hurrumph...Nora Ephron - Thinking About Bill (Kristol)
As I listened to Sarah Palin’s recent phone call with "Nicolas Sarkozy," I couldn’t help thinking about Bill Kristol.
I think about Bill Kristol far too much. I almost never used to. Before he began writing his Monday column in the New York Times, I rarely saw him on television. Whenever I did, I was mostly mesmerized by his uncanny resemblance to Bob Woodward (whom he no longer resembles) and his incredibly self-satisfied, smug, smirky demeanor. It was my theory that his need to please the Republican White House — a need that seemed to trump his alleged intellect and even the factual evidence on hand — must stem from some unresolved issues with his father, the famous Irving Kristol, one of the first neo-conservatives. But I didn’t dwell on it, because I saw so little of him. And in any case, I truly couldn’t stand him. I just couldn’t stand him.
I don’t enjoy being in this position. I much prefer to be perversely fond of people others find problematic. I am crazy about Pat Buchanan, for example, and I have fantasies of following him around for a day in order to find out what it’s like to never ever be off the air. I am utterly entranced by Keith Olbermann, and I watch his show in much the same way others go to hockey games. Don’t get me started on Chris Matthews: I am practically in love with the guy. But it seemed impossible to find a way to like Bill: he was just too irritating.
And then, unaccountably, amazingly, astonishingly, he was hired by the New York Times to write a once-a-week column. You cannot imagine the thrill of horror that passed through New York on hearing the news. The Times already had a conservative columnist (of whom I was already perversely fond), and one conservative columnist was quite enough, thank you. Then Kristol’s column began. I read it religiously every Monday. And slowly but surely, I became infatuated with him. How could I not? The man could not write his way out of a paper bag. His column was simply awful. Reading it was like watching someone dance on the head of a pin: his need to prove to his base that he hadn’t gone over to the other side was so strong, his need to please his constituency was so moving, that I began to wish he would quit his job as editor of the Weekly Standard and become a Times columnist full-time. It was certainly not going to inconvenience him: the column couldn’t have been taking him more than about twenty minutes to write. And it was great having him there, visible, so people like me could see what people like him were like. He was wrong about everything. It was such a comfort.
In recent months, I have thought about Bill more and more. Every time someone turned over a rock, he crawled out from under it. In Jane Mayer’s recent New Yorker piece on Sarah Palin, for instance, he turned out to be the man who’d discovered Palin, during a cruise of Alaska, and brought the news of her potential stardom back to the New World. And of course he was one of the reasons why we’d gone to war in Iraq. Iraq. Sarah Palin. The man was uncanny. Last week I watched him on Jon Stewart, insisting that McCain might yet pull an upset. "It’s not a psychodrama," he said. "It’s only an election."
People like me sometimes wonder what it would be like to be involved in mistakes that end up killing people; we wonder about sleepless nights and remorse and guilt. Bill Kristol exists to remind us that these are pathetic liberal fantasies, and that some people are never sorry. Only last week I saw Kristol on television continuing to defend Sarah Palin: she was a bright woman, he was saying, who’d simply been mismanaged by the McCain campaign.
Which brings me back to Sarah Palin’s radio phone call with the Canadian comedian who pranked her into thinking he was Nicolas Sarkozy. As I listened to it, increasingly horrified, I couldn’t help thinking about Bill Kristol and hoping that somehow, he would have to spend eternity locked in a room listening to a continuous tape of it.
There are rumors that the New York Times is not going to renew his contract. I just pray they’re not true.
Read Election Day Liveblogs, Reaction and Analysis from HuffPost Bloggers
November 6th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Kristol’s column is a joke and yet another self-inflicted wound at the Times . . . no, actually neo-con ideas neatly re-imagined and resuscitated the Reagan Revolution in the post-Clinton world — dominance in world affairs, defense spending acceleration and demonization of taxes and government was the order of the day. . . . (all the PNAC crowd needed was a new Pearl Harbor to . . . ) which resulted in a disastrous foreign policy, an out-of-control national debt, and commonplace inequities and abuses in our tax, legal and constitutional systems, domestically and in our treatment of foreign prisoners.
The chicken-hawk Bush-Cheney regime,including the enabling Kristol, Wolfowitz and Feith cabal, with legal cover provided by Addington, Libby, Yoo et al, should be seriously investigated and exposed for all the human and material damage they caused. . . how the Times can give a platform to a die-hard partisan of a manifestly dangerous, destructive and corrupt philosophy, one which has poisoned both our domestic life and international relations, is beyond me . . . and we read him and kind of laugh and almost forget that he and his cohorts (led by Cheney) are actually pretty pleased with how they’ve left the world . . . . as promised, they did what they wanted, created their own reality and, so far, notwithstanding hundreds of thousands dead and wounded and trillions lost, have gotten away with it . . . .bitter? you betcha!
November 6th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
That’s what should happen. But I wonder if the Dems will have the stomach for investigations as they deal with the difficulties of the economy and ending the war. I hope they will.
I really appreciated your comment, Power
November 6th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
So…by using “chicken-hawk” as a criticism, are you suggesting that only Combat Veterans should be allowed to send American troops to war?
Was Abraham Lincoln a chicken-hawk?
Clinton?
FDR?
November 6th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
JD,
No, only that they are people of courage and principle and who do not violate the public trust.
November 6th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
Ouch!
November 6th, 2008 at 10:12 pm
At the time, Lincoln made the largest grab of government power, ever. FDR surpassed him (recall the attempt to add 5 new justices to SCOTUS, confiscation of privately held gold, internment of Japanese citizens and the NIRA).
I’d say that both those men violated the public trust at the time.
Both men were GREAT presidents. Great men. Both were lions of their time - but they both severely violated the public trust (at the time).
Any other view is simply myopic.
November 6th, 2008 at 10:12 pm
JD,
May I assume you are a man? Chest hair or CCP? Military or mission style?
Fuck! You make me so fuckin hot. I could smell the napalm from your own nostrils in that last comment.
God give me a war hardened man.
November 6th, 2008 at 10:15 pm
No, PowerPundit.
You may not assume anything.
You may be confident that I’ll challenge hyperbole and rampant generalizations, though.
November 7th, 2008 at 5:54 am
JD,
It’s a stretch to call the chicken-hawk quote a rampant generalization, though there might be a bit of hyperbole in the term itself. But the point is still correct, and the crimes of this administration should be investigated.
November 7th, 2008 at 11:18 am
Which point, Becky?
That non-combat veterans should not be allowed to send other’s sons to war?
That point?
November 7th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
“That non-combat veterans should not…”
Sounds like a viable plank to me.
November 7th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
JD, if it’s not too late to respond, no that wasn’t my point. My point was that investigations should begin as soon as possible into the criminal actions of this administration.
November 7th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
I understand, Becky.
The “chickenhawk” canard bugs me.
I make a point to challenge it when I see it.
No rest for the wicked.
FYI - San Francisco had a little “No on 8″ rally this evening, too. Google for coverage.
November 7th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
I’ll do that, JD, Thanks. And I’ll confess to a small wicked streak.
November 8th, 2008 at 3:50 am
Never trust a man with a permanent smile. Bill Kristol has one and so did Jerry Falwell. Ug!