Bill Kristol

There's been some call for me to remark on Bill Kristol's op-ed in today's Post. Here's what you need to know:

What it comes down to is this: If Petraeus succeeds in Iraq, and a Republican wins in 2008, Bush will be viewed as a successful president.

I like the odds.

Ha ha. If you read it, there turns out to be no clever "counterintuitive" argument here at all; it's just some baseless assertions. David Corn will write a rebuttal piece for the much-less-important Wednesday edition of the paper. Since Kristol brought up the gambling metaphor, it would be interesting to make this more precise. First, Kristol would need to explain what "achieving a real, though messy, victory in Iraq" would mean. Then we would need to hear from Kristol how much money he would wager on an even-odds bet that his predictions come true. Participants in Monday's Q&A with Kristol could be invited to cover his gamble if so inclined.

I bring it up not because Kristol's unique among pundits in offering bad predictions (I've made some myself), but because the article reads as so transparently written in bad faith -- it's utterly half-hearted and vacuous, clearly not intended to persuade anyone of anything.

Comments

It's no fun writing propaganda when the war is being lost.

Posted by otto | July 15, 2007 5:48 PM

clearly not intended to persuade anyone of anything.

I think you do not understand how Red argumentation works. If you can hear the jutting chin, the argument is considered a good one.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | July 15, 2007 5:54 PM

YOU impute to Kristol bad faith, half-hearted and vacuous opinions? You obnoxious twit, you couldn't be Kristol's towel boy.

Posted by wayne s | July 15, 2007 6:08 PM

"I think you do not understand how Red argumentation works. If you can hear the jutting chin, the argument is considered a good one."

Right. This editorial tells many people what they want to hear, and tells them this in a square-jawed, optimistic, completely non-falsifiable way, right down to the egregious analogy to one of the classic American history anecdotes about perseverance and will-- Lincoln hanging on resolutely until he found his heroic winning general.

This editorial reaches its audience because it taps into the Great Man model of history that still holds so much sway in this country, and gives them a hero to cheer for. It reaches its audience because no one really quite knows for sure how important the apparent rejection of Al Qaeda-style terrorism in Anbar Province really is, and the War Party has decided to grab this nugget of hope and sprint for the goalposts.

Fortunately, the audience for Kristol's swill seems to have shrunk below 40% of the voting public. But never underestimate how good he and his allies are at motivating their own troops. Kristol has few redeeming qualities as a human being, but there's no denying that he's a very smart guy and a brilliant manipulator.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | July 15, 2007 6:18 PM

"YOU impute to Kristol bad faith, half-hearted and vacuous opinions? You obnoxious twit, you couldn't be Kristol's towel boy.

Posted by wayne s | July 15, 2007 6:08 PM "

Lee Seigel, is that you?

Posted by Reality Man | July 15, 2007 6:40 PM

YOU impute to Kristol bad faith, half-hearted and vacuous opinions? You obnoxious twit, you couldn't be Kristol's towel boy.

This is a very interesting and cogent point by Wayne S. We need more people like him willing to do battle against the "illuminati/intellectual class."

Posted by grh | July 15, 2007 6:42 PM

FWIW, the odds of a Republican winning are far higher than most people think.

According to intrade.com the odds are aboout 40% and the odds of Bloomberg winning are about 5%.

Posted by neil wilson | July 15, 2007 6:54 PM

Excuse me, but I was Bill Kristol's towel boy. It was an unpleasant job, but I had to do what I had to do to work my way through college. And based on that experience, I can tell you that Matt could in fact work as Bill Kristol's towel boy. He has all the requisite skills. I wouldn't recommend it, though. Matt is overqualified for the job and it wasn't a very fun job, especially when the Podhoretz family stopped by on spa night.

Posted by Mark in Houston | July 15, 2007 7:05 PM

Bad faith indeed. But someone has to play Baghdad Bob on the NYT editorial page, apparently.

Posted by AJ | July 15, 2007 7:12 PM

"the article reads as so transparently written in bad faith -- it's utterly half-hearted and vacuous, clearly not intended to persuade anyone of anything."

It is intended to appeal to the Boy King’s vanity, to keep him resolute, and the testosterone flowing in the White House. Kristol’s piece is probably the only article George will chose to read today, and it will give him the will to keep on with his delusional Messianic crusade.

Much has been written about Bush’s intellectual and character limitations. Hopefully, more light can be shed on how the Neocons have been able to exploit Bush’s weaknesses so thoroughly.

Posted by erict | July 15, 2007 7:52 PM

"Bush will be viewed as a successful president" sometime after I see a flock of pigs flapping past my window. And, this is a purely non-partisan point - no one with any brains could in good faith disagree.

Posted by Peter | July 15, 2007 8:14 PM

The best part - success or failure in Iraq rest soley with Petraeus.

Posted by Buck stops over there somewhere | July 15, 2007 8:17 PM

Recognizing his own intellectual vacuity (if he’s honest enough to himself), Bush’s ego requires to be stroked by those who lay claim to some intellectual prowess.

The neocons easily find common ground with him at his level, all the time in pursuit of their own imperial goals with which he is also evidently quite comfortable. Others (e.g. Natan Sharansky, awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom last year) are brought in as it suits their mutual purpose.

Now that he is finding himself increasingly isolated, Bush must feel an even greater need to surround himself with this sort of stroking. Witness his recent efforts to call in to his court teams of “thinkers” (historians, theologians, writers, or other) for counsel and advice.

Kristol is cynically and cleverly Machiavellian enough to be quite willing to play this role now, no doubt expecting thereby to draw Bush further into the orbit of the bomb Iran crowd.

Posted by Justin X | July 15, 2007 8:41 PM

"I like the odds."

So do I. Given Kristol's track record it means we can reliably believe the opposite of everything he claims.

"it's utterly half-hearted and vacuous, clearly not intended to persuade anyone of anything. "

Disagree. Kristol is clearly trying to keep the 30% in the fold. These people get their info from FOX and Rush and believe the propaganda fed to them from the Kristols of the world.

What is truly scandalous is that the Washington Post would publish this piece of propaganda. This is not opinion, it is not thought provoking commentary, it is propaganda. Why is the Washington Post publishing this. It is so laughable that it doesn't even require a rebuttal. It reads like it was written by Stephen Colbert.

I am guessing the WP is publishing this because deep down its editorial page editor Fred Hiatt agrees with Kristol.

Posted by DonB | July 15, 2007 9:16 PM

I like the odds.

The odds... look... MAAAAAAHVELOUS!

Posted by Billy Kristol | July 15, 2007 9:17 PM

A noteworthy quote from Mr. Kristol:

"These Waziristan havens may well have to be dealt with in the near future. I assume Bush will deal with them, using some combination of air strikes and special operations."

Isn't this the anti-terrorist approach for which Clinton was repeatedly excoriated by conservatives after 9/11? Would Kristol dismiss "a resurgent al-Qaeda" with little more than a shrug if this resurgence had taken place under the watch of someone other than George Bush?

I don't know which is worse: the possibility that Kristol genuinely doesn't care whether the administration's strategy is producing any positive results, or that he does care but is willing to suppress his criticism for partisan purposes. Whichever it is, this is just further proof that Matthew's got it right: this article is really "so transparently written in bad faith."

Posted by Khaled | July 15, 2007 10:04 PM

Kristol's piece is written in bad faith, however I wouldn't underestimate the possibility of the GOP pulling off a win in 2008 (and I say this as a loyal Democrat). While a lot of the GOP base is angry at Bush, in the end I suspect they will vote for whoever the GOP nominates, and they will come out and vote in force no matter who the Democrats nominate. It's an unfortunate fact that Republican voters are as a whole more loyal to their party than Democratic voters, and by that I mean they are less likely to stay home or vote for a third party candidate than Democrats.

That gives the GOP candidate a solid base of probably around 40% of the electorate that will come out and vote for anyone the Republicans put up. While Democrats have a lot of passion on our side, I think there are big portions of our base that still might not show up for the polls or vote for a Bloomberg type of candidate, so we will have a bit of a handicap there as far as base turnout.

While I still think the Democrats are more likely to win the Presidency in 2008 (and I hope that Democrat is Hillary Clinton - more on that some other time), the 2008 election is not in the bag for the Democrats, and we can't let ourselves think that's the case for a minute. Kristol may be blowing smoke when he talks about how confident he is about the odds, but he isn't completely out of line on that issue.

Posted by Mark in Houston | July 15, 2007 10:49 PM

Khaled wrote:

I don't know which is worse: the possibility that Kristol genuinely doesn't care whether the administration's strategy is producing any positive results, or that he does care but is willing to suppress his criticism for partisan purposes.

What about the possibility that he is completely demented and actually believes what he's saying?

Posted by Guy | July 15, 2007 11:02 PM

I agree with DonB that Kristol is indeed trying to convince: not thoughtful readers, to be sure, but anxious-to-please centrist pundits and the more gullible among the general readership.

Posted by jason | July 15, 2007 11:04 PM

So do I. Given Kristol's track record it means we can reliably believe the opposite of everything he claims.

Kind of like the Seinfeld episode where George decides to do "the opposite" and completely turns his life around, perhaps it's time for us liberals to pay more attention to what Kristol writes.

Posted by Guy | July 15, 2007 11:20 PM

Actually, I don't think the immediate audience for that Washington Post piece is synonymous with the audience for Fox,the Weekly Standard, etc. That is why there is a double bad faith going on - Kristal's in publishing this crap, and WAPO's in knowing that the placement of the crap automatically endows it with a certain credibility. The structure of this credibility and the way it comes out in the media (with the Washington Post being used, as though this were 1973, as a liberal paper), constitutes that solid block of imbecility that so infuriates the liberal blogosphere. And though the credibility has been chipped away here or there - I believe Chris Matthews on Hardball corrected someone who said "even the liberal Washington Post blah blah blah" - the structure is still pretty rigidly maintained within the MSM. This is curious. These people aren't all idiots. The share of the country that identifies as liberal has surely gone down far enough since 1973 that you would think WAPO and the whole faux liberal reference structure could be taken down - except, I think, that the desertion of their liberal audience would destroy them as businesses. On the other hand, it would also starkly reveal the weakness of the liberal part of American culture. Thus, everybody needs everybody else to keep lying. What Iraq has done is to stress this ring around the rosy mendacity to the breaking point.

Posted by roger | July 16, 2007 12:32 AM

I thought Kristol was trying to buck up Republican loyalists for 2008 by reminding them that the winners always get to write the official history, and so it doesn't really matter what the truth is.

Eventually Iraq will get straightened out, at least somewhat. Some day conditions in Iraq will be better than they are now, and better than they were under Saddam. Its future is bound to be brighter than its present since nothing stays horrible forever.

Once things settle down, politicians will rush in to take credit. Who will be there to write the story, and to manufacture the truth for a confused and hungry public? Well, the media will write whichever story pleases their masters at that time. If Republicans are in the ascendancy, they will date the beginning of the Iraqi turnaround back to March, 2003. People being as forgetful as they generally tend to be, all the rough and violent patches of the war will be nigh forgotten, and to the dim extent they are remembered at all they will be seen as a tragically necessary stage in the Bush Revolution that ushered in the Middle East Age of Aquarius. The judgment on Bush: courageous and visionary leadership in the face of near-traitorous opposition and defeatism.

If Democrats are in charge when the day of peace and reconciliation comes, they will portray the war as a tremendous cock-up, and claim that it took a Democrat to put things right. The media will transcribe that story and pass it on. The verdict on Bush: ignominy, ridicule, loathing, a black, Harding-like space in the national chronicle, and a permanent scandal to the Republican party.

So - sayeth Kristol - get out there and win one for the Gipper in 2008, oh Republican boys and girls! When Iraq straightens its own ship out, we want to make sure we're around to take credit for it!

Posted by Dan Kervick | July 16, 2007 12:34 AM

Re Roger's comment "On the other hand, it would also starkly reveal the weakness of the liberal part of American culture. Thus, everybody needs everybody else to keep lying. What Iraq has done is to stress this ring around the rosy mendacity to the breaking point. "
------------
I concur. The Republicans at least make no pretense of being anything other than whores for the wealthy interests. Unfortunately, there are some Democratic leaders who are the same, but conceal their betrayals behind a veil of hypocrisy and deceit.

Posted by Don Williams | July 16, 2007 8:36 AM

The odds... look... MAAAAAAHVELOUS!

More Bill Kristol/Billy Crystal jokes please. Lots of potential there.

Posted by Led | July 16, 2007 11:00 AM

Nobody should bemoan the appearance of this fantasy in Sunday's paper. It exposes Kristol's delusion to a larger audience.

Remember when GW Bush was going to make a new conservative majority, destroy Social Security in order to save it, and so on? Now the expectations have been reduced to electing a Republican in 2008 and getting out of Iraq in less than one piece - maybe 3/4 of a piece. Kristol is the perfect person to write the inscription for Ozymandias's statue.

Posted by Ben | July 16, 2007 2:27 PM