Kristol repeatedly attacks "critics" of the Bush administration, yet refuses to name, or quote, a single one
Writing in defense of Saddam Hussein's recent trial and execution, as well as in support of President Bush's possible plan to add more U.S. troops in Iraq, Weekly Standard editor and Fox News contributor William Kristol -- in his first Time magazine column since being hired as a "part-time columnist" in December -- repeatedly took issue with administration "critics." Yet Kristol never once named a specific opponent or directly quoted anyone who criticized Saddam's trial, the manner of his execution, or Bush's expected proposal to increase troops in Iraq.
In his column for the January 15 edition of Time, Kristol wrote:
Saddam Hussein's trial and execution were imperfect. But the critics of the trial can't have it both ways. First, many of them told us that we couldn't expect Iraq to be a Jeffersonian democracy. Now they feign outrage that Saddam's trial didn't live up to Jeffersonian standards.
Kristol, though, failed to mention who these critics were, or what their objections were. Elsewhere in the column, he simply referred to the unnamed critics as the "foreign policy cognoscenti," "political elites," "them," and "they."
The same was true of Kristol's reference to opponents of Bush's expected proposal to increase troops, which has been criticized in a bipartisan fashion. (Kristol labels the troop increase plan a "new strategy for victory.") Rather than naming the skeptics and citing their criticisms, thereby giving readers specific references to their positions, Kristol simply referred to -- and dismissed -- them as "the critics," "others," and "they."
In total, Kristol made more than a dozen references to administration critics in his column, yet never named or quoted a single one.
Kristol, a strong proponent of the war in Iraq, was hired as a Time columnist by the magazine's managing editor Richard Stengel, as part of Stengel's effort to add more "star" writers to the magazine. Slate.com founding editor and the Guardian's (U.K.) American editor-at-large Michael Kinsley and Aspen Institute CEO Walter Isaacson, Time's managing editor in the late 1990s, reportedly make up, along with Kristol, Stengel's three "star" columnists.
A hack is to writing, what a cheap whore is to prostitution.
And Kristol is a hack, for the Bush misadministration.
you're "misunderestimating" cheap whores. THEY have a useful purpose, some people just aren't rich like the senators. Crappy writing also has a purpose but THIS kind of writing is, well, kind of groupie-like.
Most of the Democrats I remember (Byrd, Biden and Leahy, et, al.) questioned whether they could build ANY democracy at all in Iraq.
I certainly never expected to see one, and I'd say again, we will never build any democracy at all there...much less a jeffersonian democracy.
strawman arguement....the failure in iraq is so grotesque that we can't even build a Bush democracy there.
jeffersonian democracy? never even was a consideration
Iraq is a true bush democracy. The state is divided, they can't get along, and killing each other is preferrable to compromise.
Sorry, couldn't resist!
he can't identify those critics, but he knows. It's THEM. You know, the ONES. Don't believe me? It's been said, by MOST, that THEY will do anything out of their hatred for bush.(lowercase intentional)
when he gets something right for a change, instead of being 100% wrong about this war from beginning to end, maybe then he might have a little credibility. and i will repeat something i said a couple days ago. saddam's execution was just further proof we are in a no win, and never could win, situation. we turn him over to them and they mess it up, turn it into a circus, and we get the blame. kristol somehow thinks that his pontificating with that smug cheshire cat grin on his face gives him some credibility. i think it shows him for the pompous ass he is.
is that segment of the press that's actually reporting facts.Usually seen as anti-Bush, them facts.
And Jscott, you're obviously a big fan (as I am ) of the "hatred for Bush" tactic. I can't get enough of the response(usually to somebody calmly listing failures and crimes of the Bush administration) of "Bush derangement syndrome" or "this irrational deep-seated hatred of Bush"
I heard a caller to Sean Hannity's radio show recently who was unloading on SH as an oversimplifying, apologizing, propagandizing Repub. shill. The caller was passionate, but controlled, backing up his opinion with examples of Hannity's BS.
The caller was cut off, and as Hannity went to commercial, he adopted that attitude of his--"gee, I just don't get what that crazy guy was talking about. Maybe he just doesn't like me".
Seems to work, I hear the righty callers repeating it."Why do these people hate Bush PERSONALLY ?"
It's time for the dems to develop their backbones! Now, RIGHT NOW is the time to cut funding for the Iraq War. As illustrated by the Somalia attacks, we need a GLOBAL effort against al qaeda, not an Iraq War death/money pit.
Even hearing yesterday's Cavuto show, Charles Rengal wasn't challenged at all by the pudgy host. Usually, Neil Cavuto at least has some irrelevant question he throws to his non-Neocon guests.
And Kristol is an idiot. His predictions for the Iraq war were ALL wrong. Not only all wrong, completely opposite. He even went so far as to say the Shiite/Sunni unrest potential was some sort of "pop culture" nonsense(paraphrasing). He dismissed COMPLETELY the idea that there'd be civil unrest between Sunnis and Shiites!!
If it is Time magazine's goal to dumb down their readers with Kristol's insight then they have accomplished it.