Monday Morning Kristolism.

On a regular Monday, this would have been the highlight of my morning subway ride to work:

"Conservatives have been right more often than not — and more often than liberals — about most of the important issues of the day: about Communism and jihadism, crime and welfare, education and the family. Conservative policies have on the whole worked — insofar as any set of policies can be said to “work” in the real world. Conservatives of the Reagan-Bush-Gingrich-Bush years have a fair amount to be proud of."

'Huh?' I thought, not knowing how to respond to that strange assertion.  And as I was getting all worked up about it, I noticed what became the real highlight, at least for me.

This is William Kristol’s last column.

I just hope that Billy K will be replaced by someone just as ridiculous, or else my Monday mornings will be much less exciting.  Or, who knows, maybe Times can find a conservative columnist who is not an ideologue?  Apparently, the paper has "some interesting plans".. How phenomenal would it be if they hired the pseudo-conservative Sullivan?  

Monday Morning Kristolism.

In our return to regularly scheduled programming, I recommend you go read today's column from Bill Kristol. 

Personally, I can't blog about Israel/Gaza.  There are too many things I don't know and too many people I don't want to offend by broadcasting my ill-informed half-baked opinion.  I also almost wrote that besides, it is none of my fucking business .. but seeing that my tax dollars are indirectly funding this war, that's not quite true, but I will let that go.

That mechanism, however, doesn't prevent Mr. Kristol from voicing his opinion.  Consider this: 

But Israel — assuming it succeeds — is doing the United States a favor by taking on Hamas now.

The huge challenge for the Obama administration is going to be Iran. If Israel had yielded to Hamas and refrained from using force to stop terror attacks, it would have been a victory for Iran. If Israel were now to withdraw under pressure without accomplishing the objectives of severely weakening Hamas and preventing the reconstitution of a terror-exporting state in Gaza, it would be a triumph for Iran. In either case, the Iranian regime would be emboldened, and less susceptible to the pressure from the Obama administration to stop its nuclear program.

But a defeat of Hamas in Gaza — following on the heels of our success in Iraq — would be a real setback for Iran. It would make it easier to assemble regional and international coalitions to pressure Iran. It might positively affect the Iranian elections in June. It might make the Iranian regime more amenable to dealing.

With respect to Iran, Obama may well face — as the Israeli government did with Hamas — a moment when the use of force seems to be the only responsible option. But Israel’s willingness to fight makes it more possible that the United States may not have to.

Even though he's no expert on the Middle East or anything remotely close to it, he has some pretty strong views about the current conflict.  I want to envy him his certainty; however, I suspect that in this case certainty is almost surely a sign of ignorance.  

Finally, just one more thing from the column:

An Israeli success in Gaza would be a victory in the war on terror — and in the broader struggle for the future of the Middle East. Hamas is only one manifestation of the rise, over the past few decades, of a terror-friendly and almost death-cult-like form of Islamic extremism. 

A manifestation.  So basically, we are treating a symptom..  Am I the only one who sees something wrong with this logic?

Monday Morning Kristolism.

But if terror groups are to be defeated, it is national governments that will have to do so. In nations like India (and the United States), governments will have to call on the patriotism of citizens to fight the terrorists. In a nation like Pakistan, the government will have to be persuaded to deal with those in their midst who are complicit. This can happen if those nations’ citizens decide they don’t want their own country to be dishonored by allegiances with terror groups. Otherwise, other nations may have to act.

Patriotism is an indispensable weapon in the defense of civilization against barbarism. That was brought home over the weekend in an article in The Times of India on Sandeep Unnikrishnan, a major in India’s National Security Guards who died fighting the terrorists at the Taj hotel. The reporter spoke with the young man’s parents as they mourned their son: “His father, dignified in the face of such a personal tragedy, was stoic, saying he was proud of his son who sacrificed his life for the country: ‘He died for the nation.’ ”

Such is Kristol's response in his oped today to Jim Leach who posted some thoughts on the terrorist attack on Politico over the weekend.  The short entry is worth reading, if only to allow for a full understanding of what it is that Kristol is taking an issue with.  This bit I thought was particularly noteworthy:

.. a response that is the least nationalistic is likely to be the most effective. Accordingly, the civilized world should announce a oneness with the citizens of Mumbai and all the innocent victims of this unconscionable act. The challenge will be to hold accountable those responsible without escalating vengeful violence against innocents anywhere.  If the goal of a hateful few is to precipitate a wider conflict, isn't it self-evident that the best way to debase their efforts is to insure that a response is comprehensive as to individual accountability but does not itself spark a war on the Indian subcontinent?

Kristol's response, seemingly triggered by the first sentence about nationalism, suffers from the casual substitution of the words nationalism, national and patriotic, which is somewhat of a hallmark of the post-9/11 neocon worldview.  Beyond that, I can only imagine Kristol stopped reading, distracted by crafting a punchy response in his head.  Or else are we really to believe that the appropriate response is to infuse the problem with even more nationalistic overtones when the two countries most directly involved both possess nuclear weapons?

Monday Morning Kristolism.

Economists still do have considerable sway in our public life — even though it doesn’t seem that a large number of them have been particularly prescient in warning about, or strikingly persuasive in explaining, the current economic situation ...

... After all, wasn’t it excessive confidence in complex economic models and sophisticated financial instruments on the part of people well educated in modern economics that helped get us into the current mess?

So I hope the best and the brightest who will be joining the new president will at least entertain the possibility that a lot of what they think they know is wrong. 

Kristol blaiming the crisis on the science of economics is like an obese person blaming gastronomy for being fat.  What discipline, pray tell, do you think we should be relying on to find the answers?  Astrology?  No wait, I kind of understand.  When I was about 7, I asked my mom, a chemist, whether she felt guilty about being a chemist.  The environment, afterall, was getting crappy because all sorts of chemicals that humans produce.  It seemed logical that chemistry should be blamed for something like that.  Makes sense, right?  Yes, to a 7-year old, for sure.

Besides, quite a few economists (Roubini, among others) were predicting the worst, but noone was listening, most crucially not the government (which Kristol has yet to put any blame on whatsoever).  So yes, the new government should entertain the possibility that a lot of what they think they know is wrong.  Every government should, whether there is a crisis or not.  Constantly questioning and testing yourself is the cornerstone of critical thinking and allowing for dissenting views if the key attribute for effective and sustainable governance.  It is also the sort of thing that has been particularly absent during the last 8 years, so coming from the head cheerleader of the present administration this sort of "advice" is not just superfluous and disingenuous.  It is also further evidence that this man is overdue for replacement.

Monday Morning Kristolism.

Republicans and conservatives today face a similar challenge to that of 1976. A hawkish foreign policy, social conservatism and middle-American populism aren’t the problems. Those elements, as embodied on the Republican ticket by John McCain and Sarah Palin, produced a respectable 46 percent of the national vote — in the midst of an economic meltdown, with the Bush administration flailing and House Republicans rebelling and the Republican ticket lacking any coherent economic message... 

... I don’t see why conservatives ought to defend a system that permits securitizing mortgages (or car loans) in a way that seems to make the lenders almost unaccountable for the risk while spreading it, toxically, everywhere else. I don’t see why a commitment to free markets requires permitting banks or bank-like institutions to leverage their assets at 30 to 1. There’s nothing conservative about letting free markets degenerate into something close to Karl Marx’s vision of an atomizing, irresponsible and self-devouring capitalism.

Actually, both relatively reasonable statements.  I agree with the former in the sense that Obama's victory should not be over-interpreted as a dramatic seismic shift in the electorate since it took the trifecta of an epic meltdown in the financial markets, historically low approval ratings of the incumbent and Caribou Barbie.  As for the latter quote, that is something I would expect from Krugman, not from one the most vocal conservative commentators.  Ah, how things are changing.  Column here.

Monday Morning Kristolism.

Democrats are getting ready to take control of every branch of the government and Bush is all but ready to flee the White House and start working on his autobio comic book.  But don't despair - that does not stop neocon wisdom of Bill Kristol setting liberals' heart rates to healthy elevated levels every Monday morning.  Consider this desperately cynical nugget, with regards to what Obama said about the dog:

Here, in a few sentences, Obama did the following: He deepened his bond with every dog lover in America. He identified with every household that’s tried to figure out what kind of dog to get. He touched every parent with a kid allergic to pets. He showed compassion by preferring a dog from a shelter. And he demonstrated a dry and slightly politically incorrect wit by commenting that “a lot of shelter dogs are mutts like me.” Not bad. It could be a tough four or eight years for conservatives.

What a strange scary place his mind must be, where discussing a dog is automatically assessed as a strategic political move.  Either way, it is good to know what truly moves Kristol.  On a related note, he concludes with the following:

And it wouldn’t hurt for Governors Sarah Palin, Mitch Daniels, Bobby Jindal and the other possible 2012 G.O.P. nominees to begin bringing some puppies home for their kids.

Spare the poor dog, she is not even a remote possibility.