Reading Bill Kristol's Mind

Call me YHWH.

You longtime New York Times readers thought you owned this paper, didn't you? All those years of reading Tony Lewis and Tom Wicker and Anna Quindlen and Frank Rich fooled you into thinking that this op-ed page was some kind of Ivy League newsletter for you and your pals.

When Abe Rosenthal -- whose son hired me -- hired Nixon White House speechwriter Bill Safire, at first it freaked you out. How could the paper that fought Nixon all the way to the Supreme Court to print the Pentagon Papers offer the most prestigious opinion real estate on the planet to the pit bull responsible for the worst of the Nixon/Agnew anti-intellectual demagoguery?

But Safire seduced you. You forgave his ferocious Clinton-bashing, because he always said (even long after Likkud drove you crazy) that Israel could do no wrong. You tolerated his campaign to prove the Saddam-9/11 connection with the Atta-Prague connection, because his language-maven drag reminded you of sweet Miss Fussbudget from 10th grade. You could live with Safire's saying Bin Laden wanted Kerry to win, because Safire also freaked out about Bush's wiretapping. You didn't spit your morning coffee when he called Hillary a "congenital liar," or when he speculated recklessly about Vince Foster's "apparent suicide," because he always had a fun pun to tickle you, plus the occasional libertarian nugget to flatter your open-mindedness for reading him.

Well, let me tell you something. You're not getting squat from me -- no witty spoonsful of sugar to make the neocon medicine go down, no weak-kneed contrarianism to compromise my rightist righteousness.

Don't look to me to be some David Brooks doppelganger, either. He may technically have inherited Safire's parking spot on this page, but let me tell you something: David Brooks is a pussy. When the political wind shifted, he ran out on Bush just like that scumbag Paul O'Neill, or that scumbag Richard Clarke, or that scumbag Matthew Dowd, or that scumbag David Kuo, or that scumbag John Di Iulio, or that scumbag Eric Shinseki, or that scumbag Larry Wilkerson, or that scumbag Tyler Drumheller. Need I go on?

No, you're not going to get any that Obamba fawning coming from Brooks out of me. I don't turn my back on my tribe. Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith, the Kagan family, Podhoretz pere, mere et fils, the whole PNAC clan: don't look to me for some panty-waisted agonizing reappraisal whenever the polls turn against us. You can also forget about that hobby of his -- that psychobabbling Brooks with his self-hating pop sociology. Brooks may get a kick out of mocking his own elitist class, but if you're looking for some kind of mitigating ironic self-awareness in my twenty inches of type, you're barking up the wrong fifth column.

I still can't believe that Arthur Sulzberger Jr. is letting me keep on working for Rupert Murdoch while taking a paycheck from the Times. (I wonder what part of being-shitcanned-by-Time he doesn't understand.) I also can't believe that Andrew Rosenthal thinks what he's getting in me is just some "opposing views" voice to bookend Paul Krugman. Krugman and I don't just "disagree." He's wrong. Wrong, people, as in evil. I will destroy him. I didn't get to be "a serious, respected conservative intellectual," as Andy called me, by toadying to Times readers. I did it by gaining the respect of seriousness-arbiters like Hew Hewitt, Fred Barnes, Laura Ingraham, Michelle Malkin, Jonah Goldberg and Michael Savage. Our movement's goal isn't to enliven the marketplace of ideas with our views. Our crusade is to purify public discourse, to brand as a traitor and drive from that square anyone who dares disagree with us. Bill Kristol as the Adlai Stevenson of the right... HA! That's rich.

You pathetic pluralists think that facts and reason will always win out. Well, go ahead and keep thinking that. Lenin said, "The capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them." If Lenin were around today, he'd say, "The liberals will pay us for the words with which we will poison them."

Have a nice day, suckers. See ya every Monday.

Comments

[flammi]

Finally the Times has a comics section, even if it is only 1 column. I would suggest that the Times add Michael Moore as balance, but that would imply that Michael is as loopy as BillyBob.

[Erdgeist]

Kristolspeak is a style of fallacious thinking that has learned to bring up the irrelevant in the face of the relevant. E.g. if the discussion is about the bad decision on the part of the President to disband the Iraqi army Kristol will say something like, "But when have leaders ever been 100% right?" With regard to the failed Middle-East policy in the last seven years, Kristol might say something like, "The roots of this problem didn't begin with President Bush, it goes back to the British empire." While your mind is stunned for a moment, your soul detects bullshit as Kristol give you another one of his Cheshire cat smiles. The problem with the NYT is that they have lost their soul. They made the Faustian bargain.

[jazzman]

The NY Times is dedicated to giving us all of the political viewpoints of the right from A to B. With so many disparate voices of substantial, knowledgeable, and serious journalists out there, you think the NY Times could find someone out there who has something to offer rather than warmed over neo-con propaganda; or as I like to call it, fascism for the last century.

[TJoad]

As “Kristol clear” as “through a glass darkly”


In his first NYT column today, Kristol cites with authoritative approval to the wretched right-wing blogger and venomous spin-monster Michele Malkin. Kristol has thus revealed part of his hand right at the start of the game: One purpose of his(fifth) column will be to try to lend legitimacy to the more horrid functionaries of the right-wing hate/attack machine.

We can also look forward to such insightful, well reasoned analysis with gems like conservatives are against Obama because “we don’t want to increase the scope of the nanny state, we don’t want to undo the good done by the appointments of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, and we really don’t want to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory in Iraq.”

Nice polemics, but absolutely no analysis or argument to support such claims. While Repugs like Kristol whine incessantly about the evils of the “nanny state” (i.e, modern day labor, civil rights, environmental and consumer laws and protections), they clap wildly like trained seals in support of proto-fascist measures expanding the domestic powers of “national security state.” And “victory in Iraq”??!!??

Kristol is freely able to spew his Orwellian doublespeak every week in the Weekly Standard and on Fox News Sunday. Why did the NYT see the need to give its imprimatur to Kristol’s propaganda?

[speakeasy]

Kritol and the PNAC are firm belivers of the "creating your own realities" crew. Unfortunately, this means that facts are created to fit their "truths". They have succeded in conveying this to way to many people for my taste, but all is changing. NOW, with that said, how could the NYT hire someone who plays so loosely with facts and are will never admit being wrong???

[Benny59]

As with the Nationl Review, the NYT does not allow comments on Kristol's blatherings to be posted directly to the story link. If it did, I would copy your your article and slam it against them and just feel better for having done it. I feel your pain.

Thanks Marty!

[daddysboy]

Those currently controlling the message would have us believe that this is a new world with a new kind of reasoning. We are on the verge of allowing the redefining of our entire civilization (such as it is) right into oblivion. There is such a thing a COMMON sense people; if we don't start using it and calling out those that would sell us that famous bridge, you can kiss society goodbye.

[MajorKong]

Must be that "liberal media" I keep hearing about.

[MacTheBlogger]

I'm afraid I just don't understand all of this controversy.

So some credibility-challenged right winger gets a couple dozen column inches at the Times. 95 percent of the people who read political columns are committed partisans anyway, it's not like he's going to change anyone's mind on anything.

Plus, all you have to do is read the byline on any given column (or even "article" at this point) to know if you're being served left-wing drivel or right-wing drivel and read accordingly.

It seems to me that if you're confident in your own positions, you're not afraid to allow the opposition to spew their crap. That's the beauty of the First Amendment - it points out the crazies, loud and clear. Calm down.

Much ado about nothing.

.

[JoseyJ]

Obama's campaign is proof that reason and facts don't matter to voters.
Hype sells! in our dumbed downed Britney Spears world - courtesy of our COM (corporate owned media).
The COM has promoted Obama as a rockstar - and we'll get the Britney candidate the media prefers. The candidate who won't rock the boat in DC.

But we're sticking with SUBSTANCE - John Edwards!

[Scipio]

On top of all that, he wears terrible neckties.

[Obamagrl]

You could feel Kristol pulling it back just the *tiniest* bit to fit his new perch in his first column today. But not much.

[lovethesinner]

Marty, (I mean, YHWH)
As always, your words bring laughter and deeper meaning. But, I think I noticed a typo.

"Bill Kristol as the Adlai Stevenson as [of] the right... HA!"

The worst thing about Kristol is it means some other voice will be dropped from the page. I hope not. I couldn't live without Frank Rich.

Likewise, Marty Kaplan, for that matter. (honest)

[realpolitic]

Conservatives use the tools of our democracy against us. They paint ideological opponents as evil, say dissent is unpatriotic, and brand every opinion outside of pure jingoism as un-American. They want access to all media to make their opinions heard, but there is little besides single-minded uniformity and ideological purity in their own journalistic rags. They do not want debate. They want submission and since they have no integrity to begin with can say anything in the media without recourse, as Kristol illustrates daily. It is a sad day for the New York Times and, more importantly, its readers!

[joja]

Kristol's hubris will eventually be his downfall -- the fate all narcissists like him suffer.

As for Brooks, lately, I've noticed that he looks like he's badly constipated or something -- he always has this uncomfortable grimace on his face. Maybe, like all dogs, he's had his day.