How To Read Bill Kristol

There's one thing you can say about Bill Kristol: he's consistent.

He reminds me of the movie critic on a TV show I used to be on. The rule of thumb was if he liked it, I hated it, and if he hated it, I was first in line the next day to see it.

If I were to read Kristol's pieces in the NYT op-ed, that's how I would approach it. I don't ever plan to read one, and that paper has been greatly diminished in my eyes because they hired him, but if you really want to know what's going on, read Kristol and believe the opposite.

He hasn't been right about anything, not ever.

The latest example of what not to believe came when he said on Fox News that Sen. Clinton was faking her emotional moment in New Hampshire. He said it with great conviction. He was so wrong even BRITT HUME disagreed with him.

He says Clinton faked it? She must have been sincere.

Of course, he has been wrong about bigger things, Iraq for instance. Everything he's ever said on Iraq, for instance. There is blood on his hands which he has now wiped off on the op-ed page of The New York Times.

Meanwhile, if you're ever stuck someplace and you can't avoid Kristol, just use this rule: If Bill Kristol says something, always believe the opposite. You can't go wrong.

Remember, he's the man who said that the Iraq war "could have terrifically good effects throughout the Middle East," and "Very few wars in American history were prepared better or more thoroughly than this one by this president."

And Plan 9 From Outer Space is one of the great American films of all time.

Comments

[bigfated]

He has been so consistently wrong about this war that it makes me wonder if he has investments that increase in value while people are dying. After all....while he is certaily a certified asshole---he isn't stupid. There has to be a reason he so desperately wants to see this war go on....and a on....and continues to call for an invasion of Iran. Gotta be something in it for him. He's a dirt bag.......F&%^ him!

[willo]

You nailed it dude. If anyone needs further proof that our news is being spoon fed to us by fascist who control the press I think they can now rest. Most job's have a little grace period where they will overlook a few mistakes. From a working man's perspective you know you have to get it right 99.9 percent of the time or you will be fired.
Not this ass clown, he made a whole career out of it. He was a member of PNAC, the bunch of fools who thought up nightmare that started with 9/11 to the current situation. Oh about a million dead people. Murdered because clowns like this were given a national voice to spew his lies. The guy belongs in a cage somewhere and not at the NYT's

[CitizenE]

Is there anything more universally annoying than a smarmy political villain? Don't they all show up at empire's fall?

[realpolitic]

What manager of a baseball team would be hired if he lost every game of the year and all his decisions were faulty? What if he decided to sacrifice bunt with no one on base or bring in a relief pitcher in the first inning? Kristol is that bad! As a fortune teller he would go broke, yet as a conservative pundit he prospers.

In the world of conservative punditry, one never has to admit mistakes or say I am sorry. It is only because this world is built on spin and distortion anyway, so no one is accountable. Each opinion is labeled partisan by conservatives, even those sane voices backed by evidence, therefore no one can be wrong. In fact, right or wrong is relative and based on where one is along the ideological spectrum.

The conservative punditry world knows no standards, but why should we in the factual and reality-based world except there lack of standards and accountability? The New York Times wants us to enter this world where up is down and down is up. Welcome to conservativism!

If Kristol is busy one week, perhaps the Times can bring in Jonah Goldberg who can tell us the Nazi Party was really the liberals and socialists of their day.

[ArchAngel]

Sadly, there is not enough texture for a good clean wipe.

[TrickleUp]

MSM IS A FRAUD , AVOID AT ALL COST!

[DietrichMoody]

How to Read Bill Kristol?

WITH YOUR EYES CLOSED....

OR MAYBE LOOKING LIKE THAT KID FROM "HOME ALONE"
BOTH HANDS ON CHEEKS (AHHHHHH!!)

[proudcalib]

Kristol is despicable. He views the Iraq war through a theoretical lens, as just another neocon think tank lab experiement, not in human suffering.

I truly believe we need a return to universal conscription. If America goes to war, it should be the entire country involved and consenting to it, not an warped elite pushing the burden to the lower and middle class while their kids are ensconsed in Ivy League institutions.

[raptor]

Let's see, time to sort out my magazines again. "How I Would Have Caught Bhutto's Killer" by O. J. Simpson. Toss. Flat Earth Journal. Toss. Septics Monthly. Keep. DIY Creative Intelligence Monthly. Toss. Nautical Research Guild Journal, Keep. "Wisdom from My Father" by William Kristol. Gee, that's awfully thin. Toss. "Original Colums by Bill Kristol". Pretty thin too. Toss.

[Incredulous]

The only way to read Kristol is through the shit in the bottom of your bird cage.

[OneFish]

My mom once shut of the auditorium lights while Kristol was speaking at a book fair or something like that in Miami.

She claims it was an accident.

I have my doubts.

[westwind]

If there was any honor or logic or semblance of public service in the actions of the corporate media (I know, I know...), people like William Kristol would not be allowed to ever show their faces anywhere except in the pages of their own heavily subsidised vanity publications.

The issue of course is not stifling of opinion, but of knowledge, skill and accuracy in reading the political landscape. If a pundit is consistently wrong but shows no embarrassment or remorse, and yet keeps on getting invited back to bloviate further, and indeed keeps on getting bigger and bigger gigs, (and they don't come any bigger than the NYT, unfortunately), then one has to ask the question, Why?

If their track records are so uniformly bad, and they cannot be trusted to give reasonably accurate readings on matters of life and death on a gargantuan scale, then who are they serving? Who is gaining from letting these people poison the waters with no standard of accuracy? When even PBS, supposedly an impartial news source, keeps inviting back another pundit who has an unblemished record of inaccuracy and partisanship, David Brooks, then you realize that the media has no conscience and no care for the public good anymore, at least not since St. Ronald did away with the fairness doctrine.

The right wing cannot win any debate using only facts, so they have to influence the people and the media by lies and bamboozlement, a job made easier by the fact that they own nearly all of it, and the bits that they don't own, like PBS, is so cowed by fear of being called unpatriotic, that they help perpetuate this totally distorted view of reality. And we all lose.

[django707]

Tom, I like your sentiment but this code breaking of Bill Kristol is too simplistic. On the surface, he has been wrong about everything. However, if you speak the secret language, he has been absolutely right. The war in Iraq has been an absolute success for the huge corporations that make money on chaos. We are in Iraq permanently. Kristol knows this, knew this from the start. All the insiders no this. They've privatized the Iraqi oil fields and American soldiers will be there guarding the loot until those fields dry up - or America's military goes belly up! Iraq has become a model state for unchecked capitalism/privatization. It doesn't matter that we've created a holocaust for these people. Trillions are flowing up into the corporate towers. Why do you think propagandist Kristol has a job with the NYT expressing that freeedom of speech we cherish? Reading lesson over. Good day.

[westwind]

If there was any honor or logic or semblance of public service in the actions of the corporate media (I know, I know...), people like William Kristol would not be allowed to ever show their faces anywhere except in the pages of their own heavily subsidised vanity publications.

The issue of course is not stifling of opinion, but of knowledge, skill and accuracy in reading the political landscape. If a pundit is consistently wrong but shows no embarrassment or remorse, and yet keeps on getting invited back to bloviate further, and indeed keeps on getting bigger and bigger gigs, (and they don't come any bigger than the NYT, unfortunately), then one has to ask the question, Why?

If their track records are so uniformly bad, and they cannot be trusted to give reasonably accurate readings on matters of life and death on a gargantuan scale, then who are they serving? Who is gaining from letting these people poison the waters with no standard of accuracy? When even PBS, supposedly an impartial news source, keeps inviting back another pundit who has an unblemished record of inaccuracy and partisanship, David Brooks, then you realize that the media has no conscience and no care for the public good anymore, at least not since St. Ronald did away with the fairness doctrine.

The right wing cannot win any debate using only facts, so they have to influence the people and the media by lies and bamboozlement, a job made easier by the fact that they own nearly all of it, and the bits that they don't own, like PBS, is so cowed by fear of being called unpatriotic, that they help perpetuate this totally distorted view of reality. And we all lose.

[Nutcase]

Your way of reading Bill is much easier. I thought I would have to find a time machine to take me to the 16th Century. Actually, there are probably better ways to waste one's time than reading the foolishness of one so benighted.