Bill Kristol is kidding, right?
November 02, 2009 10:22 am ET by Jamison Foser
Washington Post columnist Bill Kristol on the split in the GOP:
Now, obviously, there are times when divisions in parties can be damaging. But what's happening in the GOP right now looks to me more like healthy turmoil than destructive recklessness, more like vigorous competition than bitter fratricide. It could get out of hand. But for now, the ideas are more Reaganite than Buchananite, and the spirit more problem-solving populism than demonizing demagoguery.
Wait, what? A significant portion of the GOP has spent the past year yelling about the president's birth certificate and death panels and death books and the like ... and Bill Kristol says the "spirit" on the Right is "more problem-solving populism than demonizing demagoguery."
I'd hate to see what this guy considers "demonizing demagoguery."
Just this past weekend, the Republican candidate in a special congressional election dropped out of the race and endorsed her Democratic opponent rather than the Conservative Party nominee -- a nominee who had called her "the Bernie Madoff of New York politics."
Yeah, nothing "demonizing" there. And that's how Republicans are treating each other lately.
Your ego prevents you from seeing the damage you and fellow neoconservatives have caused the Republican Party. But that's okay, you and Sarah Palin will still draw a paycheck anyway...and that's what really matters, isn't it?
The guy they're now backing is so bad it's silly. He doesn't live in the district (not a requirement, but it'd be nice), he doesn't know anything about local issues (the reason we have a House of Representatives is so that we get representatives who will know about local issues, after all!), and he is a lousy candidate. He was interviewed by the largest paper in the area, in Watertown, where the great big Army base is, Fort Drum, and he didn't know how to answer any of the questions they posed. Then he complained about not being prepared, like it was the newspaper's fault. Turns out, the newspaper had written an editorial telling him what questions they would ask him, but he was too ill-informed about reality to even think to look in the newspaper before he went to an interview with the editors of that newspaper.
How inept could he be?
I guess inept enough that Bill Kristol is happy with him!
Of course, when he says anything specific and not already known by 99% of the populace, and that turns out to be correct, that will indeed be a milestone.
I think the problem with the Repubs, currently, is that the crazies (define them as you must) are running a scortched earth policy, and that any moderates are expected to toe the conservative line or get out. It really doesn't matter that reality may not work the way they want, or that the PEOPLE who actually vote, may not parrot their views, it is what they want that is important.
You can see it on Kristol's face anytime Juan Willians points out the black hole of reality in Kristol's view point. (doesn't happen much but; it does happen) I think if Bill had a gun he would pull it and use it, well, except that he would get his hands dirty.