It is defined as follows:
Informal. the act of being humbled.Wrestling. a move or series of maneuvers that succeeds in bringing a standing opponent down onto the mat.
Brother Charles Pierce has an excellent piece on Bill Kristol's latest abomination.
A proper jeremiad it is, but I must disagree with some of his commenters (who number in the 60s and are growing fast) that it is an actual "takedown" of the Melanoma that Walks Like a Man.
Because a takedown, in the strictest sense, must involve the humbling of the person at whom it is directed, and nothing is ever going to humble a straight-up sociopath like Bill Kristol. Nothing is ever going to bring him low or "down onto the mat".
I know this because Brother Charles' jeremiad reminds me so very much of the very best of the vivisections of Bill Kristol in 2003. 2003 was the year that Bill Kristol's former Managing Editor, David Brooks, was handed a job-for-life at the New York Times.
It reminds me of all the great working over that we Liberals did on Bill Kristol in 2004.
And in 2005. 2005 was the year that one of Mr. Kristol's most infamous partners-in-treason -- Paul Wolfowitz -- was punished for his lies, arrogance and murderous incompetence by being given the job of running the World Bank.
But I digress.
Mr. Pierce reminds me of all the stomping we Liberals gave to Bill Kristol in 2006. 2006 was the year Stephen Colbert beat Bill Kristol like a rented mule.
And in 2007...the year Mr. Kristol was given his own column in Time Magazine.
And in 2008...the year Mr. Kristol lost his do-nothing/know-nothing Time Magazine featherbed but to balm his hurt fee-fees he was given a column the New York Times where he picked right up with his former employee, David Brooks.
And in 2009...when he lost his NYT gig and had to make do with continuing to be wrong on Fox, and being a regular guest on the Sunday shows.
And in 2010.
And in 2011.
And in 2012.
And in 2013...when he finally lost his Fox News gig.
And in 2014...when he was given another yet another consolation gig. This time on ABC News, thanks to the quick thinking of ABC's youngest executive producer, the very-nearly-post-pubescent Mr. Jonathan Greenberger. I am confident that the world will little note nor long remember that this is, in fact, the second time ABC News has made the mistake of hiring the flamboyantly depraved Mr. Kristol.
I myself have arranged more than my share of caustic words about Bill Kristol --
-- and after all this time it should be painfully obvious to anyone who has been paying attention that people like Mr. Kristol have friends. That people like Mr. Kristol know people. That people like Mr. Kristol are protected from up on high by the Prince of Darkness. And until Mr. Kristol's benefactors are dragged kicking and screaming into the light, no quantity of words -- however true or wise or cleverly crafted or widely praised -- is going to cost Mr. Kristol a single night's sleep, or blast that smirking, death's-head-rictus off of this face.
9 comments:
So true and so sad.
These clowns (sic) are also the ones who are always bleating about "meritocracy" and defending crony capitalism kleptocracy as the "free market".
It is all of a piece.
And yes, sociopathy is what we're talking about. Nice call.
Charles Pierce has lost all his moral authority and his right to act indignant since siding on with the Greenwald/Snowden Libertarian Liars front. He can't be trusted anymore.
I once thought Kristol could never be trusted. But given the company Pierce keeps and the lies he's enabled... if he is against Kristol... well than Kristol should be trusted and given a seat at the table.
Sorry Charlie, but shit will come back to haunt you. You lie down with dogs, you lose any right to call out other dogs.
Troll alert!
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
And don't forget how he was rewarded for giving his lover a huge salary boost from public funds before he was dishonored with that World Bank gig.
All the honorable endeavors of the funders of honorable men like Kristol, Wolfowitz, and David Brooks.
Speaking of whom, go over and read Yastreblyansky's latest.
Our forces are coming together.
Love ya, and keep up the fight!
And in 2005. 2005 was the year that one of Mr. Kristol's most infamous partners-in-treason -- Paul Wolfowitz -- was punished for his lies, arrogance and murderous incompetence by being given the job of running the World Bank.
Someone as powerful as Bill Kristol should not be viewed as someone who has an employer. Instead he should be viewed as the employer who employs establishments like ABC and NYT to carry his lies.
Wonkette has a pretty nice touch as well:
http://wonkette.com/544376/bill-kristol-has-a-fantastic-new-never-been-tried-before-idea-even-more-war
Charles Pierce has lost all his moral authority and his right to act indignant since siding on with the Greenwald/Snowden Libertarian Liars front. He can't be trusted anymore.
Cirze gave the short answer to that, but the long answer is that Brother Charles isn't "siding on" (or even signing on) with anyone or anything except what seeks to shine sunlight on "the all-too-human, yet curiously error-prone, heroes of the surveillance state". Also, I'm pretty sure that he was being ironic when he said "Of course, this is nothing to worry about because Glenn Greenwald is a yutz, and because Target! and Facebook!" Unlike you, who appear to mean it unironically (though I'd be happy to be proved wrong about that).
Anon@8:20, on reflection, I think Paul Loop said it best in the comments to Brother Charles' current front-page post on Snowden revelations:
I can deplore the surveillance state and its multitude of abuses AND think the thin-skinned purity trollin' Mr. Greenwald is a yutz. Because I'm versatile.
Charles Pierce has lost all his moral authority and his right to act indignant since siding on with the Greenwald/Snowden Libertarian Liars front. He can't be trusted anymore.
So we've long ben entertained by the Purity Caucus, but what is this? The Counter-Purity Caucus? The People's Front of Judea to Greenwald's Judean People's Front?
all you need to know about bill comes from my favorite kristol anecdote:
So how did [Bill Kristol] end up with such a sweet gig? (Especially given that the Times already employed an incomparably more talented conservative columnist in the person of David Brooks.)
The answer goes back to Farley’s observation about the extreme nepotism of the contemporary right-wing media machine. Kristol may be an utter mediocrity, but he’s an extraordinarily well-connected utter mediocrity. (Indeed, as this column went to press it was announced that the Washington Post Writers Group had hired Kristol.)
Which brings me to this charming vignette, courtesy of blog commenter Harry Hopkins:
“I remember back in the late 1990s, when Ira Katznelson, an eminent political scientist at Columbia, came to deliver a guest lecture. Prof. Katznelson described a lunch he had with Irving Kristol during the first Bush administration.
“The talk turned to William Kristol, then Dan Quayle’s chief of staff, and how he got his start in politics. Irving recalled how he talked to his friend Harvey Mansfield at Harvard, who secured William a place there as both an undergrad and graduate student; how he talked to Pat Moynihan, then Nixon’s domestic policy adviser, and got William an internship at the White House; how he talked to friends at the RNC [Republican National Committee] and secured a job for William after he got his Harvard Ph.D.; and how he arranged with still more friends for William to teach at Penn and the Kennedy School of Government.
“With that, Prof. Katznelson recalled, he then asked Irving what he thought of affirmative action. I oppose it,’ Irving replied. It subverts meritocracy.’ “
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2009/jan/28/campos-to-the-manner-born/
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