Bill Kristol: Completely and Tragically Wrong

Bill Kristol or William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard, is one of those Ivory Tower-never-served-in-the-military neo-cons that cheered and pushed for the US invasion of Iraq (see some other Chickenhawks here). Yet, Billy Kristol is fond of sending other people’s kids to war; so much so, in fact, that his Fox News co-commentator, Juan Williams, jokingly refers to Kristol as "The General" and questions his over reliance on military force.

With that in mind, why is Billy "The General" Kristol taken seriously anyway? Of course, the so-called liberal media must find hour-upon-endless-hour of jabbering heads to fill their precious airtime, so they gladly hand the mike over to "The General" — he’s always got a war to sell, which makes for neat content.

But, isn’t it about time that more people conclude as Alex Koppelman concludes here? Alex Koppelman writes:

Bill Kristol is rarely unsure about anything; Sunday was no exception. Appearing on "Fox News Sunday," Kristol told host Chris Wallace that "the notion that a retreat in Iraq would not embolden terrorists elsewhere in the Middle East, and terror recruiters in the suburbs of London, is ludicrous… It’s just factually true that our pulling out of Iraq will be bad for us in the global war on terror."

Now, I can’t say for sure that Kristol is wrong. What I can say for sure is that we have absolutely no basis to believe Kristol was right. Kristol, after all, has a long track record of getting Iraq completely, and tragically, wrong. In April of 2003, he went on NPR’s "Fresh Air" to say:

On this issue of the Shia in Iraq, 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 and the Shia in Iraq just want to establish some kind of Islamic fundamentalist regime. There’s almost no evidence of that at all. Iraq’s always been very secular.

Good one, Bill.

In February of 2003, he and Lawrence Kaplan told the National Review’s Kathryn Jean Lopez that "having defeated and then occupied Iraq, democratizing the country should not be too tall an order for the world’s sole superpower."

That one’s turned out well.

Yet Fox still considers Kristol a legitimate pundit on the subject. Why, for God’s sake? He has absolutely no experience or knowledge relevant to the subject. And again and again he has proven that any opinion coming from his mouth on the subject will be proven wrong.

The right’s media critics have made it their mission to call for the regulation of the media by means of attacking the First Amendment, threatening those of us in the press who dare to do our jobs with the threat of violence. Maybe it’s time for the rest of us to call for a little media regulation of our own, to ask that our pundits have some sort of license to spew, or at the very least have the ability to prove they know what the hell they’re talking about. At the moment, the ability to produce a quick, uncomplicated talking point seems to be the only qualification.

Go read Alex Koppelman over at the HuffingtonPost.com, he’s got more to say.