Thinking About Bill

As I listened to Sarah Palin's recent phone call with "Nicolas Sarkozy," I couldn't help thinking about Bill Kristol.

I think about Bill Kristol far too much. I almost never used to. Before he began writing his Monday column in the New York Times, I rarely saw him on television. Whenever I did, I was mostly mesmerized by his uncanny resemblance to Bob Woodward (whom he no longer resembles) and his incredibly self-satisfied, smug, smirky demeanor. It was my theory that his need to please the Republican White House -- a need that seemed to trump his alleged intellect and even the factual evidence on hand -- must stem from some unresolved issues with his father, the famous Irving Kristol, one of the first neo-conservatives. But I didn't dwell on it, because I saw so little of him. And in any case, I truly couldn't stand him. I just couldn't stand him.

I don't enjoy being in this position. I much prefer to be perversely fond of people others find problematic. I am crazy about Pat Buchanan, for example, and I have fantasies of following him around for a day in order to find out what it's like to never ever be off the air. I am utterly entranced by Keith Olbermann, and I watch his show in much the same way others go to hockey games. Don't get me started on Chris Matthews: I am practically in love with the guy. But it seemed impossible to find a way to like Bill: he was just too irritating.

And then, unaccountably, amazingly, astonishingly, he was hired by the New York Times to write a once-a-week column. You cannot imagine the thrill of horror that passed through New York on hearing the news. The Times already had a conservative columnist (of whom I was already perversely fond), and one conservative columnist was quite enough, thank you. Then Kristol's column began. I read it religiously every Monday. And slowly but surely, I became infatuated with him. How could I not? The man could not write his way out of a paper bag. His column was simply awful. Reading it was like watching someone dance on the head of a pin: his need to prove to his base that he hadn't gone over to the other side was so strong, his need to please his constituency was so moving, that I began to wish he would quit his job as editor of the Weekly Standard and become a Times columnist full-time. It was certainly not going to inconvenience him: the column couldn't have been taking him more than about twenty minutes to write. And it was great having him there, visible, so people like me could see what people like him were like. He was wrong about everything. It was such a comfort.

In recent months, I have thought about Bill more and more. Every time someone turned over a rock, he crawled out from under it. In Jane Mayer's recent New Yorker piece on Sarah Palin, for instance, he turned out to be the man who'd discovered Palin, during a cruise of Alaska, and brought the news of her potential stardom back to the New World. And of course he was one of the reasons why we'd gone to war in Iraq. Iraq. Sarah Palin. The man was uncanny. Last week I watched him on Jon Stewart, insisting that McCain might yet pull an upset. "It's not a psychodrama," he said. "It's only an election."

People like me sometimes wonder what it would be like to be involved in mistakes that end up killing people; we wonder about sleepless nights and remorse and guilt. Bill Kristol exists to remind us that these are pathetic liberal fantasies, and that some people are never sorry. Only last week I saw Kristol on television continuing to defend Sarah Palin: she was a bright woman, he was saying, who'd simply been mismanaged by the McCain campaign.

Which brings me back to Sarah Palin's radio phone call with the Canadian comedian who pranked her into thinking he was Nicolas Sarkozy. As I listened to it, increasingly horrified, I couldn't help thinking about Bill Kristol and hoping that somehow, he would have to spend eternity locked in a room listening to a continuous tape of it.

There are rumors that the New York Times is not going to renew his contract. I just pray they're not true.

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Comments

[Aramarcal]

I am one of those that doesn't agree with but likes Pat Buchanan. I am glad to know I am not alone.

[LightningJoe]

There seems to be a growing body of opinion online, that there is something actually psychologically wrong with Republicans. That they lack human capacities we liberals take for granted. Like caring about others.

They also seem to have talents we don't have -- or at least don't like to exercise. I refer of course to another natural human ability -- that of fooling oneself into believing that what one wants to be so, is in fact so. This bent toward self-deception is exactly what hard conservatives think is wrong with us progressives -- but they don't see the log in their own eye.

According to them, we progressives are fools, to believe that human nature is anything but eat-or-be-eaten King of The Hill competition, as they believe it is. This Neo-Cultural-Darwinism may explain their evident lack of any sort of conscience about their routine abuses of truth and trust. If life is a war, and all is fair in war, then why worry about the mundane rules that someone ELSE thinks apply to human interactions? In the war of life, there must be victors, goes the thought; so why not me, me, me, and me?

But they also seem intellectually challenged, when called on to support that vision. It's as if logic itself were irrelevant; or subordinate to the main point of me-first.

I agree. Keep Kristol out where we can see him. He illustrates the Neo-Con Syndrome (NCS) exceedingly well.

[tcuoohjohn]

This piece is hilarious....I wonder what Kristol made of it.

[gtt]

Nora, I could not agree with you more. Bill Kristol is a fraud.

My favorite exposure of the empty suited Kristol is the interview of him by Colbert in April of 2006. Colbert asked Kristol if he was appearing as a representative of the PNAC (Project for the New American Century).
Yes, Kristol said, walking into that trap. "Well, how's that going?" asked Colbert.

"Well...it's...(stammering)."

"How's the New American Century...looks good to me?" asked Colbert.

"Aah, I think, eh eh yeah, I'm speechless" said Kristol!!!!

What a vicious fool!
Look it up....
Colbert then linked Kristol, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Cheney and Feith to the failed Iraq war etc...

[slobone]

I don't know, that phone call -- somehow it made me like her more. She's so klutzy and naive, it's actually kind of endearing. But not for vice president, of course.

[leeman79]

I guess governor palin was part of his new american century project.

[RichieB]

In addition to McCain and Palin, the big losers in this election are Fox News, Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes.
Kristol and Barnes were smitten by Palin's charm. They promoted her early and defended her to the end. They were also the only two journalist that I know of to predict a win for the McCain/Palin ticket. They have no credibility left. Even Rove predicted Obama to win 330 electoral votes Fox lost market share to CNN and MSNBC during the election coverage.

[tcuoohjohn]

Yep...erections and decisionmaking are incompatible.

[theplaintrutho1]

I applaud your honest Ms. Nora Ephron, but it only shows me how sick people can be, and why Dem's would continue to lose elections.
Wow, reading your own words, "I was mostly mesmerized by his uncanny resemblance to Bob Woodward (whom he no longer resembles) and his incredibly self-satisfied, smug, smirky demeanor..."?
"I am crazy about Pat Buchanan, for example, and I have fantasies of following him around for a day in order to find out what it's like to never ever be off the air."?
"Don't get me started on Chris Matthews: I am practically in love with the guy."?

I do understand that most of what you have written was meant to be snark, so you need to have a better pronunciation for those, that I have questions about.

Or, it is what it is.

[LightningJoe]

From my point of view, and in simple terms, it's a matter of trust.

Neo-Cons make a lot of this word; using it (or rather its lack) to illustrate why consensual governance is an invention of the Devil, and why taxation to make it work as it should is a crazy, greedy, liberal plot. Their perennial point: no one can be trusted with "your" money, but you. Decisions about how to use "your" money belong to you only.

This would make more sense, if it fit the facts, or tied in with other aspects of reality. But what if you ask the questions even one layer deeper? How/why is that money "yours" in the first place? You didn't MAKE it, after all -- you 'earned" it. You earned it in an economic environment underpinned by common governance.

Don't think for a second that, lacking any government input into the economic system, companies would be paying wages anywhere near what they do now. Don't think for a second, that your company would be able to find a route to the profits it makes; if government didn't furnish a common understanding of market ethics and acceptable market behavior.

Society is a common undertaking, and when some parts of it lose sight of that commonality, we are all dragged back a step or three. Fact is, we all owe a significant debt to the fact of society itself; and what we "earn" in that context is owed partly to that common support.

[trisha08]

Well, the GOP listened to him about Palin. He "discovered" her and was pushing the idea of Palin for VP for a long time. The question is, why do they continue to listen to him.

I the GOP wants their future to look like their past, they will continue to listen to him. But, America is moving on........................

[Dibs2008]

I'm practically in love with Chris Matthews, too! Adorable man.

[Roxanna]

Bill Kristol has his problems...for sure

But does anyone really listen to him and his superficial confidence?

[LightningJoe]

Absolutely they listen to him. Exhibit One: my brother-in-law.

Don't assume that everyone in the world uses their full brain-potential. Most people, in fact, have no idea of the limitations of a subjective human point of view, and literally think they know everything worth knowing. Witness how few adults pursue anything like further education. Look how many swarm to one-viewpoint media, like Faux Nooz.

Someone like Kristol is an exception, because he actually does seem to have a few neurons ticking over from time to time. But his overall frame of reference, his conception of human nature, is cramped to the point of blindness. He can't see the benefits of working together, in any way that values inter-dependence, which is probably THE MOST valuable aspect of human cultures.

This is the viewpoint that makes the rich "different" from the rest of us. Once one has money, there is an overriding tendency to take views that would keep that money from benefiting anyone but them. Any sort of sharing of resources (what makes us human) is suddenly seen as "socialism."

The mystery is why this seems to some like a positive evolution of thought; when in reality it's a recipe for the dissolution of everything that works, about society.

[ConcernedAboutRFuture]

To me, he, and W-yuck and all those self-centered people, is proof that there's no god. But nature has a way of weeding them out too. But the idea of putting him in a room with a continual tape of the phone call..... sounds delish!!!

My favorite singer, Sade, must have know he was coming and even named a song after him: Mr. Wrong.

Stop reading him Nora. Obsession with the stupid and greedy can't possibly be healthy. Haven't we watched enough of Wya and Cheyney?

[LoyalOpposition]

Nore Ephron, you are so funny . . . and brave. Personally, I can't bring myself to read the guy.

[ChicagoPat]

He's truly Tabula rasa I imagine he wakes up in the morning, sits up and stares at the wall, like the main character in Memento until a fax by his bedside goes off. The fax reads:
Good Morning. You name is Bill Kristol. You work for the New York Times and the Weekly Review (you will find maps and a schedule on your nightstand). Here is what you believe to the depths of your soul today:

BlahBlahBlahtalkingpointBlahRationalizationBlahBlahBlahBushWhiteHouseLieBlahBlahKarlRove"Math"BlahBalh...

[lompe]

Bill Kristol is just a pathetic, sad little man.

[rockskin]

agreed..but he and his buddies of drek, krauthammer ( God's gift to pomposity ) and
Freddie boy Barnes and we can't forget Big Mort K... have been so wrong for so long and will never admit it. Just look in the mirror you guys and smirk the line " Being wrong is ok as long as people are convinced that we think we know more than them "

[justus1]

why do they keep these guys on ... is their dashing good looks or their charming personality
(Fred Barns is becoming more like porkey pig ever day. Waiting for the day when he says adbeea... adbeea...adbeea... thats all folks)