Watching the Watchers: Kristol's Hysteria

Makin' it Up as He Goes

In his June 4, 2006 article William Kristol, Editor of the Weekly Standard, mentioned Iran and Syria 17 times and al Qaeda on four occasions - - he was writing about Iraq. Read a little of Kristol's work and two things immediately standout:

1. He really wants George W. Bush to bomb Iran and Syria
2. A person gets the feeling William Kristol helped Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby and Doug Feith write the Iraq-WMD pre-war intelligence

In his articles Kristol regularly makes baseless and factless assumptions and allegations as easily as Mister Cheney sneers. This piece was no different:

The Iranian regime has resolved to help Iraqi militants kill as many Americans as possible.

Upon what evidence does William Kristol base the above charges? None! No intelligence agency, foreign or domestic, has ever made such a claim. It is simply Kristol's hysteria overriding his intellect - - such as it is.

From the White House to the Big House, Scooter Scootin' Off to Prison

The Washington Post's Dan Froomkin covered the Scooter Libby sentencing in his "White House Watch" column. Froomkin noted, "Scooter Libby today expressed no remorse, and Judge Reggie B. Walton showed no mercy."

Froomkin's column wasn't especially engrossing, really - - all the days reporting addressed the Libby team of attorney's attempts at convincing the judge to be lenient and allow their client to remain free upon appeal. Froomkin's take was somewhat unique in that he highlighted a quote from Federal Prosecutor Fitzgerald, that got to the heart of the entire Libby trial:

"'We need just to make the statement the truth matters ever so much,' Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald told Walton this morning. Fitzgerald also said, 'one's station in life does not matter,' as he argued that Libby does not deserve special consideration because of the public service he has rendered or the high government positions he attained."

It seems Mister Libby, if not the entire Bush administration, never figured that out. Libby and the White House too often conduct themselves as though the rules and laws don't apply to them - - because their station in life, by their reckoning, puts them above such trivialities.

Tell Me Sweet Little Lies

Writing in the National Review Online, Jonah Goldberg tried his level best to pen an "objective" piece on Fred Thompson. Not surprisingly, as Thompson is (probably has been from the start) Karl Rove and the Republican National Committee's "guy," Goldberg wasn't quite able to mask his near euphoric admiration for Tennessee Fred's candidacy.

Jonah's most telling line, however, was the last:

Thompson’s approval ratings may never be higher than on the day before he announces. We don’t know the man very well, but we know the character. And as long as he stays in character, it’s unlikely his ratings will drop anytime soon.

Telling how? In his last paragraph Goldberg inadvertently exposed the contemporary Republican Party's biggest problem - - they aren't interested in competence or ability or substance; only whether or not the Party's marketing gurus can make their "guy" appear presidential. Because if they can do that and Thompson is convincing in his role as president, Republican rank-and-file will vote for and support him regardless of how badly he mismanages the nation.

Indeed, Goldberg is almost praying that Thompson can trick him into believing the former Senator is actually presidential material.


Whistling Past the Graveyard

It seems more likely than not, that the New York Times' Thomas L. Friedman has the goods on some very important and influential people. There just isn't any other way to explain why the local community shopper, let alone the New York Times and book publishers would pay him real money for his perspective.

Mister Friedman has the 411 on someone and it probably includes the sort of pictures that Larry Flynt of Hustler fame would pay a million dollars to have in his possession.

Friedman's most glaring shortcoming is not that the local weatherman is right more often than he is. His biggest problem is that he couldn't identify reality if it were in a line up with nothing but UFOs and gremlins.

Mister Friedman's latest piece actually begins with the following:

The Middle East has gotten itself tied into such an impossible knot that Biblical references or Shakespearian quotations simply don’t suffice anymore to describe how impossibly tangled politics has become here.

"Gotten itself into such an impossible knot"? Look, the Middle East has never been utopia, but it arrived at its latest disastrous state with quite a little bit of help from George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and the Neoconservative philosophy. Friedman lists the issues quite succinctly, but somehow never manages to make a link between the disease, if you will, and the virus.

Just look around. Gaza is turning into Mogadishu. Hamas is shelling Israel. Israel is retaliating. Iraq is a boiling pot. Iran is about to go nuclear. Lebanon is being pulled apart.

Let's see - - Gaza came undone when the Bush administration refused to work with the Palestinian's legally elected government, and then probably goaded Fatah into picking a fight with their rival governing hopefuls; Iraq is a boiling pot due to the war Friedman once championed; Iran is going nuclear out of a fear being driven by the fact that someone drafted them into the "axis of evil," which marked the regime for certain extinction-by-invasion; and Lebanon is being pulled apart due to newly trained terrorists coming from or aspiring terrorists heading to Iraq and, too, the Bush administration's foolish refusal to reign in Israel after they invaded that country last year.

But for Thomas Friedman, the "Middle East has gotten itself tied into such an impossible knot..." And to think, someone is actually paying him to pontificate!