Kristol's Secret to Success
The Huffington Post is reporting that Bill Kristol has been tapped to join the Supreme Court of Punditry. Yes, that's right, Kristol will soon be a weekly columnist for the New York Times.
All of you aspiring pundits out there take note. The key to reaching the pinnacle of your profession is, apparently, to be 1) catastrophically wrong about everything, 2) utterly unwilling to acknowledge error, 3) willing to repeatedly lie and mislead your readers, and 4) completely batshit crazy.
In all seriousness, it would be difficult to find anyone who has been more consistently and embarrassingly wrong about everything over the last six years than Bill Kristol. When Kristol got his most recent gig at TIME Magazine, I actually went to the trouble of compiling a highlight reel of Kristol's past pronouncements. It didn't take long. Virtually every column he had written since 2001 had some mortifyingly embarrassing passage. And I didn't even start to search through the comments he'd made during his countless television appearances.
It's truly astounding to me that someone who has been this consistently wrong and who is so obviously incapable of self-reflection or even minimal intellectual honesty manages to keep getting promoted. In what other field would this happen? I just don't understand it. Can't publications achieve ideological balance without rewarding idiocy and hackery?
I'll leave you with my favorite Kristol quote. He wrote this on the eve of our invasion of Iraq:
All of you aspiring pundits out there take note. The key to reaching the pinnacle of your profession is, apparently, to be 1) catastrophically wrong about everything, 2) utterly unwilling to acknowledge error, 3) willing to repeatedly lie and mislead your readers, and 4) completely batshit crazy.
In all seriousness, it would be difficult to find anyone who has been more consistently and embarrassingly wrong about everything over the last six years than Bill Kristol. When Kristol got his most recent gig at TIME Magazine, I actually went to the trouble of compiling a highlight reel of Kristol's past pronouncements. It didn't take long. Virtually every column he had written since 2001 had some mortifyingly embarrassing passage. And I didn't even start to search through the comments he'd made during his countless television appearances.
It's truly astounding to me that someone who has been this consistently wrong and who is so obviously incapable of self-reflection or even minimal intellectual honesty manages to keep getting promoted. In what other field would this happen? I just don't understand it. Can't publications achieve ideological balance without rewarding idiocy and hackery?
I'll leave you with my favorite Kristol quote. He wrote this on the eve of our invasion of Iraq:
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.Is it even possible to be more wrong?
posted by A.L. at 10:42 PM
14 Comments:
"But the war itself will clarify who was right and who was wrong about weapons of mass destruction."
He was at least right about one thing!
Bloody Bill Kristol is the George Costanza of punditry.
If you want to be a genius at foreign policy, here's what you do:
Whatever he predicts, expect the opposite, what ever he recommends, do the opposite.
It's a guarantee of success, because Kristol's record is perfect. He has been wrong every time.
"All of you aspiring pundits out there take note. The key to reaching the pinnacle of your profession is, apparently, to be 1) catastrophically wrong about everything, 2) utterly unwilling to acknowledge error, 3) willing to repeatedly lie and mislead your readers, and 4) completely batshit crazy."
Right, that's been the Times's criteria since it went off the deep end about 20 years ago. How else do you think liberal idiots like Dowd, Herbert, Friedman, Krugman, Kristof, Rich and Collins got their jobs?
This is a classic case of a media institution favoring "balance" over accuracy--or truth, if you prefer that term.
It is also, perhaps, a sign of another sort of media consolidation. There are only so many established 'voices' out there for anyone to choose from. God forbid that the Times do some searching across the country, cyber and otherwise, to produce some new, original writers. No, that wouldn't do. They feel the need to fill a percieved void with a world-famous voice. Even if that voice launches bad judgements as reliably as Old Faithful jets steamy waters. So they pick from the relatively few choices available in the shrinking pond of punditry.
Now, if the NYT had any sense of humor at all, they'd put him in charge of the metro weather section.
I think many people are overthinking this. Kristol is a political celebrity, so someone has to snap him up. Seriously, does it really matter whether "Days Of Our Lives" is on ABC or NBC? Does it matter that Ryan Seacrest is on American Idol rather than that one karaoke show? Furthermore, does it matter whethe The Star or The National Enquirer does the story on Jamie Lynn Spears?
Kristol's words are going to get out there. If there's anything that can be done about him it's going to have to be political, some kind of disgrace or humiliation, because this is the (only) world in which he has meaning.
From the NYT's standpoint the content of what he says barely matters as long as it doesn't invite Don Imus levels of recrimination against the paper. He, as a person, attracts attention. That's all they want to worry about and that's what they're going to pay him for.
I suppose if I had a bit more time on my hands, I could compile an all-time all-star lineup of astonishingly erroneous predictions just by Googling some such combination as "surge" and "failure." Certainly Kevin Drum could be a team co-captain.
And how about an honorary lifetime error achievement award, posthumous division, for the oaf Wicker? Remember his "quagmire" column on Afghanistan, about two weeks before Kabul and Kandahar fell and the Taliban fled to the hills?
For laughs, let's try Kristol vs. NBC's Rihcard Engle on December 31, 2006:
"Today on Fox News Sunday, Bill Kristol said that Saddam Huissein’s execution 'could be a milestone on the way towards a more decent and democratic regime in Iraq.'
"On NBC, reporter Richard Engle, who is actually in Iraq, provided a reality check. Engle noted that supporters of Hussein 'are not the overwhelming majority of people in this country carrying out attacks against american soldiers or against iraqis themselves.' Moreover, because the execution was 'tinged by…sectarian overtones' it could 'fuel' the 'civil war.'”
Some reality check, Richard.
No list of erroneous predictions about Saddam's WMD would be complete without this howler from corpulent ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, written in February, 2003, one month before the invasion:
“There is now no incentive for Hussein to comply with the inspectors or to refrain from using weapons of mass destruction to defend himself if the United States comes after him.
“And he will use them; we should be under no illusion about that.”
You betcha, Joe--we should be under no illusion.
"I suppose if I had a bit more time on my hands, I could compile an all-time all-star lineup of astonishingly erroneous predictions just by Googling some such combination as "surge" and "failure." Certainly Kevin Drum could be a team co-captain.
And how about an honorary lifetime error achievement award, posthumous division, for the oaf Wicker? Remember his "quagmire" column on Afghanistan, about two weeks before Kabul and Kandahar fell and the Taliban fled to the hills?"
Wait a minute...
Are you saying that the surge isn't a failure and that Afghanistan isn't a quagmire?
I hate to say it, but you're gloating way too soon, friend.
Shorter Neutral: Bill Kristol, who has rarely, if ever, been right about anything, is balanced by a whole host of other people who have, on occasion, been wrong in Neutral's "neutral" opinion.
The left has its loons, but you have to turn over rocks to find them. The right, on the other hand, puts them on pedestals (and talk shows.)
The NYT should take the approach our local paper has with columnists that nobody bothers to read: their pieces have started turning up in the "news" tabs sans byline. You'll click on an interesting tab, and find yourself reading some right-wing fact-free bilge.
Hey, anything to get those clicks, right?
""I think there's been a certain amount of, frankly, Terry, a kind of pop sociology in America, that, you know, somehow the Shia can't get along with the Sunni, or the Shia in Iraq just want to establish some kind of fundamentalist regime. There's almost no evidence of that at all. Iraq has always been very secular."
--April 2003
I don't know why mainstream media outlets feel they they're being "objective", but putting the most conservative non-objective crackpot they can find on staff. CNN is a great example with Glenn Beck. It's sad that these types have grown enough in number to have deserved more ink and airtime.
Kristol, of course, is Jewish first, neo-conservative second. The Times is Jewish first, profits second.
When Oh When will Gentiles get a voice in "all the news fit to print?"
One might get the impression only Jews know anything, like Krugman, Brooks, Rosenthall, Wolfe, who are clearly capable writers, but not necessarily all-knowing.
But then look at the Cato Institute, Dissent, New Republic, American Prospect, New Yorker.
For 0.02% of the world's population, and less than 3% of the American population, Jews need to thank Yahweh that Affirmative Action excludes religious groups.
Those Private Equity titans profess one value, but use another. Diversity is great, but one African-American columnist on the Times' staff? No wonder the Iraq Invasion and Occupation was orchestrated by Paul Wolfowitz, supported by the Times, and then abandoned when Bush proved incompetent, finally bringing Schumer, Lieberman, Specter, and Feinstein to approve "no torture" attorney general Mukasky -- or was that because walls are approved in defense of Israel, but disapproved in defense of fair markets in the U.S., and a diversion in attention was needed?
Charges of anti-Semiticism ring pretty hallow, when the largest group of Semites are Arabs. But I suppose the Fallacy of Special Pleading depends on who is pleading.
I learned that sometimes the things your want most
You just can't have.
Or the drinking,
Or the hook-ups
Sweetest joy, the wildest woe is love
Taking the chances
And then making the most of them
The things which we most need to talk about
I learned that once you get to college,
Things don't automatically get better
It's what you make of them
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