Tuesday, January 27, 2009

2009 Giveth, and 2009 Taketh Away

Alas, reader DHR was kind enough to step in and ruin the streak of happy tidings. It turns out Bill Kristol is leaving NYT just to be picked up by the Washington Post- maybe their editors just wanted some sort of anti-bellwether to tell them which way the nation definitely isn’t heading? Whatever the reason, it’s time to cancel the celebrations. Kristolmas is over.

Still, one might point out that getting rid of Kristol wouldn’t have been that huge of a victory. Two crappy conservative pundits sprout up out of the ground whenever one falls, so Kristol keeping his job actually slows our approach to Peak Conservativism. And besides, is he really any worse than the rest of his peers? Today I devised this highly scientific experiment to find out:

Below are a few quotes from the last few years. See if you can figure out which conservative is responsible for each! Possible sources are: Hannity, Limbaugh, O’Reilly, Beck, Savage, Kristol, and Krauthammer. Keep your guess in mind for each one, or use a marker to write it on your monitor. Afterwards I’ll show who said what.

1. "Evidence that Iraq may have aided in the horrific attacks of September 11 is beginning to accumulate."

2. "According to an Iraqi newspaper [...] Saddam told the bomb-makers to accelerate the pace of their work […] Saddam has been moving ahead into a new era, a new age of horrors where terrorists don't commandeer jumbo jets and fly them into our skyscrapers. They plant nuclear bombs in our cities."

3. "Predictions of ethnic turmoil in Iraq are even more questionable than they were in the case of Afghanistan."

4. "Very few wars in American history were prepared better or more thoroughly than this one by this president."

5. "And considering what might have gone wrong--and which so many critics predicted would go wrong--the results have been in many ways admirable. Iraq has not descended into inter-religious and inter-ethnic violence.”

6. "The [leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity] story is absurd. But I now think the whole prosecution is absurd. […] I now think it's a politically motivated attempt to wound the Bush administration. [...] Fitzgerald's case is crumbling.”

7. “If [Hillary Clinton] gets a race against John Edwards and Barack Obama, she’s going to be the nominee. Barack Obama is not going to beat Hillary Clinton in a single Democratic primary.”

8. "I think Hillary Clinton… has put behind her the horrible sexism and misogyny the Democratic primary voters demonstrated... Never would have happened in the Republican party."

9. "The core case against Obama is pretty simple: he’s too liberal.”

10. "[McCain and Palin are] gonna win Tuesday night. It's gonna be huge."

Big mixed bag of stupid statements there! Do you have your guesses written down? Great, here are the answers (highlight the text with your mouse to reveal them):

1. Kristol. 2. Kristol. 3. Kristol. 4. Kristol. 5. Kristol. 6. Kristol. 7. Kristol. 8. Kristol. 9. Kristol. 10. Kristol.

That might have ruined the fun of figuring out who said what, but I defy you to look at a good consolidated list of Kristol quotes and not do the exact same thing. Looking on the bright side, by hiring Kristol the WaPo editors also assured that I’ll have even more material in the future. Now I just have to convince myself that the rest of his readers are also following his columns for fun. Someone couldn’t take Kristol seriously, right?

Right???

1 comment:

  1. Ugh. I think my favorite Bill Kristol line was claiming on the Daily Show that the New York times was a shoddy source of information, only for Stewart to remind him that they were his EMPLOYER.

    It's good to see that the job market is great for people who do nothing but make stupid statements and shitty predictions.

    I'll start. I think Barack Obama's unwillingness to condemn Young Jeezy's song "Black President" is treasonous, and that direct negotiations with Iran just may lead to a nuclear attack on the US.

    Hey post, can I have a job yet?

    ReplyDelete