was he on welfare and what was he liberated from? I guess I've never understood why someone else getting something should bother people who already have much more.

[westwind]

The NYT has a lot to answer for. I'm glad that you read Kristol so that I don't have to.

I saw his callousness at its most sickening when he was pushing for war on a video clip from Fox News a few years back. After Kristol laid out his phony arguments, Juan Williams confronted him and asked him simply why he favored only "War, war, war" for every problem. Kristol, for once was speechless, and could only smile wanly.

Most people, confronted on national television with such a damning indictment of their philosophy, would have either managed to look a little shamefaced, or have been able to launch a spirited rebuttal. But being one of the class of people that don't have to ever be right in order to continue to be provided with more platforms to spread disinformation, Kristol could afford to shrug off Williams's valid point as being so much liberal blather.

The NYT has tarnished itself even worse than usual with this enemy of democracy and peace.

[CrankyCurmudgeon]

Absolutely stupendous. Wow! Artfully crafted and pointedly incredulous. Reading this in a conference room of the very conservative aerospace company I work for was indeed a pleasure. Thanks, Ellis.

[Maxiesid]

You mean someone really READS his column? I am so surprised! I may cruise through the NYT site now, but just knowing they actually PAY this guy to soil their pages with his screed, makes the rest of the paper nearly on par with a really bad comic book. I used to think I would really miss reading the times, but I find it is really easy to ignore these days, right along with the rest of the right wing propaganda rags put out by the MSM. I mean really.. Kristof? The next thing you know they will get rid of Krugman to add more space.. I am sure Ann Coulter needs a job, and the New York Times is surely her best hope.

[jqcitizen]

Kristols private club of great leaders (Progress for a New American Century, PNAC) includes some of the biggest goof-balls in recent american history.

Google that group and you will see for yourself.

[Rumplestiltskin]

As a libertarian that has some conservative leanings (border integrity) that served in the Armed Forces, Kristol, and the neocon hawks have always bothered me. I think "chicken-hawk" is an over used slander, because the left never used it when Clinton was busy bombing the Serbs, changing the mission in Somalia, or sending troops into Haiti, but these neocon folks are just a little too self-righteous about their willingness to send others into harms way.
Big Government "conservatives"? Nation-building "conservatives"? Along with Bush's ineptitude, these folks have basically destroyed the conservati­ve/liberta­rian alliance.
I figured you'd be cheering them on. But then again, they have made a mess of things for all of us.

[Citizenofreality]

One thing Kristol has going his way, he certainly will not need to defend "excellence".

[dragbunt]

Thanks Ellis.

In kristol's defense, once you create a rich fantasy world that is reality turned upside down, it must be hard to see the world as it really is. I mean, he'd just get dizzy or injure his neck.

The ancient Greeks had their gods, legends and myths - and hell somone had to write down all those myths. I think Kristol is just doing his bit for history.

[Herrington]

Excellent rant. I have never ceased to wonder that the energy it takes to torture logic like Kristol does has not caused his body to shrivel and skull to collapse.