Even after watching Bill Kristol’s act for all these many years, it’s still a bit hard to take his effort to ridicule Republican elites and espouse their marginalization in favor of Palinites, Huckabeeans, Dittoheads, Beckists, and Teabaggers. Born to Jewish intellectuals in Manhattan, educated at a Manhattan boy’s prep school, B.A. and Ph.D from Harvard, Kristol’s only cultural connections to the Christian Right are from attending the Republican Party’s nominating conventions and serving as vice-president Dan Quayle’s chief of staff. Bill Kristol has no personal use for religion, but he does want blind support for an aggressive, imperial foreign policy.
He seems to believe that the post-election ramp-up of craziness in the GOP’s base has helped to make more Americans self-identify as conservatives. He also thinks this craziness has chipped away at support for the president and the Democratic Party. He can only come to that conclusion by the selective reading of polls. Americans may be about twice as likely to call themselves ‘conservative’ as ‘liberal,’ but that doesn’t mean much. A CNN/Opinion Research Poll finds that 60% of the country supports Cap & Trade. The public option?
…last week, new polls, one from The Washington Post and ABC News and the other from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, found clear majority support (57 percent) for a public option. The Post-ABC News poll showed support had risen five percentage points since August.
As for Kristol’s special concern, CNN/Opinion Research finds that 59% of Americans oppose sending more troops to Afghanistan and 52% agree that the war there ‘has turned into a situation like the United States faced in the Vietnam War.’
The most recent Research 2000 poll shows that the Republican Party has a net negative approval rating of forty-seven percent (20%-67%). Their approval rating in the northeast is five percent, which is the same as their national approval rating in the 18-29 demographic.
Kristol may believe that the only short-term way for the neo-conservatives to return to power is through a riled-up GOP base winning the turnout battle in the midterms. I am frankly surprised he is so short-sighted. Winning a few seats in the midterms won’t do much if the GOP gets absolutely pummeled in the 2012 presidential elections.
One of the oddest phenomena of the last 30 years has been the disappearance of conservative intellectuals down the rabbit hole. What would Irving say about Billy-boy? Oy-vey!
Don’t be surprised at Kristol’s short-sightedness. Just accept the fact that he is an idiot, and be happy that the GOP is being led by idiots. To me, Kristol is only noteworthy as the man who is wrong about everything, the stopped watch that somehow never manages to be right twice a day.
Kristol isn’t an idiot, he’s a psychopath. There is a difference, not the least of which is that idiots aren’t nearly as dangerous.
Bill Kristol is a man who wants constant, large-scale bloodshed, and will do or say whatever he thinks is necessary to satisfy his bloodlust. The difference between him and your garden variety serial killer? Serial killers have the cojones to do the dirty deed themselves. Neocons have other people do it while they hide on the other side of an ocean.
Treating Kristol like a serious political commentator is dangerously misguided. He’s a war pornographer and should be treated as such.
He can only come to that conclusion by the selective reading of polls. Americans may be about twice as likely to call themselves ‘conservative’ as ‘liberal,’ but that doesn’t mean much.
Bingo. I never understood the disconnect. People like calling themselves conservative(when neither of the dominant national parties are called that!!), yet poll after poll says a fair majority(usually in the 60’s) support the Democratic position on most issues. Especially economic. Bill “William the Bloody” Kristol cherry picking? Shocked, I tell you!! Just shocked!!
Where else is he going to get the base for neocons to ride back power on? The Republican intellectual
table for twobloc?As to his background, he’s yet more evidence of how zionism Likud-style has corroded many Jewish intellectuals’ reason, as well as how ridiculously the Ivies are overrated.
Ivies overrated? Blasphemy! I cringe to think what you might one day say about the U.S. upper classes.
I, sir, shrink from the very thought of impugning our fine upper classes. I beshit myself with gratitude for every crumb that falls from their tables.
When you present like Kristol folks know who you are. The only people dysfunctional enough too overlook his basic creepiness are the NEOCONS he has bunked with over the years.
I mean really folks, am I the only one that is repelled by the very essence of who Kristol is? He is a disgusting and repellent hominid whose main strength in the tribe has been daddy.
Kristol is a piece of doo, a fleck of crap on the asshole of humanity.
I agree.
I am reminded of Emperor Cartagia as he washes his hands of blood and asks ” All I want is a small scream. Is that to much to ask? Just one scream. When he does not give me what I want he is eroding my authority. If I don’t get my scream, I am afraid I will have to kill him.”
Kristol is the creepiest creature on TV. A roman senator demanding the legions go into the forests of Germany to reclaim Roman honor, all while he sits on a recliner in Rome eating the tongues of flamingos.
nalbar
The creeps will be always with us. What stuns me is how easily these repulsive and asinine creeps get media time when there are millions of smarter and more likable people out there who can’t get a word in.
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UsThem Sarah PalinIt is true, of course, that Kristol had been pushing Palin forward with almost puppyish enthusiasm, ever since his infatuating luncheon with her at the governor’s mansion in Juneau during a summer cruise sponsored by his magazine in 2007. “She could be both an effective vice-presidential candidate and an effective president,” he gushed on Fox News Sunday. “She’s young, energetic.” It is also true, however, that McCain, Schmidt, Davis and Salter chose to listen to Kristol, almost always a political mistake with consequences ranging from the merely absurd to the utterly dire.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."