Monday, January 26, 2009

2009 Delivers Again

Along with all the other good news that’s been flooding in recently- Guantanamo Bay closing, torture and the Global Gag Rule ending, and now stem-cell research resuming-one more of the great mistakes of the past has been rectified. This time change has come to the NYT editorial page, where Bill Kristol has just written his last piece. Let’s all take a moment to mourn his writing career, and review some of his greatest hits from the last few years.

When Kristol got the job, editorial page editor Andy Rosenthal defended the hire by saying that Kristol brought balance and alternate viewpoints to the page. On that front he was undeniably right- Kristol brought a level of unintentional comedy previously unseen in a major newspaper, and helped balance out the serious, adult tone that editorial pages tend to project. It’s already been noted here that Kristol was somehow wrong on literally every issue he ever wrote about. Let’s start with the run-up to the Iraq War (piles of stupid quotes condensed to one MEGAQUOTE):

“Saddam’s got weapons of mass destruction. At some
point he will use them or give them to a terrorist
group to use. American and alliance forces will be
welcomed in Baghdad as liberators. [After the war]
the region [will] no longer be a hotbed of terrorism,
extremism, and anti-Americanism. [Sectarian violence
won’t occur because] the Shiites and Sunnis… [will]
live perfectly well together. Also, the cost of the
war [won’t be more than] $100 billion.”

Rosenthal’s decision to hire him is making more sense already! Kristol’s ace political instincts also deduced the true reason for liberal dislike of Lieberman:
“It's that he's unashamedly pro-American.”
Ah yes, I knew the real reason was because… LIBERALS! If I didn’t know any better I would have thought that quote was from some anonymous freeper or dittohead found on a Train of Thought Field Trip- stay classy, Kristol! Later he discovered who used 9-11 for cheap political points:
“Democrats.”
Great. Expand on that a bit?
“[It’s] a totally false charge that [President Bush] has
played the politics of fear."
Well now I’ve heard everything. Oh wait no I haven’t, because the hits keep coming- so whose fault was it when Hastert did exactly nothing about Mark Foley’s emails to an underage page?
“The voters in Florida, I guess, who elected him.
Maybe they should have known better.”
Yes, maybe they should have magically known better. Recently the rise of Sarah Palin apparently drove him mad(der), leaving a trail of hilarious quotes in his wake. Before her nomination:
“It’s awfully tempting… but… Palin has been governor for
less than two years.”
“Could McCain assure voters that the young Pawlenty [Tim
Pawlenty, whose lack of Washington experience is
strikingly similar to Palin’s] is ready to take over, if
need be, as commander in chief? Also… Pawlenty is unproven.”
After her nomination:
“Should voters be alarmed by a relatively young or
inexperienced vice-presidential candidate? No."
So she would be a bad pick for VP because of her youth and inexperience, but she’s a good pick for VP because of her youth and inexperience? I see. Even in his last column Kristol did what he could to keep the laughs coming:
“Since Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980… Conservatives
have been right more often than not. Conservative
policies have on the whole worked… Obama’s speech was
unabashedly pro-American and implicitly conservative.”
Hurricane Katrina, years wasted on Monica Lewinsky, a ruined economy, the Iraq War? Conservative successes! A speech which repeatedly calls out the outgoing Republican president and his conservative policies as failures? An implicitly conservative speech! Even to the very end he just can’t get anything right. Farewell, sweet Kristol, and may flights of angels sing your writing career to its rest.

1 comment:

  1. But WaPo will carry him now, of course.

    http://themoderatevoice.com/25963/conservative-bill-kristol-has-left-the-new-york-times-op-ed-page-building/

    ReplyDelete