This is a terrible way to start my blog about Bill Kristol being always wrong, but I actually got through Bill Kristol's column on the auto industry without becoming temporarily blinded with rage. His one use of the phrase "political and media elites" (a favorite ridiculous phrase of Kristol's) notwithstanding, Kristol actually sums up a lot of my feelings on the current progress of the US auto industry bailout. The basic question of the article is: why the animosity towards the auto companies and its union? Kristol actually gives some credible answers.
How could this be that my theory has already been challenged? Does this mean that my longstanding hypothesis may be wrong, and that I might find myself agreeing with Kristol more and more? Could it be possible that I may be wrong about Bill Kristol always being wrong?
Ahh, but I just remembered the Intelligence Squared debate that I recently listened to. The topic: Is Bush the Worst President of the Last 50 Years? Jacob Weisberg from the great Slate.com was one of those arguing for the motion, Karl Rove strongly argued against the motion, and Kristol argued for the motion being "silly."
Karl Rove actually does a pretty good job of making the Bush presidency seem like one that governed quite moderately. However, every time Rove talks he is angry. GROWL! I guess because he was such an integral part of the Bush presidency then he has an invested reason to feel angry about the topic and challenges that are asserted in the debate.
Kristol's debate tactic, however, is to downplay Bush's flaws and to equalize Bush's insane policy decisions with rational policy decisions that a competent president would have made. Kristol says things like "intelligent people can disagree on whether or not we should have gone into Iraq." Maybe, and this is a big maybe, that could have been true in 2002. But can there be an intelligent person who supported the Iraq invasion and has not since switched positions on the war? Of course not; that's just silly.
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