Conservatism has been discredited. Neoconservatism is universally reviled. Even as the country moves left, the New York Times is moving in the opposite direction, hiring William Kristol, the leading neoconservative publisher of the Weekly Standard and an architect of the disastrous Iraq War, as an op/ed columnist.
It's not as if the Times needed to right some lack of balance on its pages. Paul Krugman is the only progressive voice on the Times opinion page. There are a few assorted center-left Clintonite types--Gail Collins, Bob Herbert--and some genuine conservative voices, like Nicholas Kristoff and Thomas Friedman, the latter the nation's most unapologetic free trader and, like Kristol, a leading proponent of the Iraq invasion.
Still, there's nothing wrong with hiring a right-winger. If I were editing the Times, I'd hire some myself. The problem with Kristol isn't that he's a rightie. The problem is that he's a liar, and that he's usually wrong.
The job of an opinion writer is to prognosticate, and to deliver opinions from a biased, yet honest, perspective. Kristol does neither, and in most other nations would be warming a prison cell for his role in murdering more than one million Iraqis with his hate speech. The man has zero credibility, and his position at the Times degrades the paper's already tepid (and painfully boring) opinion pages.
The following cartoon was inspired by Kristol's column attacking antiwar types for refusing to admit that everything is better in Iraq during the current troop increase.
Click on the cartoon to make it bigger.
Re: William Kristol at the NYT
ReplyDeleteIt's a no-brainer. I'm not interested in anything a war criminal/mass murderer has to say. That's why I can't stomach anything of George W. Bush. He and Kristol are living lies.
You should match up this cartoon with your previous one on McCain. If the US "surge" stays in Iraq for a hundred years, the insurgents will eventually all die, and then peace will come to Iraq.
ReplyDeleteCuz, you know, building a whole new civil society takes more than six months....
I think the "get its wallet" part is important.
ReplyDeleteAttributing any notion of building civil society to conservatives is a misstep. They don't believe in civil society as something that must be created and nurtured, which is why they can't do nation building...which is why the most egregious aspect of George W. Bush still being president is that he was elected on a platform of rejecting nation building.
ReplyDeleteYet people re-elected him...they all should be stripped of their right to vote. Anyone who voted for him twice is too dangerous to have a vote.
As for Kristol being at the NYT, I'm baffled. I don't think he's living a lie, I think he's speaking for a constituency that benefits from wars and the bankrupting of American society. He's set for life, as are those like him. The collapse of society here would affect him, he'd just move.
I don't think Kristol is "living a lie" either. I think he's a professional liar. And a fool. And an idiot.
ReplyDeleteI may be preaching to the chior here, but what's the difference between a neocon and a fascist?
ReplyDeleteI've heard neoconservative defined as a big government conservative. That means a right winger who doesn't believe in limited government. Going back to high school civics, isn't that pretty much the definition of a fascist?
Ah yes, "Stripped of their vote." Yet another liberal voice in favor of democracy for all (who agree with them).
ReplyDeleteAnon 9:44 AM
ReplyDeleteI'm not at all concerned with whether or not people agree with me....I am, however, concerned with people who vote but don't have any concept of reality: One I remember claimed John Kerry had met with the North Vietnamese DURING the Vietnam conflict. He also said he believed the war was 'illegal' (but rejected the idea that Bush didn't have a RIGHT to do it anyway), and voted for Bush because of his stance on gun control, which hasn't been a real issue in American politics in 15 years.
It's about accuracy and the ability to decipher reasonable facts from Ann Coulter's blabbering. If someone doesn't understand legality and continually votes for people who neither understand legality, nor care about the rule of law, they are a threat to the security of our country.
So don't give me this 'all arguments are valid' BS. My statement was clear. If people can't pay attention to what their leaders say and hold them accountable for it, in as simple as an acknowledgment if nothing else, then they are more of a threat to the survival of the species than the people we supposedly are to fear.
The key to a succesful democracy is an educated, involved and responsible electorate. If more people know the latest about Britney than about the latest cost estimates of health-care to retiring boomers, well, you're screwed.
ReplyDeleteanon,
ReplyDeletevoting without knowing shit is a form of tyranny recognized by the founding fathers. It is called "tyranny of the masses". They put numerous checks in place. They knew that eventually the checks would become redundant as the population became more intelligent. Then came the rise of that movement to which no one can attribute any national progress. Funding for education was seen as extraneous in lieu of the widespread distribution of firearms.
Anyways, Krystol is more of a tool than anyone is giving him credit for. Krystol was far more critical of Clinton for a comparatively successful Neocon campaign in 1999 (kosovo). Of course, he could not be against the Kosovo action on account of a hankering for "benevolent hegemony", as he puts it.