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

[Wolf Larsen]

Bill Kristol...­.wrong on everything. When I need to know something informative I immediately turn to Kristol and if I am diametrically opposed to his thinking I know I am on the right track.

The puzzling thing is....how can someone who so consistently misjudges and miscalculates so many issues be taken seriously enough to have his views televised or printed for the world at large? What a mystery.

You would think Bill would be ashamed of being in error on so many issues but he wears it as a sort of prideful symbol to his incompetence. There is a certain grace in slogging through one misstep after another...­..firmly convinced of your superiority. Some call it denial. Maybe....b­ut in order for there to be denial there first has to be an acceptance of plausible error. Bill only believes in the errors of others...a­s for himself that never enters the equation.

[BleedingArtLiberal]

"The puzzling thing is....how can someone who so consistently misjudges and miscalculates so many issues be taken seriously enough to have his views televised or printed for the world at large?"

Because the facts never come into play in the minds of his loyal readers (aside from those like Nora, who love the ridiculousness of it). By and large, these mouth-breathers prefer to live in a vacuum, a world almost completey devoid of reality, where they are always right, in spite of the facts.

[LiberalinDixie]

Nora, Nora, Nora! Until I read your last sentence, I was beginning to think we were twins separated at birth! You nurtured by the creative and chic family in New York and growing up to lead a glamorous life with a brilliant and rewarding career. Me... well not so much. However, I too am simply mad for Pat Buchanan. I can't explain it. I adore the man. Keith Olbermann is definitely someone I would consider an exhilarating sport and I find Chris Matthews positively dreamy! Boy do I wish he was the guy wearing the white dinner jacket, carrying the corsage behind the door of my "Mystery Date" board game!

That being said, the only time I can stomach the insufferable Mr. Kristol is when I unknowingly stumble upon him on the "Daily Show" or the "Colbert Report." I usually feel annoyed that he has imposed himself in MY world! How dare you, Sir! I prefer to end my evening in fits of laughter and knee slapping as a swallow my Ambien. Not snarling in disgust at the television screen.

[chascates]

Kristol is the one most responsible for bringing in Palin and hence most responsible for the GOP loss. He should do the noble thing and retire to the Negev desert. And take Joe Lieberman with him.

[BleedingArtLiberal]

Hear...hea­r!

[PacificOcean]

Nice piece, Ms. Ephron!

Kristol is chronically wrong about everything, and that's why I agree with you, it's fun to watch/read him. This is the guy who went on Fox and encouraged McCain to play the Bill Ayres card, only to go back on the same program to attack the McCain camp for running what he called a "stupid campaign" and called for the heads of the entire staff, when the Ayres strategy blew up in their face. And then, of course, his unbridal enthusiasm for Palin.

Bill Kristol is completely incapable of acknowledging mistakes by pretending they don't exist.
So please, keep him around. He is the perfect face for the right-wing movement that is dying a
painful, harsh and profoundly well-deserved death in front of everyone's eyes.

[rowzeer]

He IS always wrong about everything­....even Bill Maher made fun of him by saying "hey Nostradamus sit this one out"...(pa­raphrasing­)

[calpoet]

I hated the idea of Kristol's column appearing in the NY Times, but I've gotten used to steeling myself on Monday morning, opening to the op-ed page, and becoming simply amused at his latest outrage. Actually, he loves to provoke liberals, so the best response to him is to condescend to him with the same
amusement he condescends to serious political thinkers who don't agree with him. Every time he's on Jon Stewart, Stewart demolishes him (as it did in his last appearance
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/31/bill-kristol-knocks-emnew_n_139575.html)
Enjoyed your column....

[BPCentrisAmerican]

Neo-cons like Bill and his father Irving are not conservatives, they are Marxist, former anti Stalin Communist internationalist, before they discovered there new found conservatism, neo-cons were known as neo-liberals, not liberalism as we understand it. Now they are ultra pro-Isreal Zionist to the point of ginning up another war with Iran, which there children will never have to fight. The only real neo-cons are in positions of influence peddling writers, professors and media elites. There is no grass roots neo-conservative movement, just people like Kristol who think the sun rises and sets around there narrow agenda. The faster this movement dies out the better off America will be.

[EseAncianoSharqui]

We all owe Kristol a debt of gratitude that we will never be able to repay.

It was thanks to Kristol that McCain picked Sarah Palin as his VP. Without Kristol's patronage, she wouldn't have been on the ticket.

And having chosen her, McCain was doomed.

More than any single person alive today, Bill Kristol brought down the GOP ticket and wrecked the party. It's down to Kristol's self-delusion and hubris that the GOP is in smouldering ruins today, and will probably continue to disintegate for the best part of a decade. Kristol's reckless, mindless, bitter partisanship has destroyed Karl Rove's vile brand of Republicanism.

So thanks from the bottom of my heart, Mr Kristol. If I ever see you in person, I'll remind you of this and offer to buy you a drink.

[wrylass]

Indeed. The second Shirley Temple is on me.

[bongogirl]

Amen! However, I think Limbaugh and Hannity should be thanked as well, for emitting and encouraging so much horiffic hatred, fear and lies, that America was fed up with them and became intolerant. They still don't realize that their efforts back fired on them. HA HA HA HA HA HA !!!

[blueskybigstar]

You make me laugh harder than anybody.

[panderwatch]

Nora,
I love Kristol in many of the same ways. He's so damn attractive as a target. But I have a theory. As you mentioned, he hasn't been on TV much until recently. I think that he was instrumental in pushing Palin in order to reach one important goal: to make sure that McCain would lose. Two good reasons for this: 1) He hates McCain and his penchant for across the aisle cooperation and 2) with a Democrat in the White House Kristol's views will likely take on added currency as the voice of opposition. He is the self appointed savior of the Right and he'll be much better positioned with the Republican party licking its wounds and searching for its soul.

[jbgnyc]

Wow. My thoughts, exactly. Except for one caveat. I absolutely cannot read Kristol day of. I often put his column aside until he is proven woefully, dramatically, explicityly WRONG. Then I read him and salivate at the errors of his ways. Take Monday's piece on how to help Liberals once McCain wins.
Delicious when served cold.

[parryisle]

We should have learned to not write an obituary until we are completely certain the person is actually deceased. The Neocons and their favorite channel, Fox News, are like vampires coming to life in the darkness of evening news, Perhap no small group in history has inflicted as much harm of tthis planet as they have succeeded in doing. I am amazed thatg despite the tragic results of the war in Iraq in whcih they played a leading role they are immune from displaying any signs of remorse. Thanks to the splendiid resources of the Internet we know what their agenda was when they lured an inept leader into their war in Iraq and we can still see their current agenda, as yet not completely fulfilled, an attack by the U.S. on Iran.

[Scipio]

Nora's right, we need Bloody Billy at the Times more than ever. How can they possibly let him go now that the Dems have taken over? Gee, they could always promote him; put him in the comic section where he's always belonged. And why does he keep wearing that 1980 J. C. Penney necktie? He's worn it on Fox Sunday almost consistently. I think he's too cheap to buy a new tie. That goes along with conservatism, you know. Freud said that being cheap is an outward manifestation of constipation. I suspect Billy has always been full of you know what.

[jchastain]

Nora, you are a hoot. You always write about something I have been mulling that has not yet come into words--and never would have distilled into such delicious humor. Like my hands looking like my mothers and the eery Sarkozy phone call and people who have a stunning ability to sleep through the night.

[MT3]

There's a reason they call it blogging. There's a lot of honest effort on this site. Nora E's the only one who can WRITE

[cafemocha]

I'd keep Kristol in a major newspaper for one reason: Read what he says, and do the opposite.
He's a perfect inverse compass to what is good for America. His commentaries are valuable for that alone.