Thanks to nepotism and the incestuous nature of the American political media Bloody Bill Kristol has managed to remain one of the most prominent and gainfully-employed unlanced boils on the ass of democracy for decades while at the same holding a nearly-unmatched record for being wrong about everything. Recently as 2014, Steve Benen writing on behalf of the Rachel Maddow show was writing about Bill Kristol, Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith, and Paul Bremer:
Are our memories really so short?
...Bill Kristol, for example, was on “This Week” yesterday, sharing his criticisms of Obama’s handling of Iraq – and no one laughed in his face. On “Meet the Press,” viewers saw Paul Wolfowitz. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) made not one, but two Sunday show appearances, popping up on “Face the Nation” and “State of the Union.”
When most media professionals reflect on the period preceding the U.S. invasion of Iraq, there’s a general consensus that it was not American journalism’s finest hour. News organizations needed to be skeptical, but weren’t. Reporters needed to push back against dubious sources, but didn’t. Nearly everyone in the business realized that we’d all have to be better next time.
Over the weekend, then, it was hard not to wonder: are our memories really so short?...Of course the answer is, "no", our memories aren't short at all That's not the problem. The problem is that when your employers at MSNBC decide to sign a contributor contract with a shitbag like Bill Kristol and he starts appearing as everyone's jovial uncle on Morning Joe, y'all dummy up. Because everyone knows, once some Republican splooge-rag like, say, Hugh Hewitt or Michael Steele is brought on board, everyone else is obliged to put on a network-issued muzzle, treat them like a valuable colleague and pretend that the past never happened.
That's the problem.
And thanks to the Beltway media's willingness to degauss the fuck out of the past when it becomes inconvenient to a member of the club, I have no doubt that, Bloody Bill will get away with continuing to pretend to be shocked and dismayed that his Republican Party is full of Republicans!
Important from @JVLast:— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) June 26, 2020
"Noonan still imagines the conservative movement and the Republican party as she prefers them are the true versions which are supported by a silent majority of partisans. I would like to believe this, too. But I don’t."
Nor do I.https://t.co/3smxylaVAk
And Bill Kristol may tell himself
This is not my beautiful House of Representatives!
And he may tell himself
This is not my beautiful life!
So, if the Republiccan Party you see everywhere ever day isn't Bill Kristol's beautiful Republican Party, then what is? Where can we look to find what a Bill Kristol Republican Party would look like and what ideas it would champion?
Sadly, the answer, to this question is being held in the maximum-security wing of the Beltway media -- the Past -- where it is guarded 24/7 against sneak-thieves who would dare to remember That Which Was without proper authorization from network teevee executives.
Happily, I am not a member of the Beltway media, so I am free to visit the Past any time I please, stay as long as I like and take what I wish when I go.
And so, for your entertainment, here is a small cross-section of recent vintage of those values and beliefs with which a Bill Kristol Republican Party would be infused...
Remember how Brexit was gonna look like small beer compared to Obama's appeasing our enemies?Clinton, Ben Rhodes, others have much to answer for re Benghazi. But worst was Obama, who basically checked out.https://t.co/YlhtwSdL9P— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) June 28, 2016
How terribly punked we were as a nation because Obama refused to stand up for us?Whatever problems Brexit may create are trivial compared to effects of Obama Administration's appeasing our enemies. https://t.co/fYl3f2h7BA— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) June 24, 2016
And of Obama was just as bad as Trump because Israel!Obama foreign policy: Don't support our friends, don't stand up to our enemies. https://t.co/rPCRLKjXXB— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) December 23, 2016
Yes, the river of bile for everything having to do with the Kenyan Usurper never ran dry.On his way out, Obama boasts he could have been reelected and goes after Israel from pique. In Trump's league in terms of vanity and ego.— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) December 27, 2016
And despite what you might have heard, the Iraq War was actually great!I suppose it would be too much to ask for Obama actually to deplore the way in which K. chose to make his statement. https://t.co/ZIwks9lyWz— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) September 5, 2016
Even as the Kenyan Usurper worked to destroy America's standing in the world.Iraq was the crucible for Bush. Despite many errors over 5 years--at end of Bush Administration, after the surge, an acceptable outcome. 1/— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) December 14, 2016
As for conservative values. per Bill Kristol, Mike Pence is what a "normal conservative" looks like.At home, Obama's done a lot to undermine limited govt & the rule of law.— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) September 6, 2016
Abroad, Obama's gone a long way to unmaking the world America made.
Per Bill Kristol, Mike Pence is what a "principled" conservative looks like.Pence showed last night that a normal and conservative Republican nominee would be winning this election easily against Hillary Clinton.— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) October 5, 2016
And Jesus Christ at a Motel Six, Bill, why don't you two just get a room?I believe @GovPenceIN will endorse Ted Cruz. It's the right thing to do, and Pence is a man of principle and a conservative of conviction.— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) April 28, 2016
Per Bill Kristol, this is what a great conservative policy victory was going to look likeAlso because Pence is (was?) a well-informed, principled free market conservative. https://t.co/Nz3iG48UlW— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) July 14, 2016
Because in Bill Kristol's fairy tale conservatism, imaginary victories that fuck over millions of Americans are the greatest victories of all.Scott Walker's plan to repeal and replace Obamacare offers the prospect of a huge conservative domestic policy win.http://t.co/JovGXJ8gKt— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) August 18, 2015
Remember when slashing the CDC budget was a "conservative principle" proposed by Michelle Malkin and endorsed by Bill Kristol?Repeal of Obamacare and replacement with limited-government alternative in 2017 will be one of modern conservatism's finest hours.— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) June 25, 2015
Remember how awesome the Fake Tea Party was?CDC should be part of conservative reform agenda: http://t.co/zf2DFNNsdw— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) October 15, 2014
Remember when the threat posed by Donald Trump to Mr. Kristol's glorious conservative movement was laughable?We'll call it the Conservative Party. Or the Tea Party, since the Tea Party was/is pro-freedom and pro-Constitution. https://t.co/Obh3ckMeVG— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) December 21, 2015
Perry: Trump's candidacy "cancer on conservatism?" Nah. More like a colorful pimple, an unsightly growth that's interesting but harmless.— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) July 23, 2015
So Trump hates Obama as hard as Kristol did, is as dedicated to gutting the Affordable Care Act as Kristol was and is far more obedient to the wishes and whims of Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel's far right-wing Likud Party than any president in history, so what is Kristol so spun up about?
Well, it's pretty simple. Kristol's objections to Trump are almost entire based on Trump's loutish manners.
You see, Kristol's conservatism was always fascist at heart, but what he wanted was a genteel fascism led by a true Conservative hero like Mike Fucking Pence.
But instead he got Trump, who won the hearts of the racist white trash rabble (which Bill Kristol though he had locked down) by offering them the one thing Kristol never could: permission to be as Out and Proud with their depravity, bigotry and paranoia as they pleased.
Kristol and the rest of his Never Trump running buddies spent their entire political careers working to engineer a Quiet Republican Fascism. A fascism where the racist base of the Republican party was manipulated by dog whistles that were deployed quietly and deniably, like beer farts passing through silk cushions. And they they almost made it. Hell, they might still.
But then Trump came along and starting giving the game away by saying the quiet part loud, and the racist Republican mob love him for it
And now Kristol and the rest of his Never Trump cronies are left to flail around trying to explain how this was all just a terrible, terrible misunderstanding and that certainly none of them are to to blame for somehow never noticing that their Republican Party was full Republicans all along.
No Half Measures
6 comments:
In your opinion, driftglass, who's a neocon who has come closest to having a come to jesus moment for Democrats and against Republicans? I would say David Frum or Max Boot, and they still remain DC hack swamp beasties in the Club. (I guess it's a life.)
I think the main sin Trump committed was getting foreign electoral help OBVIOUISLY, out in the open, even as the NYT did its damnedest to run cover. We all know it's a long Republican electoral tradition of treason from Nixon with the VC and Reagan/Bush I with Iran and Bush II with the Saudis and Trump with the Russians, but the obvious orange knee being bent to Putin gave the game away, so to speak. Hence the Never Trumper Lincoln Project attempt to smear Trump as a genuine traitor (which he is) and cast him out for heresy from the GOP. All so that the glorious Rubio/Haley ticket of 2024 will lead us all into Federalist society utopia of hedge fund managers who steal/launder billions in tax money while that kid with a dime bag goes to jail for a decade. Property Rights in the Cayman Islands and Seychelles must be protected by US law!
Also, Trump denied them the long dreamed of war with Iran by cozying up to Putin. That must've stung.
The title of Stuart Steven's upcoming book is "It Was All a Lie". It is my understanding that in it he basically validates everything Liberals have been saying all along, says that modern Conservatives have never really cared about their alleged "principles" and takes ownership of his part is making the GOP what it is today. Id' say that is about as good as it gets.
Gosh where do all these conservatives get their brilliant epiphanies from?
Maybe you can compile your greatest hits into "Yes, It Was All a Lie and Here I Wrote About It Twenty Years Ahead of You" book. Time to hit the book tour circuit! You can even add a chapter, hey, look at the conservatives on twitter who clearly read me and steal my jokes! Hilarious little scamps, aren't they?
Since you asked :-)
https://driftglass.blogspot.com/2019/12/books-real-and-imagined.html
Just cannot count the times I laughed so hard and spit up my drink when,
Listening to hosts and guests on MSNBC or ABC or CNN. Where the belovd words of admiration for the GW Bush years of normal, justice for all and economic prosperity. Most of all, The Dignity as Nichole Wallace puts it. She likes to point out the Administration she served in was dignified and caring unlike Trump.
Bush, " Sometimes money trumps peace". As the Bush Adm needed unrest and chaos to steal and give the stolen money to the wealthy who deserve it, earned it and know just how and when to trickle down the crumbs.
I see here saying these adorable mentions because she work in it and was a "True Believer"
Like Reagan, Nicole Wallace and others,
Their hearts tells them all they did not commit such immoral and criminal acts that harmed many. But their heads tell them otherwise . Because, it would mean they were part of that nasty and their own pride, loyalty, and true beliefs were so superior.
Actually was a horrible lie they were not just part of willingly but perhaps duped into. Even not duped into, they do not want it on their Resume.
This works for the likes of enabling Chuck Todd's and his ilk.
fear and hate for greed. the fear and hate part were the engine...under the hood, runnin' smooth, never checked under the hood. not my job....says gop.
then trump jacked our ride...
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