August 14th, 2006
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.
April 3rd, 2006
I don’t know how to feel about this… on the one hand here’s a highly decorated, knowledgeable and respected Marine general telling us what many of us that opposed Bush’s war of choice against Iraq knew from the get go, essentially: the Bush Administration lied the country into a strategic blunder in the Persian Gulf. But that’s not what am ambivalent about; instead, what I don’t quite get is, why didn’t the good general come forward before the start of the war? Of course, while I don’t know the exact answer to that question, I can guess at the myriad of reasons as to why general Zinni did not speak out before the start of the war — the conservative noise machine that vilified Bush Administration critics and, too, the Bush Administration itself, which was not shy about going after its critics. Just look at exhibit A: army general Shinseki, whom had the temerity to suggest that a US invasion force would require hundreds of thousands more troops than what the Bush Administration was saying it would need to control post-invasion Iraq. After general Shinseki publicly stated that the invasion force would need to be much larger than what the Bush White House was telling the American people, Bush’s conservative henchmen went after the general:
Hardly any of this the reached public domain until last month when Gen Shinseki told a congressional committee that he thought an occupying force in the hundreds of thousands would be required to police postwar Iraq. Mr Rumsfeld publicly repudiated him, saying he was "far off the mark".
In semi-private, the Pentagon’s civilian leadership was far more scathing. A "senior administration official" told the Village Voice newspaper that Gen Shinseki’s remark was "bullshit from a Clintonite enamoured of using the army for peacekeeping and not winning wars".
Then the general said it again. "It could be as high as several hundred thousand," he told another committee. "We all hope it is something less." Most of the media were too distracted by the build-up to war to notice. Serious analysts, however, were staggered by the insubordination.
This appears to have been round two of another, more immediately relevant, dispute about how many troops are needed to win this war. In this case, the military prevailed over the original civilian notion that fewer than 100,000 could do it. As even more soldiers rush to the Gulf to bring the number closer to 300,000, the original Rumsfeld plan looks in hindsight to be what the army said at the time: a recipe for possible catastrophe.
The full reality on the ground may not become known until Saddam Hussein has fallen, but no one can now seriously believe – as many top Pentagon civilians appear to have done a week ago – that the main problem for an occupying force will be what to do with all the floral gifts.
I’m sure that with the above as backdrop, general Zinni was reluctant to speak out against the march towards war; however, now we see that general Shinseki was prescient in his estimate and has not been fully vindicated; while the Bush White House and its supporters have been proven to be utter fools.
It’s no wonder how now general Zinni can demand Rumsfeld resignation without hesitation — I would go a step further, the entire Bush Administration should resign. Every. Single. Last. One. Of. The. Fools!
March 30th, 2006
Can you believe that this clown is even sitting on our nation’s highest court? That gesture, that gesture is not a simple waving of the hand to say hello. No, that’s Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, as he left mass on Sunday, responding to a journalist that asked him if he would recuse himself from an upcoming case before the Supreme Court. The judge made it plainly clear that he couldn’t care less about his critics; moreover, judge Scalia,
more or less, told the journalists to go blow herself.
Since judge Scalia so ably communicated his displeasure of his critics, the Boston Herald went to press with the story and subsequently published the image that you see on this page — by the way, Peter Smith, a freelance photographer and an assistant professor of photojournalism at Boston University, whom captured judge Scalia blowing off critics, was fired by the church for releasing the image. Here’s how Peter Smith describes what he saw:
Smith was working as a freelance photographer for the Boston archdiocese’s weekly newspaper at a special Mass for lawyers Sunday when a Herald reporter asked the justice how he responds to critics who might question his impartiality as a judge given his public worship.
“The judge paused for a second, then looked directly into my lens and said, ‘To my critics, I say, ‘Vaffanculo,’ ” punctuating the comment by flicking his right hand out from under his chin, Smith said.
The Italian phrase means “(expletive) you.” [ Boston Herald, March 30, 2006 ]
That’s right, one of the nine judges of the Supreme Court, the conservative bulwark, in fact, is telling his critics to go screw themselves. All right, all right, granted, so it’s hard to get all worked up about a hand gesture, even when accompanied with a well delivered vaffanculo by judge Scalia; after all, our vice-president “I-shot-a-man-in-the-face”-“go-fuck-yourself”-Cheney has set the bar kinda low.
Does any body still remember Bush’s campaign pledge back in 2000:
The ability to restore honor and integrity to the White House – The moment that usually draws the greatest applause in Mr Bush’s campaign speeches comes when the Republican nominee talks about bringing dignity and character back to the White House.
What a joke the Bush Administration and the entire culture it ushered in has turned out to be.
October 5th, 2004
In spite of what Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney are saying at their well orchestrated rallies, I’ve begun to get the sense that the Bush/Cheney ticket’s heart is not in it. Here’s what I mean. During the VP debate there were various moments where Mr. Cheney simply refused to retort or to elaborate on a point; and, in those moments, I sort of got the distinct impression, Hey, this guy’s heart is not in it… he’s just giving up and is not fighting back. In the other hand, Mr. Edwards just kept on going right at Mr. Cheney. Man, Mr. Edwards was relentless.
Do Bush/Cheney simply figure, Hey, we’ve created such a mess that it might just be easier to leave it to someone else to clean up.
