How wrong is Kristol? Let us count the ways

April 23, 2007

Weekly Standard editor William Kristol took his usual seat on Fox News Sunday yesterday, sharing rather predictable commentary on current events. But there was an exchange on the program that was particularly noteworthy.

Kristol was responding to the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s comments last week that the war in Iraq is “lost.” Here was the first part of Kristol’s response, from the transcript (which isn’t online):

“I really think it’s a disgrace. And Trent Lott, who was Senate majority leader in December 2002, was forced to resign by a rebellion within his own party because he had praised Strom Thurmond at a 100th birthday dinner for him. Thurmond had made it seem that the country would have been better off if we had followed segregationist policies back 40 years ago.

“What Harry Reid said is much more disgraceful than anything Trent Lott said. And I do think Democrats should ask Harry Reid step down. I’m saying this. Of course, it’s not going to happen.”

This is a curious analysis for a couple of reasons. First, this was an illuminating explanation of Kristol’s take on segregation. To hear him tell it, white supremacy is bad, but acknowledging reality in Iraq is really bad. I’m not sure which is more disconcerting: Kristol’s perspective on the war or his perspective on race.

Second, Reid’s “lost” comments were hardly a “disgrace.” As TP noted, “They are shared by President Bush’s regular military adviser Henry Kissinger and several senior U.S. military officials, as well as a majority of the American people.”

But perhaps the more important part of the Fox News discussion came during the ensuing discussion, when Kristol reverted back to his 2002 talking points.

Here’s the full exchange between Kristol and NPR’s Juan Williams.

KRISTOL: We are fighting Al Qaida. Have you talked to a single person who’s fought over there? Have you looked at one of their — what do they do each day?

WILLIAMS: Yes?

KRISTOL: Do you think they just drive around aimlessly to get blown up randomly by Shia and Sunni? They are fighting Al Qaida in Iraq. What is happening in Anbar province? What is happening in Fallujah? What are the Marines doing in Ramadi? They’re fighting Al Qaida.

WILLIAMS: They’re trying to stabilize the environment.

KRISTOL: They’re fighting Al Qaida.

WILLIAMS: No. They’re trying to stabilize an environment so that political progress can take place, and…

KRISTOL: And who is killing them? Whose bullets are killing these…

WILLIAMS: Both sides are — everybody’s.

KRISTOL: That’s not true. Mostly it is Al Qaida.

WILLIAMS: Oh, you don’t believe that there are Sunnis involved, there are Shiites involved in killing Americans?

KRISTOL: There are some Shiites involved in killing Americans.

WILLIAMS: OK. I’m just saying…

KRISTOL: But Al Qaida is the main enemy.

Not to put too fine a point on this, but Kristol’s just wrong. Even estimates from the Bush administration suggest that al Qaeda is a small part of the insurgency, perhaps as little as 3% to 5% of a broader Sunni-Shia civil war.

Indeed, Kristol’s comments appear to be something of a regression for the right. In recent months, there’s been a quiet acknowledgment that Iraq is being torn apart by sectarian violence. The White House shuns phrases like “civil war,” but the administration is generally willing to concede that some semblance of a reconciliation between Sunni and Shia is necessary to stem the violence.

But not Kristol. This is about al Qaeda. Confronted with reality, Kristol was adamant: “That’s not true. Mostly it is al Qaeda.” In this context, critics of the war don’t want to withdraw from the middle of a civil war; they want to back down from a fight against the terrorist network responsible for 9/11. But this is entirely wrong — and given Kristol’s position, one has to assume he knows it’s wrong, but he’s spouting nonsense on purpose.

Kristol, in other words, can’t defend the war on its merits; he has to make stuff up and hope the audience doesn’t know the difference. It’s the height of intellectual dishonesty, embraced in the midst of ugly desperation. How sad.

Kristol is a dishonest gasbag who makes a living spewing Wonderland factoids. He has often struck me as the smarmiest of the lot. -Kevo

  • Kristol should keep playing video games instead of getting other people’s children killed to protect George W. Bush’s pride.

    I don’t know what’s worse and more offensive, the possibility that conservatives don’t understand other countries are populated by people with social institutions (schools, hospitals, police forces; well, Iraq, until a few years ago) and that those people believe in the same kinds of things we do (arbitrary racial/religious discrimination, resorting to violence to solve problems, and self-defense of themselves/their country)… or that they think a majority (or sufficiency, anyway) of American voters don’t understand what other countries and other people are like.

    Shorter Bill Kristol on Iraq: “Why are those people killing each other? We’re trying to help them. We built them a school!!!1!!”

  • And Trent Lott, who was Senate majority leader in December 2002, was forced to resign by a rebellion within his own party because he had praised Strom Thurmond at a 100th birthday dinner for him. Thurmond had made it seem that the country would have been better off if we had followed segregationist policies back 40 years ago.

    nice rewrite of history. It was Lott himself who said that the country would have been better off had Thurmond and his segregationist policies had prevailed. Kristol wants us to pretend that Thurmond, a 100 year old coot, near death, living in the past, was spouting this offensive nonsense, not the guy who at the time was the Majority Leader of the US Senate.

    LIAR.

  • Look at the bastard grin when he’s talking about segregation… Williams should have laid a fist on him if he were half a man.

  • CB has a good point about Kristol. Bill will use whatever argument is handy to try to incite those that follow in lockstep with him. In one sentence it will be the al Qaeda boogeyman. In the next it’ll be faux outrage over the “persecution” of a good ol’ boy for saying what white, conservative good ol’ boys always say among themselves while a liberal can “get away” with saying what Kristol deems is anti-American. The veracity of anything Kristol says isn’t important and Bill knows it. It’s that loyal Fox watchers find something in his words to keep them angry at Democrats so the Repubs and neocons can hopefully stay in power and keep pulling the crap they want to pull.

  • I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. William “Bill” Kristol should march his spindly ass to the nearest recruiting center or failing that send his military aged son and go to Iraq as an infantryman to show us what “real” men can do. For a guy who’s really quick on going to war for what appears to be any reason, he’s been rather slow on sending his or anyone he loves asses to war.

    CB writes
    “he has to make stuff up and hope the audience doesn’t know the difference”

    Well, it is Faux’s audience. Being critical about themselves or thinking in general doesn’t come easy to them.

  • “KRISTOL: Do you think they just drive around aimlessly to get blown up randomly by Shia and Sunni?”-

    Yes, That’s why we are building walls in Baghdad. Segmenting populations into fortified sectarian neighborhoods can only be a strategy to contain a civil war.

  • Juan Williams–p*ssy extraordinaire! Always has been and always will be. Which is why he has a home on Fox. And NPR. Worthless.

    Yes, Mr. Kristol, he (just prior to the war) of “Sunnis and Shiites have no history of animosity towards each other” fame.

  • Dems need a bit more finesse.

    I cringed when I heard Reid say ‘the war is lost’. That takes the President out of the discussion and brings the conversation back to a referendum on Reid, the Dems and the ‘defeatism’ talking point.

    What the Dems need to do is tie President Bush into every statement about failure they utter. It’s not that ‘the war is lost’ it is that ‘President Bush continues to put forth failed policies’. They need to point out the unambiguous failures (like his false claims of WMDs or Cheney’s “Atta in Prague” fantasy) and then extend that to the very high likelihood that the President is failing with his assessments and policy proposals going forward.

    This is all about President Bush; he has failed thus far, why would any rational person believe he isn’t failing now.

    If they want to be ruthless, then they need to point out the the President *deliberately* deceives the American people to try and get his way. Otherwise, they can *merel* point out his string of unending failures if they are trying to just move forward for the short term and ’08.

    My opinion, of course.

  • So outside of calling themselves “al Qaeda in Iraq”, how well connected is this group to bin Laden’s organization?

    How much funding do they get from bin Laden?

    Are al Qaeda in Iraq members just recruited to act as cannon fodder in Iraq to keep the pressure on the US there, thus diverting troops and resources away from Afghanistan and Pakistan?

  • Kritsol pulled this same thing with Obama. He said:

    “Obama’s speech is a “can’t we get along” speech — sort of the opposite of Lincoln. He would have been with Stephen Douglas in 1858. Let’s paper over these differences, rise above politics and all get along. That’s not Giuliani’s mode. And I think in a war context, social conservatives want to win the war against Islamic jihadism.”

    He tries to connect his murderous policy preferences with popular historical figures (Lincoln) and tie contemporary Democratic politicians with unpopular historical figures (Douglas). You’re supposed to think, “slavery, bad, Obama,” “Lincoln, good, Kristol.” It’s not a very sophisticated smear.

  • Bill Kristol was the first person I thought of when I recently re-watched Annie Hall for its 30th anniversary and Woody Allen comments that what he loves about intellectuals is that they prove you can be completely brilliant and not know anything.

  • Chris wrote: “Kristol should keep playing video games instead of getting other people’s children killed to protect George W. Bush’s pride.”

    Chris, that’s not exactly right. Kristol is a delusional “Israel-firster.” He’s quite willing to send American farm boys and guys from the ghettos to die to serve the greater cause of Israel. With the U.S. bogged down in Iraq, Kristol is only too happy (and insane) to now promote a confrontation with Iran. What a miserable excuse for a human being.

    Speaking of lunacy, did anybody catch what Kristol said about abortion and the 2008 election? I’m waiting for the transcript to quote what the smug bastard said.

  • Honesty? Honesty? From Kristol..Ha. There are just some people you can just look at and know they are lying…that they are full of crap. The look on their face, the way they smile. the indignant eyes of self righteousness. This is Kristol. If this were Germany after the war he’d be in handcuffs. Yet Fox puts him on TV. He is the poster boy of mis-information. Still mad because no one picked him to play school yard games. One of the main promoters of PNAC that lied us into this civil war. A conspirator who will never face trial. Only Fox news eh?

  • Well, about the only thing I can think of to say about Kristol is he proves God to not be without fault.

    Actually, he proves God can be guilty of committing an absolute clusterf*ck of a mistake—just be existing….

  • Second, Reid’s “lost” comments were hardly a “disgrace.” As TP noted, “They are shared by President Bush’s regular military adviser Henry Kissinger […]

    Kissinger is “out”; he’s as wrong as Reid. Read Michael Chertoff’s op-ed article in yesterday’s WaPO (Sunday Outlook section). He even quotes Bin Laden’s opinion to prove that Kissinger’s opinion is all nonsense…

    http://www.washingtonpost.
    com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/20/AR2007042001940.html

  • know this is off the subject but since were speaking of gaseous douche bags i thought id throw this in.

    when is bor going to sick his ‘body language expert’ on gonzo? i believe the bl expert says that if you shift your eyes to the left or right, cant remember which one she says it is, it means that you are lying. having something to do with one side being the creative side which i guess you need in order to make shit up. i guess i wont hold my breath.

  • slip kid no more is right.

    Kristol will say anything to “help” Israel’s Likudniks. He will gladly send our kids to die so Israel doesn’t have to give up land for peace.

    Why people like him are on American TV is a mystery.

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