Everything’s coming up roses in Kristol-land

August 4, 2007

It’s been a dispiriting week in Iraq. The largest Sunni Arab bloc quit the Maliki government. Defense Secretary Robert Gates was admittedly discouraged over the lack of political progress in Iraq and conceded the administration “might have misjudged the difficulty of achieving reconciliation between Iraq’s sectarian factions.” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs nominee Navy Adm. Michael Mullen acknowledged “there does not appear to be much political progress” in Iraq. Asked about success in Iraq, Mullen added, “[B]ased on the…lack of political reconciliation…I would be concerned about whether we’d be winning or not.”

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, meanwhile, is “increasingly unable to pull the government out of its paralysis,” and is frequently “consumed by conspiracy theories.” What’s more, Maliki, who vowed in November that Iraqi security forces would be fully ready to take control by June 2007, now concedes he suspects U.S. troops may be needed in Iraq for at least another five years.

Even Michael O’Hanlon and Ken Pollack, the right’s two new favorite thinkers, have backpedaled away from their controversial New York Times op-ed that had been quickly embraced by the GOP establishment.

With all of this discouraging news coming just within the last several days, it should come as no surprise that William Kristol is now completely convinced that he has the momentum on his side.

Hot July brings cooling showers, / Apricots and gillyflowers, as Sara Coleridge’s doggerel has it. But for the American antiwar movement, this July brought only a cold drizzle, wilted blossoms, and bitter fruit.

For the Iraq war’s opponents, July began as a month of hope. It ended in retreat. It began with Democratic unity in proclaiming the inevitability of American defeat. It ended with respected military analysts — Democrats, no less! — reporting that the situation on the ground had improved, and that the war might be winnable. It began with a plan for a series of votes in Congress that were supposed to stampede nervous Republicans against the continued prosecution of the war. It ended with the GOP spine stiffened, no antiwar legislation passed, and the Democratic Congress adjourning in disarray, with approval ratings lower than President Bush’s.

It takes a special kind of worldview that leads a person to look at one discouraging development after another, and conclude, “Finally, everything’s going my way!”

I’d like to know where Kristol buys his coffee. I could use me some of that happy-juice he’s drinkin’.

  • Bill Kristol sees what he wants to see, and is one of the charter members of the “saying it makes it so” club, which this administration has long been a member of. You have to remember that he isn’t speaking or writing for us – he’s the head cheerleader for those who align themselves with him, and it’s his job to keep their spirits up, to arm them with fresh talking points.

    And they don’t care if what he says is equivalent to the ravings of a lunatic – because, as we all know, “great minds think alike.”

    It’s good to keep tabs on this nonsense and good to keep pushing back, but Kristol will never stop raving.

  • If I were a campaign manager for one of the so-called “major” Dem candidates, I’d say forget all other issues for a time, and concentrate on this crap. Every day, come out with a new speech exposing the propaganda distributed by the delusional right the day before — but do it in a positive way. Here’s what they say, here’s the reality that I see and here’s how I’d deal with the real situation.

    Pull a page from Rove and discredit the opposition’s greatest asset — their propaganda machine. Nothing can be accomplished as long as it’s intact. Of course, this is but one of the many reasons I’m not a campaign manager for president of the local tiddly-winks club.

  • Cheerleading a war he would not fight. Could never admit his folly. Ignores all facts that he can’t “use” to rally war supporters…Oh Bill, you’re the one.
    Having always been wrong about everything he is rewarded with daily national exposure. Go figure. Can’t stand to even look at him he brings up such …disgust.

  • To some extent we all willfully create the universe in which we wish to live. Some of us create vast universes where the wonderment of the human experience can be seen for what it is. Others like Kristol have put the blinders on, and their myopia has produced a tiny universe where people of difference (read different than himself and his like-minded fellow travelers) are scorned, and need to be killed. His is a universe filled with carnage and inhumane acts of cruelty, all for the love of victory – whatever that means! -Kevo

  • The other day, I said thisregarding causalities and the weather. With the cooler weather of the autumn and the winter coming, we will see if Kristol’s theory stands up to “the downpour of reality.” Bill, you better keep your umbrella handy.

  • Chairman of the Joint Chiefs nominee Navy Adm. Michael Mullen acknowledged “there does not appear to be much political progress” in Iraq. Asked about success in Iraq, Mullen added, “[B]ased on the…lack of political reconciliation…I would be concerned about whether we’d be winning or not.”

    This is like trying to mate captured pandas.

  • Just were is Bill’s head? He is so delusional that it at times it is funny. Whatever he is injesting certainly sounds better that anything we ever had in the 60’s!
    Iraq has gone to hell in the hand basket and that is the unvarnished truth of the matter. BushCo could screw up an ice cream party!

  • “It ended with the GOP spine stiffened, no antiwar legislation passed, and the Democratic Congress adjourning in disarray, with approval ratings lower than President Bush’s.”

    And that’s all he cares about. As long as those who oppose this war look like they aren’t getting anywhere, even if it means a continuation of he death and destruction in Iraq, well then everything is just peachy.

    The war is no longer is about Saddam and al Qaeda, or WMDs, or defeating terrorism, or even spreading democracy in the minds of its supporters.

    As long as the US remains in Iraq, then in Kristol’s mind they are winning the war.
    Not against those fighting the US and the Iraqi government, but against what Kristol perceives as the real threat, the anti-war crowd and the Democrats in Congress.

  • As someone somewhere else said today, “Kristol Meth” (oh yeah, right, it was Yglesias). Yes, he’s stoned on himself. Seriously.

    In writing dramatic fiction, the bad guy is supposed to be bad to the degree the good guy is good. Using that standard in contemporary American politics, we have some pretty poor candidates, if they’re up against the Bozo Brigade we have for enemies.

    I finally had to quit going to discussion groups for my favorite hobby. Dealing with the fact that the overwhelming majority of Americans involved in the hobby (thank god for the non-Amreicans, who are all as intelligent as non-Americans generally are) are in the 26% of serious Kool-aid drinkers, it’s either stop being aware I share anything in common with these single-digit IQs by reading their insanity or give up the hobby altogether. Fortunately, doing the hobby is a completely solo experience, and I don’t need to be around them to do it.

    These people make idiots look like geniuses.

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