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What’s the matter with Bill Kristol?

Over at The Reaction, Heraclitus explains why he used to like Kristol and why now he can’t stand him.

Short explanation: Kristol used to present himself with irony and detachment, but he’s reduced himself to cynical cheerleading for both Bush and the neoconservative worldview to which he is still so ideologically, and unreflexively, committed.

You can find the full post here.



9 Responses to “What’s the matter with Bill Kristol?”

  1. liberalhawk says:

    Kristol has spent the last couple of years lambasting Rummy, and attacking Bush for keeping Rummy. That hardly sounds like cheerleading. Now that Bush has fired Rummy, and adopted a strategy WS was pushing, its kinda hard for Kristol to not cheerlead that, now isnt it.

  2. Rudi says:

    Yes, I remember seeing and listening to Mr. Kristol. At the time, I thought more highly of him, and was somewaht impressed/relieved to find that he wasn’t as ideological as I had expected, and even used most of his direct references to Bush to mock him. There were the obvious jokes about Bush being none too bright, and the jokes about the not-so-obvious fact that the Bushies were still holding it against Kristol that he and TWS supported McCain early in the Republican primaries in 2000, which is presumably why poor little Kristol was still languishing at TWS, rather than having another great job like chief of staff to Dan Quayle.

    LOL What adisgusting coward, mocking our CiC in a foreign country during wartime. I think a bookburning of the Murdoch rag, The Weakly Standard, is in order. If the Dixie Chicks felt the wrath of the Right for their comments, how is Billy Krisco any different.

  3. cosmoetica says:

    There is a technical term for what Kristol has, it’s called a ‘shit-eating grin.’

  4. Kim Ritter says:

    Why are intellectuals like Kristol and Perle given so much respect as political pundits? They may be brilliant on paper, but have been wrong about just about everything in the real world.

  5. G. Weightman says:

    I linked to the Heraclitus post, expecting some substantive criticism. I learned that Kristol’s pundit-worthiness is inversely proportional to his evaluation of Bush (and not much more). Oh well, another wasted two minutes. I won’t step into that river twice.

  6. vwcat says:

    When Bush is gone then Kristol will become the fully fledged clown he always was but, no one noticed. His neoconservativism has been proven a failure and dangerous and arrogant.
    Look for his loss of primacy on the talk shows in a few years

  7. Kim Ritter says:

    vwcat- I for one, would welcome his absence from them, and have not understood his constant presence. Do any of the neocons even feel the slightest bit responsible for getting us into such an intractable mess??? Most of their writings seem to turf the blame onto Bush (who definitely deserves a big portion of it!)

  8. Rudi says:

    Kim – Murdoch gave Kristol the seed money to start the Weakly Standard. Murdoch also continued the rag untill it made some money. Now who owns Fox News?

  9. Kim Ritter says:

    Oh- that makes a lot of sense to me now. Thanks for the info, Rudi!

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