Kristol Monday: The Last One

It's a bittersweet day for me, as I just found out that Bill Kristol has written his final column for the New York Times. It's sweet in that the country will not be exposed to his illogical arguments and one-sided "conservatives are always right" attitude, but also bitter because who will I trash on Mondays now? In order to give him the proper send-off, I'm going to rip his final column a new one.

To begin with, Kristol states that January 20, 2009 marked the "end of a conservative era." He cited Gingrich as the carrier of the torch for this "era" during the Clinton years, negating 8 years of a liberal president with a family-values conservative who cheated on his second wife while at the same time spearheading the impeachment of Bill Clinton for cheating on his (talk about sticking to your principles!). But if Gingrich is a continuance of Bush I and keeps the '90s conservative in Kristol's view, does Tip O'Neil get any recognition as a continuance of Carter and having a liberal effect in the '80s (with extra points for not being an adulterer)?

But there are more Kristol gems: "Over the next three decades, it was modern conservatism, led at the crucial moment by Ronald Reagan, that assumed the task of defending liberty with strength and confidence." Are we forgetting the Soviet-Afghan War and the rise of the Taliban and bin Laden with CIA money? Are we forgetting the Contras in Nicaragua and the money from Iranian arms sales (and as we know, Kristol hates Iran)? Or how Reagan increased government spending, yet is a hero to conservatives? Come on.

Then Kristol pulls the "if you disagree with me (i.e. "conservatism") then you are un-American" when he says: "Obama’s speech was unabashedly pro-American and implicitly conservative." So being pro-American is implying that one is really being conservative? One cannot love his or her country without subscribing to the Republican viewpoint? If I say we should not have sacrificed over 4,000 American servicemen and women in Iraq for a war based on false pretenses, does that make me un-American? If I say we should follow the Constitution - the very basis of this great nation - by not torturing or holding people in prisons without the right to a trial does that make me un-American? I thought we were done with this passive agressive name-calling, but leave it to Kristol to bring us right back down to the gutter.


So long, Bill Kristol. I wish we could say we hardley knew ye, but you made sure we heard you. While you may make outlandish statements like "Conservatives of the Reagan-Bush-Gingrich-Bush years have a fair amount to be proud of," without using any evidence to back it up, in your head you're always right and anyone else who says otherwise is just a liberal. Now that McCain lost to Obama and your post as Republican Party cheerleader will do little to help your stature as being part of the ruling party, you can act like the sore loser at the playground, take your ball and go home. Peace.

Photo - Bill Kristol (New York Times)

Kristol Monday: More War Drum Beating for Iran

Brill Kristol never ceases to amaze. This week's column was basically last week's column, only instead of talking about Hamas and Israel before making it sound like war with Iran is inevitable, he talked about Obama and how much of a politician he is before saying war with Iran is inevitable. For some reason Kristol's absolute and utter desire to go to war with Iran remains as strong as ever and he is using his column at the New York Times to start drumming up support for military action against the Middle Eastern nation.

First, though, let's look at the beginning of his column (after he makes some lame jokes about the Obama family's choice of a family pet). Kristol slams Obama for not fully breaking from the Bush Administration in terms of foreign relations. This is fair, as the barometer for dealing with other nations on earth should be look at what Bush and Co. did, then do the opposite. But here is the irony in Kristol's statement: he has been a cheerleader of the Bush Administration from Iraq to defending the indefensible Dick Cheney. So to slam Obama for not breaking with Bush's policies (he's not even in office yet, so if you're going to call him a grandstander and someone who only has rhetoric, wait until he is in office and judge his actions, not his words) is to say, "Hey, you suck because you're continuing to do what I think is right, even though I slammed you for saying you wouldn't do what I think is right a few months ago and now you're saying you're going to do what I think is right but I'm still going to find a reason to slam you." Makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?

Bill Kristol's war advice is well documented (see my post here). Why would he think anyone cares what he thinks about engagement (military or otherwise) in the Middle East? He must suffer from the same grand delusion that I do when I think people read and care about my writing. But in all seriousness, Kristol is not the man to turn to when it comes to diplomatic advice. It all goes back to the snake bite analogy; maybe cutting off my leg is a good idea because of the horrible situation I'm in now, but if I hadn't listened to you in the first place I wouldn't be here thinking about cutting my damn leg off. Kristol used all of his "Listen to me" points with Iraq. With such a war-weary population in America, the last thing anyone should be advocating is military action against a large nation like Iran. But Kristol and common sense are like water and oil; they just don't mix. I guess we'll have to wait until next week to see what topic Kristol discusses before trying to convince people that we need to go to war with Iran. Peace.

Photos - Bill Kristol (ThinkProgress)

Kristol Monday: So Close

Reading Bill Kristol's column today, I thought to myself, "Wow, I'm not going to have anything to write about because a) I do not know enough about the Israel-Hamas conflict to say he is wrong and b) he is actually making sense!" But then came his last two paragraphs and suddenly I realized why I'm not a fan of Kristol's writing. While in one breath saying that the United States has succeeded in Iraq - an impossible statement when the stated goals were few and far between and no one in the Bush Administration (or anyone, for that matter) has bothered to define what "victory" or "success" in Iraq would look like - he then begins to beat the war drum for military action against Iran. Damnit, Kristol, do you not learn from your mistakes?

I am going to keep this post brief because the past few ditties I've written have been about Kristol and it is the same thing over and over: either taking potshots at the left while making backhanded compliments to make it look like Kristol is open-minded or being utterly and completely wrong about Iraq while hoping for war with Iran. We all know Bill Kristol's assertions about what war with Iraq would look like: Kristol said that the war would only need 75,000 troops in the immediate aftermath of the invasion, that it would only cost $16 billion a year, and that after a year or two we would only need a few thousand troops in the country. On August 7, 2007 - more than four years after the initial invasion of Iraq - there were 162,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. That is more than twice the number Kristol used for the immediate aftermath and 54 times what he predicted would be needed a few years after the invasion. The cost of the war in Iraq so far has been more than $585 billion. Divide that by the five years we've been there, and that's more than $117 billion per year ($9.75 billion per month), which is, needless to say, incredibly higher than Bill Kristol's estimate of $16 billion a year.



So success in Iraq, being undefined, is impossible to gauge. If we define success as meeting one's goals or predictions for something, then, at least in terms of Bill Kristol, Iraq has been anything but successful. More U.S. troops have died in Iraq (4,221) than Kristol predicted would be needed in the years after the invasion. If there is anyone in this country who should not be talking about going to war, it is Bill Kristol. Would you take car manufacturing advice from Bob Lutz? Then why would you take war-waging advice from Bill Kristol? Peace.

Photo - Bill Kristol (New York Times)

Kristol Monday: Potshots at the Left, Backhanded Compliments for Obama

It seems that every Monday Bill Kristol's column in the New York Times just spews right-wing propaganda into the media atmosphere while dismissing liberals as "the intolerant left" and who, at the same time, belong to "finger-wagging nanny-state-nagging liberalism." Oh, Bill, does it ever end? Calling the left "intolerant" loses some of its value when one of the frontrunners to take over leadership of the RNC distributes a CD to RNC members with a track entitled "Barack the Magic Negro" and then defends it. But these potshots take away from Kristol's main point: Obama is having an inauguration soon and the fact that he picked Rick Warren for the invocation means that Kristol does not completely hate Obama.

As always, however, Kristol's column has some factual issues with it (or more just some common-sense issues). To begin with, for some reason he absolutely despises Maya Angeloum, but for an inane reason. Take this gem from his column: "I still remember watching Maya Angelou read 'On the Pulse of Morning' at Bill Clinton's inauguration in 1993 — and thinking that American culture really was in a state of irreversible decline, as she indulged in that multicultural cataloguing." It seems Kristol took offense when Angelou decided to list a variety of ethnicities and religions in her poem about America - you know, that great melting pot of diversity where people are different but all distinctly American? What does the Statue of Liberty say? "Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, / The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. / Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, / I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" Yet celebrating differences is an indication of a society whose culture is in "irreversible decline." And Kristol calls the left intolerant.

Then Kristol goes on to praise Abraham Lincoln, saying that his "actions exemplified the prudent and skillful pursuit of a principled end." Do not get me wrong; Lincoln was a great president and one of the main reasons that the Union remained a union at all, but to say that his Emancipation Proclamation and his fight to end slavery was based on principle - and not politics - is a bit misguided. First, his Proclamation freed slaves in the southern states during the Civil War, essentially doing nothing because he had no control over it. That would be like a president today saying that all political prisoners around the world are now free - a nice gesture, but there's no way to enforce it. Secondly, Lincoln was far from an equality seeker. In the Lincoln-Douglas debates he was quick to point out that he did not want to "set the niggers and white people to marry together" when Douglas hinted that Lincoln wanted an "amalgamation" of the races. Additionally, Lincoln stated that "I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about the social and political equality of the white and black races." To top it all off, Lincoln stated, "I am not in favor of Negro citizenship." So while Lincoln saw slavery as a horrible institution - anyone with a speck of morality did - he was not exactly fighting for equality between whites and blacks.

Then there's Kristol's backhanded compliments of Obama. Don't take Kristol's few positive words of Obama as genuine praise. Kristol thinks Obama may be a bit too proud, saying that Obama should have the "Good Book" opened up to Proverbs 16:18, which reads, "Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall." Then he goes on to criticize those who point out Obama's smoking habit, right after he pointed out Obama's smoking habit. Mentioning something by saying you should not mention it sets up the thinnest of smoke screens to take a critical shot at someone - you want to criticize someone, just do it; don't give me this passive aggressive crap.

Kristol is a symbol of the old Republican party - hawkish (while being misinformed) with too much of a focus on religion. He even says, "And having Warren there will, in fact, be a welcome reminder of the strides the evangelical movement and religious conservatives (broadly speaking) have made in recent decades." Many believe that religion is killing the Republican party and the party's true symbol before the religious right took over during Reagan's administration - Barry Goldwater - would agree: "When you say 'radical right' today, I think of these moneymaking ventures by fellows like Pat Robertson and others who are trying to take the Republican Party away from the Republican Party, and make a religious organization out of it. If that ever happens, kiss politics goodbye." If Republicans want to wrest the White House away from the "intolerant left" and nagging liberals, they need to change their outlook and what it means to be "conservative." Until then "Barack the Magic Negro" and Bill Kristol columns will have to do. Peace.

Photos - Bill Kristol on the "Daily Show" (Huffington Post), Honest Abe (Civics Online), Barry Goldwater (Official Site of the Presidential Medal of Freedom)

Kristol Defends Cheney by Blasting Blagojevich

I'm thinking of devoting every Monday to pointing out why Bill Kristol should not have a column at the New York Times. This Monday he defends Dick Cheney's legacy while comparing Cheney to Rod Blagojevich of Illinois. Now it's natural that Kristol would defend Cheney (who has about 60% disapproval ratings), because Kristol is chairman of the Project for the New American Century, which Dick Cheney helped found (with the help of such respectable people as Paul Wolfowitz and Scooter Libby). Why bring Rod Blagojevich into all of this? Well, as Kristol explains, he is "the nation's most unpopular Democrat."

Let's break Kristol's defense of Cheney down point by point. We all know about Cheney's infamous "go fuck yourself" comment to Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont when Leahy tried to make an issue of Cheney's connection to Halliburton, the company picked to essentially rebuild Iraq when the government is done with it. According to Kristol, Cheney's remark "shows a well-considered sense of justice," because four years after Cheney uttered it, he defended his statement by saying that he though Senator Leahy deserved it. That's a "well-considered sense of justice"? Usually when someone tells you to go fuck yourself, they're just caught up in the heat of the moment and get so frustrated that they start uttering profanities. But to Kristol (who wholeheartedly championed for the Iraq War, so maybe his sense of what is "well-considered" is a bit askew), this is a valid response to a fight that, by accounts, it seems that Cheney himself started.

Kristol turns to "defending" Blagojevich after admitting that he had been defending Cheney. But his defense of Blagojevich is really a mocking of the scumbag (not that it is not deserved). But here is the problem: Kristol uses Blagojevich's shortcomings as a backdrop as to why Cheney is not that bad. That's like comparing a rotten apple and a rotten orange and trying to convince you to eat one over the other. Why not state facts as they are? They're both rotten.

Cheney has a long history of seedy business. In 1975 he brainstormed ways to curb the freedom of the press. After Seymour Hersh published a front-page article in the New York Times about covert Navy missions tapping into Soviet communications, Cheney came up with various ways to discourage similar future publications (clearly Cheney had not read New York Times Co. v. United States). But '75 is just the beginning. How can we forget Scooter Libby? I don't have time to get into everything, but suffice it to say that Cheney's history in public service is dubious (and highly secretive).

But the most damning of all Cheney indictments is his lust to go to war with Iraq. We all know how he claimed that there were ties between Saddam and Bin Laden (later proved false), and we all know that he was a leading cheerleader in the months leading up to Iraq (particularly his September 8, 2002 appearance on Meet the Press). Kristol was also a cheerleader for war in Iraq, saying in September 2002 that war in Iraq "could have terrifically good effects throughout the Middle East." He's made other highly erroneous statements about what to expect in Iraq. Why should this surprise us, though? Kristol has shared the same lust for a war in Iraq as Dick Cheney did. Hell, Kristol was calling for military action in Iraq back in 1998.

Yet people like Kristol and Cheney continue to defend themselves instead of admitting a mistake. Kristol attacks the left, and Obama specifically, for not believing in the surge, when the few people who opposed the war in the first place (Obama included) came from the left. It's back to the snake-bite analogy. Cheney has gone so far as to say that he would do Iraq over again back in 2006:


In summation, Kristol's roundabout way of defending Cheney is ridiculous. He talks about two political donkeys in his column, but sees the need to defend one and saracastically blast the other. Call a spade a spade, Mr. Kristol. There's a reason that Cheney and Blagojevich are so unpopular. Dick Cheney's legacy will be that of an architect of Vietnam Part II, a power-hungry, highly secretive Vice President who got away with a lot because he knew how to pull the levers of power in Washington. Peace.

Photos - Bill Kristol (New York Times), Bush and Cheney (CTV)

Bill Kristol Thinks We're Being Too Hard on the Big Three

Another Monday, another Bill Kristol column (alas). Today Kristol talks about the auto bailout and how harsh the CEOs of the auto companies are being treated. He claims that the left and the right are piling on to these folks and a lot of the scorn they are receiving is undeserved. While I have little doubt that many politicians' motivations in all of this is to get their face on television as a populist, for-the-people kind of guy (I'm looking at you, David Vitter), how much of the scorn is undeserved?

I'll go back to a few quotes from Bob Lutz, GM's vice chariman and car guru. He stated back in January that not only was global warming a "crock of shit," but hybrid cars, like Toyota's, "make no economic sense." This from the company that gave civilians the Hummer. But I ask you this question: which company is begging for our (read: taxpayer) money? Is it Toyota, where according to Lutz they make no economic sense? Or is it GM, Ford, and Chrysler, whose love of massive (unnecessary) vehicles which made their companies dependant on cheap oil, in an era where we were going to war with one of the most oil-rich regions of the world? Because, as we saw the price of oil go up we saw demand (and prices) for big cars like Suburbans, Explorers, and Hummers hit the basement while more fuel-efficient cars (such as hybrids) saw an increase in both demand and price.

So what about these companies? Letting them fall into bankruptcy, while being a good step for those companies' futures, would be a hard pill for the economy as a whole to swallow. If we give them the money they want, there is little guarantee that they will change their business practices and we could end up in this position again years (or decades) down the road. The problem here is the dichotomy between administration and laborers. It is clear that the majority of the downfall of these companies lies with the administration; they are the ones making the decisions and guiding the company. While letting the companies go bankrupt would allow the punishment of these ill-guided executives, it would also hurt the laborers. This is not to say that the UAW is innocent in all of this; their ability to get management to concede to costly demands has also hurt the company. But to say that every laborer is with the union would be a grave error. Having been in a union or two myself, I can tell you right now that the union does not, in any way, speak for every worker (for example, I am sure there are some GM workers out there who would have conceded a pay raise for the next two years in order to get the bailout through the Senate rather than risk massive layoffs).

As my friend Nate Kaufman pointed out two weeks ago, the price of gas is going back down. This will lead those with short term memory loss (remember the 70s?) to go out and buy back their Suburbans and Explorers, while those with foresight will remember the pain at the pump and get more fuel efficient, mostly foreign cars. What people tend to forget is that oil is a commodity traded on the international market. Combine this with the fact that the world is essentially at the mercy of an oil cartel, and you have a recipe for severe instability. Just because oil is down now, does not mean it will stay down.

The way I see the whole situation is like this: the auto companies are addicts. They are addicted to big cars, oil, and ignorant business decisions. In order to score these drugs, they need money. They're turning to the taxpayer, saying, "Please. If you give me this money I will clean my act up, get sober, and be a productive member of society." Anyone who has ever had any significant interaction with an addict knows that their words mean nothing; they will do anything to score. They may clean up for a week or two, but given the chance they go right back to the dope. The way to get an addict clean is this: they hit rock bottom and instead of enabling them, you get them into treatment. Sometimes they hit rock bottom on their own, other times friends and family have to bring rock bottom to them (refusing to talk to them or enable them). The addict realizes how bad their situation is and seeks treatment. Rock bottom for the Big Three would be bankruptcy, treatment would be the restructering that would have to occur under bankruptcy. The government has a choice: continue to enable these companies, or bring rock bottom to them and force them to restructure.



So back to the original question: do the execs of these companies deserve the scorn they've received, or should we, like Kristol would like, be a little easier on them? While we could look at years of mismanagement and the out-of-touch attitude that the Big Three have demonstrated, I think one fact is emblematic of the entire affair. When asked to come to Congress to make their case for a bailout, the three CEOs came in three separate private jets. So to rebut Kristol's assertion that the CEOs of the Big Three are being treated unfairly, they have thrown conventional wisdom to the wind, denied scientific proof of global climate change, and claimed that their competitors were bad businessmen. The private jet thing - that was just a big FU to the taxpayer. Peace.

Photos - The Big Three and Congress (ABC News), GM CEO Rick Wagoner (Political Bounce),

Bill Kristol: All You Need is Patriotism

In today's New York Times, Bill Kristol lays out his plan to fight terrorism. Kristol says that while wishy-washy liberals like the invoke things like "the law" and American values like habeas corpus, the people who really know what they are talking about know that the most important tool to fight terrorism is simple: patriotism. But once again, Kristol twists and bends the truth to have things his way; much of what he has to say has been undermined by America's lying about the War in Iraq and other factual misstatements.

To begin with, Kristol falls into the trap set by these psuedo-Muslims for all those who know nothing about Islam. Instead of framing the debate in political terms, Kristol continues to use the "Islamic extremist" moniker for the attackers. The attackers are not Muslim in the traditional sense of the word - jihad is not a global war against non-believers, it is an inner-struggle for understanding of oneself and Allah. Waging a war on non-believers in the name of Islam would be like saying you are marrying gay couples in the name of Catholicism. Secondly, it would make no sense for Muslims to attack citizens of the United States - a country inhabited by numerous Christians - and Israel - a Jewish country - when these two religions are considered to be People of the Book and because they are Abrahamic, they are not seen as enemies but friends according to the Qur'an.

Secondly, Kristol makes an allusion to the fact that the United States should stand with India against our common enemies. I agree with this, but the attackers in this case seem to be more focused on India and its involvement in the Kashmir than with the U.S. Reports have come out that U.S. and British nationals may have been targeted, and if this is true then the U.S. and the other states whose citizens were targeted should assist in the investigation. What is also important to remember is that Lashkar-e-Taiba got a lot of their training from Pakistan's intelligence agency, ISI, and were only banned in Pakistan when American ally Pervez Musharraf felt pressured by Bush and Co. The ISI, of course, was heavily funded and trained by the United States, who brought it out of extinction during General Zia ul-Haq's reign and the Soviet-Afghan War, yet we continue to blame it for problems like the Mumbai attacks or lack of law enforcement in the FATA region. That's like raising a kid until he's 10, unexpectedly leaving, and then wondering why he has attachment issues.

Finally, Kristol believes that the answer to the "barbarism" of terrorist organizations is patriotism. He may be right, but he still needs to define patriotism. Let's not forget that following 9/11, if you questioned the move to go into Iraq from Afghanistan, you were labeled unpatriotic (when in reality you would have saved your country $10 billion a month and global diplomatic embarrassment). Patriotism is indeed a virtue, but one defined in many ways. We cannot allow one portion of this country to railroad us into a singular, concrete definition of patriotism as we did leading up to Iraq. A love of one's country comes in many forms, not just blind loyalty to the ruling party of the time because of reactionary forces. I think patriotism is best summed up in Adlai Stevenson's timeless quote, "What do we mean by patriotism in the context of our times? I venture to suggest that what we mean is a sense of national responsibility ... a patriotism which is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime." Peace.

Photos - Bill Kristol (Fox News), Armed security forces outside of the Taj Mahal Hotel in India (CBC News), The Taj Mahal Hotel (Wikipedia)

Bill Kristol's Logic: McCain Victory Good for Liberals

Reading Bill Kristol's column today made me wonder, "How does this stuff make it past the common sense police?" Kristol goes into an argument about how a McCain victory would mean good news for liberals, while at the same time painting everyone on the left as anxiety-ridden crybabies when it comes to electing a president. He even cites a young woman from Denver who put her relationship on hold while she awaited the results of the election. Are there people like this in the Democratic Party? Yes. Are there equally nutty people on the right? Given what we've seen at McCain/Palin rallies, you bet there are. Yet Kristol continues to pool all liberals into one group, saying that he's here to help us in the case of a McCain victory (it's just like the Second Coming!).

But maybe Kristol's right. Maybe those conservatives supporting McCain and Palin are actually nice people, voting on the issues and not rumors like Obama is a Muslim or hangs out with terrorists. Maybe, as Kristol says, "conservatives will greet the news [of an Obama victory] with [their] usual resolute soicism or cheerful fatalism." Or, maybe not:





But it's unfair to pool all conservatives into one group like Kristol did with liberals. There are obviously fringe elements on both sides, though it just seems that one side is basing their anger on 8 frustrating years of Bush/Cheney and the other side is basing their anger on rumors of terrorist ties and religious affiliations (did I mention one of the candidates is black?). As one reads more of Kristol's article, however, it becomes apparent that the man has no idea what he's talking about. His first point as to why an McCain victory would help liberals is that it would be a win for an underdog. Yeah, because a 70+ year old white man who's been in Washington for almost three decades beating an under-50 black man in Washington for less than a full Senate term is an underdog victory.

His second point was that a McCain victory over Obama would be a defeat for the establishment. Because cheating on your first wife with a woman whose family is worth over $100 million, and then marrying her and launching your political career with her father's money and connections really says, "Fuck the establishment."

His third point: a McCain victory would be a victory for the future. He says that, "Liberals should therefore welcome a McCain win as a triumph of hope over fear, of the future over the past." Seriously? Voting a well-educated, qualified black man into the White House only 50 years after the Jim Crow era would be a triumph of the past over the future? Are some of Obama's votes from white guilt? Sure, but he's also qualified and I think more votes come from his qualifications than his skin color (I would even argue his skin color does him more harm than good in the eyes of the electorate). But apparently McCain, with the whole Keating Five scandal and decades of Washington experience, is the candidate of hope and the future.

Fourth point: A vote for McCain is a vote for freedom. Beyond the fear-mongering and the not-so-subtle "Obama is un-American" tone this has to it, Kristol's primary citation is McCain's defense of the surge and Obama's continued criticism of it. Do we forget that Obama was against the war before it was cool? That's like someone saying, "Here, play with this snake, it won't bite." And despite your unwillingness to do so, you are forced to play with it and it bites you. Then your friend says, "Well, it's actually a really poisonous snake and now we have to cut your leg off so the poison doesn't spread." Then somehow your friend is baffled when you want nothing to do with him after you lose a leg thanks to his ignorance. But he was right about cutting off your leg!

Fifth (final and most desperate point): Executive and legislative control by one party usually creates a political superstar for the other party (citing Carter and Reagan, Clinton and Gingrich). Then the scare tactics: it might lead to a Palin presidency in 2012! Reagan must be rolling in his grave and Gingrich must be angrily e-mailing Kristol for comparing them to Sarah Palin. Reagan may have been highly misguided, but he was no Sarah Palin. He was smart, and while Gingrich is similarly misguided, the two have done more good for their parties than Palin ever will. If Obama wins this election, you will see public attitude toward Palin change drastically, as she will be cited as one of the main reasons McCain could not pull it off in November. Plus, why is it a bad thing for the other party to have a qualified political star who increases public debate on the issues? If anything, that's what we'll need if the Democrats dominate the executive and the legislative branches (I'm already assuming a strong Republican showing in the 2010 midterm elections in the event of an Obama victory).

In his little wrap-up describing what McCain needs to do to win, Kristol pens an emblematic line about the McCain campaign. He says, "It's an inside straight. But I've seen gamblers draw them." The entirety of the latter-half McCain campaign has been a gamble. Palin to win PUMA voters, going extremely negative (trying to tie Obama to Ayers and Khalidi), and praising Joe "Obama = Death to Israel" the Plumber as McCain's role model. But the thing with gamblers (and this is one area where Kristol is right) is that sometimes they win big. Nothing is written in stone and until all the votes are tallied and all the hanging chads are counted, we do not know who the president-elect will be on November 5. No matter what your political affiliation or who you are voting for, this is America and it requires the people's participation. So please, go out and VOTE!

Photos - Bill Kristol (nytimes.com), Barack Obama (en.wikipedia.org), John McCain (en.wikipedia.org)

Straight Up Scare Tactics

One quote from a CNN article struck me in particular as being emblematic of the McCain campaign lately. The McCain campaign has been desperately grasping at straws since they have determined (but also have inadvertently strengthened) the stigma that the media and the country have "written them off." The latest is taking it to a new level. Back in April (yes, APRIL) the LA Times wrote a piece about a farewell dinner for Rashid Khalidi, a UChiacgo professor who was slated to leave to go to Columbia, and Obama's attendence. The paper reported that at that dinner, a young Palestinian-American woman read a poem that was highly critical of the United States policy in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The paper had also received footage of the dinner, which Obama was at, and promised the source of the tape that it would not air it (read: journalistic integrity). Some have pointed to the LA Times and said that this is an example of media bias. Unless the source that the LA Times has does not exist or has not requested that the tape remain unaired, the LA Times is doing the right thing. McCain decided to bring this up anyway today in a last ditch effort to scare people away from Obama.

The quote I was referring to earlier, the emblematic one, came from a McCain aide who replied, after being asked why this was being brought up 6 months after the report, "Because we are one week away from potentially electing Barack Obama." If that's not a fear-mongering quote for the ages, then the Celtics aren't better than the Lakers. We saw something similar from another McCain campaign participant - Bill Kristol - but no one listens to him anyway.

What is unbelievable is that - and I did not think this was possible - Rashid Khalidi is more irrelevant than Bill Ayers when it comes to Barack Obama. I cannot even believe that we are talking about this guy. If he were a PLO spokesman, why wouldn't Bush and Co. ship him to Gitmo? If Jose Padilla can be locked away like he has, and Khalidi was as dangerous as McCain/Palin want you to believe, he'd be in Cuba or some CIA black site. Instead he is teaching at a university. And just as a quick sidenote: I took a class with Khalidi (and according to McCain/Palin that makes me a dangerous person). This is what I took from his class: Western imperialism in the Middle East had unintended consequences which led to increased instability in the region that was furthered by Western action. Oooooh, dangerous.


What is important to remember in all of this is that if McCain's goal is to boost his own poll numbers, he should know that this is not the way to do it. While tactics like this may cause a temporary dip in Obama's numbers (as it seems to have done briefly when the Ayers madness reached its peak), it does not raise McCain's numbers (which is what he really needs right now). Experimenting with the Ayers connection (which did not work) and spending time debunking the myth that Obama is an Arab (as if there is anything wrong with that in the first place) among his own ignorant supporters has distracted McCain from the real issues of the election and, in the process, truly hurt his campaign for president. If McCain and Palin want to start talking about the issues at their rallies instead of tenuous relationships Obama held with academics, socialism, or how Palin has "gone rogue" I (and the media) are willing to listen. If not, then the media is just going to hop on the attacks (that's what gets viewers and, in turn, ad revenue) and his campaign will continue to suffer. It's up to you, McCain. You can begin to focus on the issues, possibly win the White House (or, if you end up losing, it will be with a shred of dignity left) or you can continue to focus on the bullshit and probably end up losing the election and your reputation. Peace.

Photos - Sarah Palin (Rockford Register Star), Barack Obama (Daily Nation)

Real vs. Fake America?

Palin's comments last week, when she referred to the "pro-America" places that she and McCain visit as the "real America, have touched off a rhetorical firestorm. In her comments at a fundraiser in Greensboro, North Carolina, she said that "We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, um, very, um, pro-America areas of this great nation. This is where we find the kindness and the goodness and the courage of everyday Americans. Those who are running our factories and teaching our kids and growing our food and are fighting our wars for us. Those who are protecting us in uniform. Those who are protecting the virtues of freedom." Apparently Palin thinks that big city folk do not possess the kindness and goodness of everyday Americans and that they do not fight in America's wars. In other words, the large cities (which, by no small coincidence, tend to lean democratic) are not pro-American.

Palin has since apologized for the comment, realizing how dumb it was to say. Of course, in the same interview she expressed how inexperienced Barack Obama was and rattled off her experience as being a mayor of Wasilla, Alaska as one reason she is more ready for the Oval Office than he is. Jon Stewart sent a correspondent to Wasilla to find out about its "realness" and also get an inside look into the mayor of Wasilla's duties:

No social services? Really? I guess they're too busy signing the checks over at Wasilla town hall.

But Sarah Palin is not the only one on the McCain campaign who sees different parts of America as "real" and other parts as "fake." Nancy Pfotenhauer, a McCain campaign adviser, dismissed an MSNBC anchor who, when discussing the state of Virginia and its vital importance to McCain come November 4, stated that the northern portion of the state, which tends to lean democratic, had recently strengthened in terms of its electoral power statewide. This was Pfotenhauer's response:

So it seems that anything liberal or sympathetic to the Democratic Party is not "real." Earlier this month McCain's brother Joe stated that northern Virginia was "communist country" while at one of the candidate's rallies. This pales in comparison to what North Carolina congressman Robin Hayes (R) said at a McCain rally in Concord, North Carolina. While first denying that he said it, Hayes finally admitted that he stated, "Liberals hate real Americans that work and achieve and believe in God."

It's clear what this is. The old "Us vs. Them" idiom. The only problem is that the "Us" and the "Them" are on the same side: they're both American. It is idiotic to try to divide this country at a time when we are at war with two nations and as soon as one war seems to go well, the other falls apart (Afghanistan to Iraq, then back to Afghanistan) and the stock market is in turmoil because neither party stepped up to the plate to try to regulate the Wall Street leviathan. Instead of talking about these issues, we talk about what parts of the country are real and which are not, Joe the Unlicensed Contractor who brought the tax debate to the forefront despite his own tax liens, and how liberals are not as patriotic as conservatives (a move straight from Karl Rove's dirty little book). One congresswoman, Michelle Bachmann (R - MN), has even suggested that the news media do a "penetrating expose" on anti-Americans in Congress because she feels that Barack Obama may not be the only one:

Somebody wake up Joe McCarthy from the dead and get the old HUAC hacks, apparently their job is not done because there are still liberals in the United States.

If I could describe the way that this race has been going the past couple of weeks, I would choose pathetic. The country's economy is in the shitter, we are fighting two wars, the Bush Administration has used the Constitution as toilet paper the past few years, and we're talking about "real" parts of America and small town "pro-America" (never mind that 9/11 happened in the biggest city in the nation), anti-Americanism in the halls of Congress, and BILL FUCKING AYERS. Bill Kristol said in his column on Monday that he did not think that anti-intellectualism was "rampant in the land." Given the way that the McCain campaign and a lot of others in the Washington elite have been acting lately (Robocalls are not exactly intellectually stimulating), I would have to say McCain and company are banking on Bill Kristol being wrong (yet again). Peace.

Photo - Sarah Palin (www.foxnews.com)

Ayers Connection Non-Existent: Now It's Back to Wright

If anyone was unfortunate enough to read the ever-wrong Bill Kristol today in his New York Times column, you probably were left scratching your head saying to yourself, "Is this how inexplicably desperate the McCain campaign is?" You see Kristol, who is a foreign policy advisor to the McCain campaign, has brought the Reverend Jeremiah Wright back from the dead in the last month of the campaign.

In his unsubstantive interview with Sarah Palin, Kristol says that when Palin mentioned Ayers, he countered with the assertion that Jeremiah Wright has a closer relationship to the Democratic nominee for president than the former self-proclaimed terrorist. Palin, taking the obvious hint from Kristol and pouncing on it, said the following: "To tell you the truth, Bill, I don't know why that association isn't discussed more, because those were appalling things that the pastor had said about our great country, and to have sat in the pews for 20 years and listened to that...to me, that does say something about character. But, you know, I guess that would be a John McCain call on whether he wants to bring that up." Kristol follows with the line, "And I guess we'll soon know McCain's call on whether he wants to bring Wright up - perhaps at his debate with Obama Tuesday night." It appears that neither Palin nor Kristol realizes that McCain has already put the issue to bed.

Back in March, McCain essentially put the kabash on the issue in an interview with George Stephonanopoulos' best friend Sean Hannity when McCain said - after some insistent baiting by Hannity - "I do know Senator Obama, he does not share those views."

So while McCain said eight months ago that the Reverend Wright issue was essentially irrelevant, the campaign's major mouthpiece at the New York Times and the campaign's vice-presidential candidate are bringing it back up in a desperate attempt to drag down Obama. Given the fact that Palin is not really allowed to give input on important decisions - such as the McCain campaign pulling out of Michigan - I would not expect her to realize that the decision regarding Wright had been made months earlier.

Of course, we should all take anything that Kristol says about Wright with a large grain of salt. He is the same man who, in March of this year, stated that Obama was in the pews on the day of Wright's infamous "God damn America" sermon. A little fact-checking was done and Kristol was forced to apologize when it was proven that Obama was not at the church that day. Kristol's writing should always be suspect - he is a bit of a snake when it comes to honesty - but when talking about matters concerning Jeremiah Wright, everything should be, in Santa's manner, checked twice.

Naturally, Bill's column had other issues with it. While pointing out that Palin regretted allowing herself to be handled more than a competitor in the Westminster Dog Show (and before anyone twists my words I am not calling Mrs. Palin a dog), he pointed out how when he asked her if she would challenge Biden to another debate he believed he heard a lot of staffers in the background before Palin gave her answer (though this could just be speaking to Palin's habit of not knowing what is going on in the world around her). He also said that he would volunteer to moderate a debate between the two vice-presidential nominees. Clearly this would be a conflict of interest considering Kristol serves on McCain's campaign (although, to give Kristol a break here, it could have been a tongue-in-cheek comment). But his last line in the column - Hockey Mom knows best - is just ridiculous. Watch the Katie Couric interviews, Bill, and try to repeat that line with a straight face.

I've said it before and I will say it again: why is Bill Kristol given a spot at the New York Times? Are the Times that desperate for a conservative writer that they hire Bill Kristol? After his insistence on Iraq and its projected aftermath was shown to be completely - not even just a little bit, but completely - wrong, why is he a major part of the national conversation? Let him take his spot at Fox News and tell those not concerned with the facts what they want to hear. If Kristol wants to try to argue the issues, that's fine and possibly worthy of a weekly column for him. But if he wants to use his column as a mouthpiece for the McCain campaign by focusing on things like Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright when real issues like the economy and foriegn policy are what need to be discussed, let him go serve out his journalistic career as a Fox News hack. Peace.

Photos - Palin at a rally in Florida (Huffington Post)

Bill Kristol Highlights the Plight of Georgians Years After Leading Charge Against Iraq

Bill Kristol never ceases to amaze. After being fatally wrong on the Iraq War, he lands a job at Time and then at the New York Times to continue opining on important world matters. He continues to be in denial about Iraq (even saying this week that in Iraq we are "on the verge" of a "strategic victory" over "jihadists"). Without going into what a "strategic victory" versus a "real victory" would be, or the fact that jihad in Islam is an internal struggle and one killing others cannot really be a jihadist because one's own internal jihad is essentially a lifelong struggle, suffice it to say that Kristol's article points the mirror outward to Eastern Europe when it should be turning it inward, toward the United States.

Before we forget, however, we need a refresher as to who Bill Kristol is: he is a McCain foreign policy advisor (the Times continues to omit this glaring fact in any of the man's op-eds), he believes that Iraqi Sunni and Shia Muslims get along fine, and that the Iraq War aftermath would need only a few thousand troops and $16 billion a year (in reality, it currently has 150,000 troops and costs the American taxpayer $12 billion a month). Taking all of this into account, let's go into what Kristol said.

Kristol laments the fact that Georgians suffered greatly under the Soviets for about 70 years during the 20th century. He states that while the League of Nations tried to exert "moral influence" on the Soviets to leave Georgia alone, everyone knew the Kremlin was so cold and evil that they would not listen to an assembled and established group of democracies. Yet the United States itself, in the lead-up to the Iraq War, defied conventional wisdom (and the United Nations) and invaded anyway with the help of the British. While it is true that U.N. Resolution 1441 states that "the Council has repeatedly warned Iraq that it will face serious consequences as a result of its continued violations of its obligations," a second resolution regarding the invasion of Iraq that was pushed by Britain, the U.S., Spain, and Bulgaria never reached the floor because its authors knew that it would not pass the Security Council. In other words, as a whole the United Nations, an assembled and established group of democracies, was against the War in Iraq prior to the invasion.

In addition to this, Kofi Annan, the U. N. Secretary General at the time of the invasion, has since stated that in the eyes of the U. N. and its Charter, the invasion of Iraq was illegal. (Nota Bene: Kofi Annan is a bit dubious himself between the Lubbers sexual harassment ordeal and the Oil-for-Food scandal). However, the Charter itself is over half a century old and Annan is right when he states that the U.S.'s actions in Iraq in March of 2003 were, in fact, illegal in the Charter's jurisdiction. This, of course, makes hawkish Kristol's assertion in Monday's Times that, "Today, the Vladimir Putins and Hu Jintaos and Mahmoud Ahmadinejads of the world — to say nothing of their junior counterparts in places like Sudan, Zimbabwe, Burma and North Korea — are no more likely than were Soviet leaders in 1924 to be swayed by 'moral influence.' Dictators aren’t moved by the claims of justice unarmed; aggressors aren’t intimidated by diplomacy absent the credible threat of force; fanatics aren’t deterred by the disapproval of men of moderation or refinement," all the more ironic. Using Kristol's own logic - of ignoring international opinion and instead invading a country based on fabricated intelligence - the United States is up there with Sudan, Zimbabwe and North Korea and all of those who pushed for war and got it (like Bush, Rove, Cheney, Rumsfeld, the rest of the neo-cons [which, of course, includes Kristol himself]) are "dictators," "aggressors," and "fanatics."

I find it very funny that Kristol continues to discuss foreign policy matters as if he is an authority on it. The fact that he still does not think Iraq was a bad idea and helped "mastermind" the damn thing shows how much he knows about foreign policy and diplomacy. One of the last people in the political "elite" of this country that we should be taking advice - never mind foreign policy advice - is from Bill Kristol. Peace.

Photos - Bill Kristol (www.foxnews.com), A map of Georgia (www.lonelyplanet.com) , The U.N. building in New York (commons.wikimedia.org)

Neo-Cons See Obama Scare Tactics Not Working, Turn to Begging

I don't know how many people read Bill Kristol's recent column in the New York Times on July 28 entitled "Be Afraid. Please." I did, and I was scared. My fear was not directed toward Obama or the Democrats or anything like that. My fear emanated from the two main facts I found in the article: 1) Kristol is a foreign policy adviser to McCain's campaign and this was not mentioned anywhere in the online version of the column, and 2) Kristol has been consistently wrong for the past decade or so and he is still given a prestigious soapbox such as a New York Times column.

In terms of the first point, that the column does not mention Kristol's affiliation with the McCain campaign. This is troublesome because some readers may take Kristol's words as that of a spectator of the 2008 presidential election; a relatively objective observer in that only his personal beliefs seep into his columns and not his desire to gain a spot in Washington should a certain candidate win. Kristol's overwhelming bias towards McCain and his anti-Obama-ness seemed a bit much, so I looked him up and found out that he is on McCain's campaign team. Knowing that by reading it in the column (either before or after the column's text as a small disclaimer would have been more than enough) would have put the column in perspective.

Secondly, the fact that the Times gave him a column is pretty unbelievable. Kristol has proven himself to be one of the more inept of the neo-cons in today's political scene (and that is saying a lot). Kristol has been known to spout such wisdom as the fact that Iraqi Shia and Sunni Muslims do not get along too well as incorrect "pop sociology." It is also reported that in his book, Kristol said that the Iraq War would only need 75,000 troops in the immediate aftermath of the invasion and tha it would cost only $16 billion a year. The number of troops, according to Kristol, would go down to a few thousand after a year or two. One of the latest counts in a July 16, 2008 USA Today article places the total at 150,000 troops. So five years after the invasion, there are 50 times the amount of troops Kristol predicted would be needed after only 1-2 years (assuming that a "few" thousand means three thousand), and more soldiers have died in Iraq than Kristol predicted would be needed to police the entire country after the war. On top of all of this, Kristol's prediction for the annual cost of post-invasion Iraq ($16 billion) is only slightly larger than what we are actually spending per month ($12 billion). Instead of realizing that this guy has no idea what he's talking about, the Times gave him a column.

In his July 28 column, Kristol says that McCain stands up for winning America's wars, as opposed to Obama whose troop withdrawal Kristol sees as a loss. Personally, I would ask the over 4,000 families of the soldiers killed in Iraq how victorious the Bush Administration and the neo-cons (including Kristol) have been thus far. Their arrogant lack of respect for opposing opinions (or fact, for that matter) leading up to the invasion (opinions that turned out to be correct) forced this country and its brave, all-volunteer armed forces into a war that has unjustly claimed the lives of thousands of Americans and even more Iraqis. That, Mr. Kristol, is not what I call a victory.

Kristol also pulls out the age-old fear tactic in classic Republican-Democrat campaigns: taxes. He implies that if elected president, Obama would take more of people's hard-earned money. As opposed to the lenders and banks with their predatory loans and sketchy debt packages sold to investors (all while Washington looked the other way) or the oil companies who have made record profits as gas prices shoot up due to instability in the Middle East (where did that come from?) and Wall Street speculators. But all of a sudden it's Obama who is the boogeyman and will take your money away.

So on the one hand, one almost feels bad for Kristol. He is literally begging (he should have gone with a "pretty please with sugar on top" for his column title) people to be afraid of Obama. He wants another four years of neo-conservatism in Washington (otherwise, people may see his predictions and musings for what they are: wrong). McCain may complain that the Times wouldn't publish his editorial, but why complain when you have a mouthpiece like Bill Kristol writing every week in one of the more respected dailies in the country, if not the world? The only thing people should be afraid of is more Bill Kristol predictions. Peace.

Photos - Bill Kristol (www.nytimes.com), Empty boots representing American fatalities in Iraq as part of an Iraq War exhibit (minnesota.publicradio.org), Kristol's boss (www.britannica.com)