Kristolicious

It's official. Bill Kristol has devolved into a parody of himself. His endless calls for "seriousness" and shameless disregard for reality used to annoy me greatly. But he has now reached such a level of absurdity that I can't imagine anyone who isn't hopelessly beyond the reach of rational persuasion continues to take him seriously.

His latest column for the Weekly Standard is entitled Keep on Surgin': Bush is beating them back. It's a classic of the genre: delusional, paranoid, totally detached from reality. Kristol, in full "stab in the back" mode, rails against all the Defeatists (the Democrats, the media, the "foreign policy establishment") who are conspiring to grasp defeat out of the jaws of victory. Ever the optimist, however, Kristol suggests that President Bush, through his heroic resolve, has managed to stop the momentum of the Defeatists:

Over the last few weeks, all of these estimable entities--the Democratic party in Congress, much of the media, and the foreign policy establishment--have joined together to try to panic the country, and the Bush administration, into giving up. The story of the past week--an important week--is this: They failed. Many around Bush wobbled. But Bush stood firm. Most Republicans on the Hill stood firm. And, so far as one can tell, the country as a whole pulled back a bit from the irresponsibility of cutting and running.

I love that last bit: "so far as one can tell . . . ." Actually, Bill, one can look at the polls, which provide precisely zero support for this assertion. The American public is overwhelming in favor of withdrawal. This has been the case for some time now, and the size of the majority is increasing every day. Kristol thinks this is just an "assumption," though:

Now, the assumption in the media, and among most in the political world, remains that the Defeatists have the momentum, that Bush is fighting a rearguard action, and that his retreat at home, and U.S. defeat abroad, are basically inevitable.

But what if this week is a harbinger of things to come? What if the Defeatists have overplayed their hand? What if they continue to sound the tocsin of defeat--and the president, and the commanders, and the soldiers, don't snap to and obey? What if the surge continues to show better and better results, and the Bush administration does a more effective job of communicating them? If so, this past week could turn out to have been a pivotal moment in the Iraq war.

Ah yes, that would make this about the 100th "pivotal moment" in Iraq that Kristol has pointed to as evidence that success is just around the corner. Sadly, this time he can't even point to an actual event, like the elections or the capture of Saddam. He can only ask "what if": what if suddenly, and for no apparent reason, the entire trajectory of events in Iraq and at home shifts dramatically and I, Bill Kristol, am vindicated. If that happens, this totally random moment in time will indeed have been "pivotal."

Good grief. How can this man even take himself seriously at this point?

Since I've wasted an entire post talking about Kristol, I can't end it without resurrecting my favorite Bill Kristol quote of all time. This is from his Weekly Standard column published on the eve of the Iraq invasion:

We are tempted to comment, in these last days before the war, on the U.N., and the French, and the Democrats. But the war itself will clarify who was right and who was wrong about weapons of mass destruction. It will reveal the aspirations of the people of Iraq, and expose the truth about Saddam's regime. It will produce whatever effects it will produce on neighboring countries and on the broader war on terror. We would note now that even the threat of war against Saddam seems to be encouraging stirrings toward political reform in Iran and Saudi Arabia, and a measure of cooperation in the war against al Qaeda from other governments in the region. It turns out it really is better to be respected and feared than to be thought to share, with exquisite sensitivity, other people's pain. History and reality are about to weigh in, and we are inclined simply to let them render their verdicts.

Needless to say, history and reality have weighed in, and Kristol and Bush are stubbornly refusing to accept the verdict.

And unlike a jury verdict, history and reality cannot simply be overruled by the stroke of a pen.