He's always wrong.
William Kristol, entitled son of formerly suspected traitor and currently confirmed monster, Irving Kristol, represents the nadir of political discourse. His just pumped the neighbor's cat grin a fixture on the Sunday shows, Kristol is generally known for not knowing anything. That in itself is bad enough, Kristol being sought out for his unerringly inaccurate predictions despite a career full of evidence if he says it, it's not going to happen. But what really chaps my ass is, Bill Kristol, professional warmonger, second generation neo-con, founding member of PNAC, and all around bloodthirsty chickenhawk, is consistently sought out to render unto a befuddled American media his incredibly vapid and intolerably smug analysis of all things military.
It seems, when a Beltway talk show host wants to inject a little authority on matters of blood and guts, boots-on-the-ground, let slip the dogs of war combat neo-con style, the best expert they've got in their Rolodex is an intellectual lightweight who's built a career out of pushing a discredited theory, of which its adherents are directly and unambiguously responsible for the deaths of every American soldier and Iraqi civilian caused by the war they cheerled and lied to precipitate.
The only time you'll see Kristol challenged on the teevee is when his ego overcomes his good judgment and he agrees to appear on the last bastion of television journalism in American media, Comedy Central.
These clips are representative of Kristol's ill-advised trips into the lion's den. The uncomfortable, nervous laughter, the sweaty, constipated facial expressions, and the everpresent aura of desperation are hallmarks of a Kristol appearance on The Daily Show. What makes it all the more valuable, and yet tragically ironic, is the master class Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert offer to the "serious" media on how to handle Kristol's unswervingly wrong statements.
I'd intended to write a diary to compile all the various wrong statements I could find uttered by this very serious thinker and counselor to powerful people, but Jeebus jumping on a pogo stick, my eyes, they burn. I've got the day off, the sky is overcast, and there's nothing on the teevee, and yet still I just can't bring myself to comb through The Weekly Standard, Fox News Sunday, Kristol's columns in The New York Times, the Washington Post, and Time. I just can't do it. My blood boils every time I encounter this human fallibility factory. So instead, I've gathered together as many decent takedowns of Kristol's track record as I could find ("decent" meaning substantive and cogent; FUCK BILL KRISTOL!!! doesn't count as either decent or a takedown). If anyone's of a mind, provide me with your links to anything I've missed and I'll edit this diary to add them.
2007-1-2 Anonymous Liberal gets the ball rolling with a super timeline of Kristol's unbroken string of epic fails. "Bill Kristol: Pundit Superstar." Unclaimed Territory.
2007-7-17 David Corn just destroys Kristol. "Why Bush is a Loser." The Washington Post.
2008-1-15 Barbara Morrill calls out the New York Times for hiring an editorial writer with Kristol's abysmal record. "Bill Kristol's Fairy Tale." The Daily Kos.
2008-9-8 Jim Newell points out Kristol's hypocrisy as being both the guy who spent a great deal of time calling into question Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama's foreign policy experience, and the author of a column eliding similar criticisms of nascent nitwit, Governor and vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin. "Bill Kristol Writes New Partisan Column That Compromises Everything He Pretends To Stand For." The Wonkette
2008-11-17 George Packer urging the New York Times to fire Kristol for being uninteresting and always wrong about everything. "After Kristol." Interesting Times.
2009-7-28 Ezra Klein deconstructs Bill Kristol's unutterably stupid claim that Medicare and Medicaid are driving up the price of healthcare. "Bill Kristol Says Things That Are the Opposite of True." The Washington Post.
2009-7-29 Psychologist Stuart Fischoff asks the question probably anyone who's seen Kristol appear on The Daily Show has already asked themselves. "Why is Bill Kristol Playing Jon Stewart's Bitch?" Psychology Today.
2010-11-23 Alex Pareene, as always, puts some stank on it. "The Hack 30; No. 17: Bill Kristol." The War Room.
2011-3-21 Jonathan Chait on Kristol's redefining the term "liberation." "Bill Kristol and Neocon Newspeak." The New Republic.
2011-6-8 Kossack RhodaA peels back the curtain on attack ads funded by the Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI) and finds Cheshire Cat/Wizard of Oz mashup Bill Kristol pickin' and flickin'. "ECI, Bill Kristol and the New Obama Smear Campaign." The Daily Kos
2011-6-9 Adam Clark Estes uses Kristol's prediction that Rudy Giuliani will enter the 2012 race for president as a jumping off point to showcase some of his more spectacularly dumb wrong predictions. "Bill Kristol: A Timeline of Faulty Predictions." The Atlantic Wire.