Kristol wants dissent-free silence for ‘six to nine months’

January 22, 2007

The new public relations offensive in support of Bush’s Iraq Escalation 5.0 policy has included a disturbing amount of attacks on dissent. Dick Cheney got the ball rolling last week, telling Fox News that Congress would be “undercutting the troops” if lawmakers criticize Bush’s policy. Tony Snow went even further, suggesting criticism may lend comfort to the enemy. On Meet the Press yesterday, John McCain (R-Ariz.) said even a non-binding resolution would represent a failure to support the troops.

The shameless demagoguery has led me to often wonder what, exactly, the president and his supporters would like us to do. If Americans, whether they be in Congress or among the electorate at large, disapprove of the reckless and irresponsible White House policies, how should we articulate our dissatisfaction? What kind of dissent would meet with conservatives’ approval?

Yesterday, William Kristol explained it to us.

This morning on Fox News, Weekly Standard editor William Kristol said that opponents of escalation in Congress are “leap-frogging each other in the degrees of irresponsibility they’re willing to advocate.” Kristol said, “It’s just unbelievable…. It’s so irresponsible that they can’t be quiet for six or nine months,” adding, “You really wonder, do they want it to work or not? I really wonder that.”

NPR’s Juan Williams told Kristol his analysis was “totally ahistorical,” and pointed out that yesterday was the deadliest day for U.S forces in Iraq in two years. “There’s something going on here you might pay attention to as opposed to just the politics of, ‘If you don’t support this president, you don’t really want us to win.'”

What kind of dissent is appropriate? The kind in which we say literally nothing until around October.

To his credit, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) to CBS’s Bob Schieffer yesterday that it “is complete nonsense to say we’re undercutting the support of the troops.”

Hagel, a Vietnam veteran, said that as a soldier in 1968, he “would have welcomed the Congress of the United States to pay a little attention as to what was going on.” Hagel added: “What are we about? We’re Article 1 of the Constitution. We are co-equal branch of government. Are we not to participate? Are we not to say anything? Are we not to register our sense of where we’re going in this country on foreign policy?”

You see, Sen. Hagel, that’s pre-9/11 thinking.

Oddly enough, Hagel and Kristol were on competing morning shows, but Kristol ended up indirectly answering Hagel’s questions. “Are we not to say anything?” Hagel asked. “Be quiet for six or nine months,” Kristol responded.

i think all these clowns need a refresher course in american history.

  • That’s funny, I think millions of people like myself were hoping for a Kristol-free next-six-to-nine-month period, except the cost of *that* ideal period is Bill Kristol’s pride (really, Bill, would it kill you to shut the fuck up for a few months after helping get us into this clusterfuck of a war? Or are you, like Judith Miller, intent on bragging that you were proved fucking right, and willing to keep writing checks for other people to cash with their blood?), while the cost of Bill Kristol’s ideal period is hundreds of dead American troops, and thousands of dead – or, I should say, kidnapped, tortured, and brutally killed, or at least blown up at random – Iraqis.

    I guess we can tell who the political-media establishment thinks is more serious by whom they keep inviting back onto their talk shows.

  • The American people were sold on the bullshit that Billy “King of the chickensits” Kristol said about Iraq. And now that the reality on the ground appears and a lot of Americans are now starting to realize the disaster that it is, now he wants his critics to shut up?

    Perhaps, Bill Kirstol can pick up an M-16, a lousy kevlar vest and wear then worn out boots and show us what bravery means? I’ll throw in 2 cents to help pay for the Bill Kristol “Save Iraq” Combat Tour.

  • Kristol has not a democratic bone in his body. He makes Klemens vonMetternich look like a liberal. -Kevo

  • Jon Stewart on the Daily Show to Evil Bill:

    “…. to, even to this day, continue to argue that the Iraq strategy was the right move in the overall war on terror — I think is — I may have to revoke your magazine. I didn’t want to do this — I didn’t want to do this today — you are now The Monthly Standard. You can only come out once a month! That’s it! You are The Quadrennial Standard! Four of them a year! That’s all you’re gettin’, Kristol!”

  • A tribute to Bill Kristol sung to the Tune of “You don’t bring me flowers”

    Bill
    You don’t throw me flowers
    You don’t walk me cake walks

    American People
    You hardly listen to us anymore
    When you come on the Fox box at the end of the day…

    Bill
    I remember when you couldn’t wait to praise me
    Used to hate to leave me
    Now just tuning me out late at night

    American People
    When we die for you, babe
    And you’re just feeling all right

    Bill
    When you just roll over and turn off the TV..
    And you don’t throw me flowers anymore

    American People
    War used to be so awesome

    Bill
    It used to be…

    American People
    To wage war forever

    Bill
    Mmm…

    American People
    But never-weres don’t count anymore
    They just lay on the floor
    Till we jail them away

    Bill
    And baby I remember all the bullshit I taught you

    American People
    We learned how to kill and we learned how to cry

    Bill
    Well, I know how to point and I know how to lie

    American People
    So we know we could learn how to tell you goodbye

    Bill
    So you think I could shout, no, tell you shut up
    You don’t throw me flowers any more…

    Both
    Well, we think we could learn how to tell you to shut up…

    American People
    cause we won’t ever say we need you;

    Bill
    You don’t sing me fight songs;

    Both
    Iraqis don’t throw us flowers anymore…

  • People like ChickenHawk Cheney, Snow, McCain, & W. Kristol are quick to support their disastous course with the “demoralize the troops” lie. Let’s not be coy, these people are liars, sleazy, immoral liars.
    Have we not actually heard from the troops? Polls have been taken, and none reflect the “faux-Klingon” point of view.
    The anti-American FOX “news” service is fortunate that they have the first amendment on their side. Too bad they do so much damage to America with the political pornography they spew.

  • “What kind of dissent is appropriate?”

    I think the Bush Crime Family would be happy with the kind of dissent prevalent in medieval Europe. The kind promoted by heresy trials, the Inquisition, drawing and quartering, and witch burnings.

  • Go read Glenn Greenwald’s biography of William Kristol and his ilk. All mommies’ and daddies’ boys who owe their success to never cutting the apron strings. Kristol has no understanding whatsoever of the American political process, but it’s not surprising since his father never did, either.

    These guys are Poster Children for the failure of home schooling.

    If he wants to show what a patriot he is, he can go join up. The Volkssturm is now taking recruits as old as 45, so I’m sure he’ll qualify. I hear they have a crying need for sandbags over there – I’m sure he’d meet the physical.

  • My answer to this totalitarian twaddle is simple:

    If it were President Kerry, or President Gore, would YOU right-wingers agree to shut up for six to nine months?

    I don’t think so.

  • Silence, if it would be forthcoming(fat chance), would not suffice. Kristol and his ilk would then be complaining that the troops were being stabbed in the back by the critics failure to be cheerleaders.

  • Hagel, a Vietnam veteran, said that as a soldier in 1968, he “would have welcomed the Congress of the United States to pay a little attention as to what was going on.”

    Spoken like a guy who’s a Republican mainly because he hated that goddamn asshole Johnson. (That, and it helps when running for office in Nebraska.)

  • What–four years of rolling over by we the people and they the press and them the Dems isn’t enough for Kristol? He wants another six months?

    Sounds a little greedy to me.

  • Said the Neocon to the Liberal:
    “There’s Oil beneath that Sand!
    That’s why we have to win this War;
    Why don’t you understand?”

    Said the Liberal to the Neocon:
    “I know that’s been your Plan;
    You can have my Dissent when you pry it
    From my cold, dead hand….”

    We must continue the attack. We must continue the effort against Herr Bush and his “Juggernaut of Tyranny” without a moment’s respite; with neither reservation nor doubt; with a fullness of intent; with, if need be, a double measure of malice toward those who would have us surrender our fundamental Rights for the sake of the neoconservative’s political expediency for unlimited power….

  • I’m sure when Bush is finally gone and we have a president from the other party, all of a sudden Bill “Nazi” Kristol will allow himself to criticize the president and still claim to be supporting the troops.

    Kristol should be ashamed of himself, but he never will be, because he’s a sociopath like Bush is. So it’s up to us to write to all the sponsors of Fox “news” and of the magazines who pay his salary, and tell them our thoughts, and thereby cut his throat economically.

  • When it comes to Iraq, the White House really hasn’t given the American people any reason not to dissent.

    Here’s a thought, Billy, if the US had been winning this fucking war, instead of making the situation worse, people wouldn’t be dissenting.

  • What kind of dissent is appropriate?

    Apparently, none.

    Maybe someone can tell me how this clown keeps getting on the talk shows, because I can’t find anything that doesn’t involve sexual favors.

    He’s been wrong about … well, pretty much everything. And unless you’re a weatherman in the Midwest or the CEO of Home Depot, that usually gets you fired.

  • A year after I got out of the Marine Corps I was going to Campus Teach-Ins and reading everything I could find on Viet Nam. Six months later I was on the streets with the anti-war movement.

    Point being: I felt that I was still a part of those who serve not those who watch and that I was advocating for them.

    It is not my duty to get behind an adolescent’s ego war. It’s my duty to serve my country as best I can.

    They told us then that if we didn’t stop THEM in Asia we’d have to stop them on the beaches of California. It was bullshit then and it’s bullshit now.

  • I’ve always been a peaceable kind of guy. Really, a gentle soul. But I have to tell you, if I had the opportunity to punch out Kristol, Bush, Cheney, Gonzales or any number of these sleazebags I don’t think I’d be able to stop myself. When I see their pasty little faces I just get this strike reflex welling up. Frankly, if we set up a guillotine in front of the Capitol and marched them all up to it one at a time, I’d fly to D.C. to watch and cheer. Bastards all. Off with their heads!

  • Oh please don’t forget Lieberman on the guillotine list! There are more, obviously, but holy Joe should definitely have been mentioned.

  • Dale, I think a Kristol is the domestic equivalent of a Friedman — i.e., while waiting for a Friedman unit of progress in Iraq, we here in the United States should observe a Kristol unit of self-imposed silence.

  • I visualize Kristol stomping around like an enraged teenager:
    “God, just like … Shut. Up. I hate you!!”

    Hopefully he’ll storm off to his room, slam the door and turn up Eminem* reaal loud and sulk for a while.

    tAiO

    *Or whatever the youngsters listen to these days.

  • What I’d like to know is why are we continually subjected to the minority viewpoint regarding the plan to escalate this war in Iraq? Polls indicate a solid majority of Americans do not favor sending in any more troops. A slim but vocal majority of Senators and members of Congress also disagree with this “strategy”. So, WTF?? Kristol and the rest of the silver spoon reirchwing nattering nabobs have no problem sending more of my neighbors to die and more of my money down this rathole.

    And the shithead wants me to shut up about it??!

    Sure I will. When his Judeo/Christian Hell freezes over.

  • Hopefully he’ll storm off to his room, slam the door and turn up Eminem* reaal loud and sulk for a while.
    Comment by The answer is orange —

    LOL. “Leave me alone, Ma, I’m ‘batin’.”

  • Memo to Bill Kristol:

    In the unlikely event you EVER become qualified to even suggest to another American when silence is appropriate, we will let you know, BITCH. ‘Til then, you’re making a mess, so go somewhere and wash all that blood off your hands.

  • Be quiet for at least six months … what is this, “The Silence of the Friedmans?”

    Is Kristol secretly wanting to eat the livers of war opponents with some fava beans and a nice chianti?

    Bill, this is your big failure — all of it. And those who have told you all along it was wrong and continue to tell you now that it is wrong should not have to keep quiet for 6-9 months, for what we are telling you has been correct from day one. It is you, Bill, who has been and continues to be wrong on all acounts who should STFU for the rest of your days.

  • Kristol is echoing what Cheney said to Chris Wallace last week (as quoted by David Ignatius) about how he (Cheney) ignores all the “polls” and the “Washington BS”. Either Cheney is unable to separate the mindless preening and chattering of the Beltway scribes and pundits from the DC debates and discussions that are a vital part of what democracy is — or he just doesn’t care about either.

    And it’s the same with Kristol.

    Remember how Kristol and the other neocons (and presumably Cheney) cherry-picked bits of Leo Strauss’s philosophy of authority to justify their existence: they consider themselves Strauss’s elite class, a class which talks among itself but has no reason to listen to the voices of the great unwashed masses, who are beneath them.

    This is why Cheney can tell Chris Wallace that “polls don’t matter” to him — even when the “poll” in question is an election. It’s why Kristol can ask that war opponents stay quiet for six months — while he continues unfettered on his merry way.

  • Holding our tongues is how we got into this mess! Now, four years later, after Bush made mistake upon mistake and the situation continues to worsen, we’re supposed to give him a chance? No eff’n way,

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