Unbelievable! After having consistently given wrong, unsolicited and flip-flopping advice to the McCain campaign, Bill Kristol is at it again this morning.
First, several weeks ago, Kristol advised Sarah Palin to get dirty and start using the Bill Ayers smear card.
This was perhaps the only Kristol suggestion the McCain campaign listened to, with disastrous results, as we saw when the “liberated” Palin started vilifying Barack Obama, with her “palling around with terrorists” smear.
When that didn’t work, Kristol, in the New York Times “The Wright Stuff,” suggested to the McCain-Palin campaign that they should ratchet-it-up a little more by using the Rev. Jeremiah Wright smear card.
Fortunately for the McCain-Palin ticket, the campaign didn’t bite this time, although I get the feeling that the pit bull would have loved to sink her teeth into that one.
On other matters, Kristol has given the McCain campaign lousy, erratic, or ignored advice.
On the $700 billion financial “bailout package,” Kristol was “not convinced” about the appropriateness of such a plan, and mused in “A Fine Mess”:
While assuring the public and the financial markets that his administration will act forcefully and swiftly to deal with the crisis, [McCain] could decide that he must oppose the bailout as the panicked product of a discredited administration, an irresponsible Congress, and a feckless financial establishment, all of which got us into this fine mess.
But a week later, in “How McCain Wins,” Kristol not only flip-flopped, but also embellished McCain’s role in the bailout effort:
McCain’s impetuous decision to return to Washington was right. The agreement announced early Sunday morning is better than Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s original proposal, and better than the deal the Democrats claimed was close on Thursday. Assuming the legislation passes soon, and assuming it reassures financial markets, McCain will be able to take some credit.
As it turned out, McCain’s “impetuous” return to Washington (after canceling his appearance with David Letterman, and after having a leisurely interview with Katie Couric); his “suspension” of his campaign (including his theatrics of threatening not to show up at the second Presidential debate), did not go over very well with the voters.
Whether McCain has been able to “take some credit” for the bailout package, is debatable.
Then, with 21 days to go before the elections, Kristol goes nuclear and advises McCain to “fire his campaign.”
Again, McCain paid no attention to Kristol.
What is more interesting is that, in the same column, Kristol flip-flops (again) on his previous recommendation to go all-out on the smears and muck. When Kristol finally realizes that his previous recommendations of using the Ayers and Wright smear cards “just aren’t working,” he flip-flops and tells McCain-Palin, “So drop them.”
Kristol even suggests that,
At Wednesday night’s debate at Hofstra, McCain might want to volunteer a mild mea culpa about the extent to which the presidential race has degenerated into a shouting match. And then he can pledge to the voters that the last three weeks will feature a contest worthy of this moment in our history.
Today, seven days before the election, we read Kristol’s next-to-final advice to McCain.
Applying World War I tactics designed to salvage a desperate military situation, to a 2008 political, economic, cultural, social battle to capture the hearts and minds of the American voters, Kristol suggests to McCain in “Remember the Marne”: “My center is giving way. My right is in retreat. Situation excellent. I attack!”
In this piece, Kristol gives McCain several bits of old, new, and flip-flopped advice, such as, “When you’re in a hole, stop digging. McCain could order his campaign to pull all negative ads, mailers and robocalls.”
Who was it that only a couple of weeks ago gave the McCain campaign exactly the opposite advice?
Kristol also advises the McCain campaign to:
*Return to the commander in chief theme.
*Bring up “the success of the surge.”
*Bring up national security and Obama’s “riskiness” in this area.
*Have McCain and Palin appear more on talk shows—“Sarah Palin live!”
*Have McCain and Palin buy prime TV time Thursday night .
*Speak about America’s greatness, ingenuity, spirit, etc., etc.
Kristol concludes, “Would this turn things around? Unlikely. But why not take a shot?”
Hardly a ringing endorsement of a campaign in trouble. Whether Kristol‘s “why not take a shot(gun) approach” will work, we’ll find out on November 4—after Kristol’s final flip-flop recommendation next Monday, November 3. Perhaps he will then advise McCain to rehire the campaign staff that he should have fired.
The author is a retired U.S. Air Force officer and a writer.