Bill Kristol's lost materspiece recovered for posterity

[JohnyCanuck]

The Lost Kristol Tapes: What the New York Times Bought

By Jonathan Schwarz

Imagine that there were a Beatles record only a few people knew existed. And imagine you got the chance to listen to it, and as you did, your excitement grew, note by note. You realized it wasn't merely as good as Rubber Soul, or Revolver, or Sgt. Pepper's. It was much, much better. And now, imagine how badly you'd want to tell other Beatles fans all about it.

That's how I feel for my fellow William Kristol fans. You loved it when Bill said invading Iraq was going to have "terrifically good effects throughout the Middle East"? You have the original recording of him explaining the war would make us "respected around the world" and his classic statement that there's "almost no evidence" of Iraq experiencing Sunni-Shia conflict? Well, I've got something that will blow your mind!

I'm talking about Kristol's two-hour appearance on C-Span's Washington Journal on March 28, 2003, just nine days after the President launched his invasion of Iraq. No one remembers it today. You can't even fish it out of LexisNexis. It's not there. Yet it's a masterpiece, a double album of smarm, horrifying ignorance, and bald-faced deceit. While you've heard him play those instruments before, he never again reached such heights. It's a performance for the history books -- particularly that chapter about how the American Empire collapsed.

At the time Kristol was merely the son of prominent neoconservative Irving Kristol, former chief of staff to Vice President Dan Quayle (aka "Quayle's brain"), the editor of Rupert Murdoch's Weekly Standard, and a frequent Fox News commentator. He hadn't yet added New York Times columnist to his resumé. Opposite Kristol on the segment was Daniel Ellsberg, famed for leaking the Pentagon Papers in the Vietnam era. Their discussion jumped back and forth across 40 years of U.S.-Iraqi relations, and is easiest to understand if rearranged chronologically.

So, sit back, relax, and let me play a little of it for you.

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/12854

[izquierdista]

1. Is there any group in history as stupid as the neo-cons?

There's the "smartest people in the room", the guys at Enron, they did bankroll this bunch, didn't they? There's George "we're going to defeat those Indians" Custer, but that could be passed off as one bit of spectacularly bad intelligence.

Usually stupidity this pronounced is enough to ensure an early demise and removal from the gene pool. What makes it possible for them not to drown themselves in the shower in the morning? :silly:

[formercia]

4. It was cold and calculated deceit.

They thought that Iraq would fold like the right-wing reactionary porn rag they wank off to every day, instead it has dragged on and allowed those who really saw the vile truth for what it was, be heard.

[BeFree]

7. That is correct

They aren't stupid, but some people are for thinking it's all stupidity.

Given that they knew who was gonna count the votes, they could go all out. And they did.

[formercia]

14. It didn't work out the way it was planned.

Like actors who begin to believe their own PR, soon wind up looking like fools.

They were so clever and it had worked so many times before.

[williesgirl]

2. He is such a pompous asshole. rec'd

[ProgressiveFool]

3. K & R, a very good read /nt

[Laelth]

5. What's disgusting is that Kristol is still widely read.

And his lies continue to be widely distributed. He is a shill in the true sense of the word.

Or perhaps he might be better described as a ...



:shrug:

-Laelth

[eppur_se_muova]

6. "Quayle's brain" ?!? :shrieking_with_laughter:

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:
That is just outright CRUEL !!

(But it's OK, he deserves it.)

[Elidor]

8. This is too good not to kick

Possibly the most disgusting of all the neocons. No, make that the second-most disgusting of all the neocons. Actually, I guess he's running a close third.

[malaise]

9. That was excellent

K & R

Ouch - too late to recommend.

[MisterP]

10. they treated his impacted bowel and are now displaying it? n/t

[leftchick]

11. this is just brilliant!

I read it yesterday and have never seen a debunking of the Kristol myth quite like this before. Fantastic! I would only love to see billy tied down and forced to listen to it. That would be a dream! :)

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

12. Listening...

..for as long as I can stand it.

[slipslidingaway]

13. Kick for later, thanks. n/t

[JohnyCanuck]

15. Machiavelli: "Go slowly in undertaking an enterprise upon the representations of an exile"

From the Smirking Chimp article:

Back in 2003, Kristol was also quite certain, almost touchingly so, that the Bush administration would be well served by relying on Iraqi exiles:

"KRISTOL: We have tens of thousands of Shia exiles have come back to help contribute to the liberation of Iraq.

"ELLSBERG: I'm afraid the people who propose this war have failed one lesson of intelligence history, which is not to rely too much on the knowledge of people who have left the country... The people who've come to this country may very well underestimate the desire of those people not to be governed by foreigners."

This lesson of history goes back a long way. Book II, Chapter XXXI of Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy is titled "How Dangerous It Is to Believe Exiles":

"It ought to be considered, therefore, how vain are the faith and promises of those who find themselves deprived of their country... such is the extreme desire in them to return home, that they naturally believe many things that are false and add many others by art, so that between those they believe and those they say they believe, they fill you with hope, so that relying on them you will incur expenses in vain, or you undertake an enterprise in which you ruin yourself... A Prince, therefore, ought to go slowly in undertaking an enterprise upon the representations of an exile, for most of the times he will be left either with shame or very grave injury."

[formercia]

16. How Rove and company used to brag of reading The Prince

obviously, they didn't take it to heart. Perhaps they took the route of most frat rats and just scanned the Cliff Notes.

[Bozita]

17. His current employer (NYTimes) should be bombarded with this stuff.

Kristol should be tattooed with some of his prognostications.

[dajoki]

18. I read this...

myself and was going to post it, but I got sidetracked and forgot. So thank you for posting it.