Oh, my. The Weekly Standard’s Editor Bill Kristol is suggesting that war weariness is no excuse — basically suggesting that Americans and many of their leaders are wusses. Here’s just part of his piece:
Are Americans today war-weary? Sure. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars have been frustrating and tiring. Are Americans today unusually war-weary? No. They were wearier after the much larger and even more frustrating conflicts in Korea and Vietnam. And even though the two world wars of the last century had more satisfactory outcomes, their magnitude was such that they couldn’t help but induce a significant sense of war-weariness. And history shows that they did.
So American war-weariness isn’t new. Using it as an excuse to avoid maintaining our defenses or shouldering our responsibilities isn’t new, either. But that doesn’t make it admirable.
…Can Republicans do no better than shamefully to emulate Somerset and Obama (“I assure you nobody ends up being more war-weary than me”)? Will no brave leader step forward to honorably awaken us from our unworthy sleep?
Kristol’s is now coming under fire in many quarters for comments suggesting that United States just doesn’t get it and that neither do many members of his own party. And some of the criticism is harsh. Should it be?
He is indeed a good writer, but as a thinker it must be said: he’s no Irving Kristol, the respected journalist and columnist called “the godfather of neoconservatism.” When I was a freshman at Colgate University, my political scientist Edgar Shor had us read a lot of his work (“Let’s take a look now at the Kristol piece.”). William Kristol is more of an activist and advisor than an unusual, ground-breaking political thinker.
And he has been wrong. The Iraq war and all its many discredited justifications? Those were his mantras. He also was a tad off in enthusiastically thinking that Sarah Palin would be a great choice for Vice President on John McCain’s losing 2008 Republican ticket.
Uh, oh, here come the emails again about me being “Jewish moron” (I’m a REFORM Jewish moron.)
But, yes, history has not declared Sarah Palin a stellar choice, nor have accounts of the 2008 Presidential race.
And some of the criticism comes from Republicans. For instance, Matthew Dowd, the political consultant who was chief strategist for the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign, in July said this about Kristol and Palin:
“If I were people, I wouldn’t be taking political advice from Bill Kristol who selected Sarah Palin as one of his leading figures in the national Republican Party, which was obviously a disaster in 2008.”
So perhaps Americans — Democrats, independents and Republicans — are not wrong in not taking American to the brink (hey, Putin wouldn’t ever REALLY use those nukes..Naa!) unless every other option was explored and competely pondered. I suspect if Kristol’s former boss former Vice President Dan Quayle was asked whether he’d want to take us to the brink right now Quayle would probably say: “No. N-o-e, no.”
But Kristol does have people talking about him.
You and the rest of your cowardly cohort helped prepare the ground for the worst geopolitical mistake the country has made in 30 years. You fought the battle of the Green Rooms and the think tanks while other people’s sons and daughters died for your fantasy of how the world would work if you really were the pimply, adolescent Zeus you see when you look in the mirror every morning. The country does not need you lectures any more. The country does not need your counsel. The country does not need your advice.You and the rest of your cowardly cohort helped prepare the ground for the worst geopolitical mistake the country has made in 30 years. You fought the battle of the Green Rooms and the think tanks while other people’s sons and daughters died for your fantasy of how the world would work if you really were the pimply, adolescent Zeus you see when you look in the mirror every morning. The country does not need you lectures any more. The country does not need your counsel. The country does not need your advice.
There’s a lot more so go to the link.
Bill Kristol is very highly responsible for creating the war-weariness and lack of national credibility that he bemoans. The problem with Kristol and his ilk is not merely that they walk around as if Iraq never happened, it’s that they did real damage to America’s willingness and ability to lead in areas when it might actually make sense for it to lead.
So, to have him lecture us now about our unwillingness to get embroiled in further foreign entanglements, regardless of their merit, is to invite more than a bell. It invites a slap for impudence.
Bill Kristol: “Today is the 11th anniversary of the start of Iraq War, so shouldn’t we honor it by invading Iraq all over again?”
— Top Conservative Cat (@TeaPartyCat) March 20, 2014
Funny. was just thinking abt how Kristol's warmongering is just substitute Viagra when @ESQPolitics pointed that out.
http://t.co/PcwzdkcNPD
— emptywheel (@emptywheel) March 19, 2014
Bill Kristol & his neocons don't like my opposition to their plans to start WWIII: http://t.co/UcHvryBqpy pic.twitter.com/K1dzA14XYg
— Ron Paul (@RonPaul) March 21, 2014
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.