Bill Kristol, monarchist
Conservative pundit Bill Kristol is a royalist jerk:
As Think Progress and others have noted, the YearlyKos convention is independent of its blog namesake, and will be comprised of some 1,500 or so activists representing a wide range of viewpoints and backgrounds.
What's been going on with conservative attacks against Daily Kos and the convention is another case of conservative projection. Lacking much ability to understand those who are different from them, they seem to assume that since their own bloggers are generally borderline types with extreme views, then those who read and post on Daily Kos must be a mirror image of the conservative blog world.
As anyone who has ever read Daily Kos for more than five minutes will tell you, that simply isn't true. Falsehoods are rapidly exposed there, and over the line comments are quickly troll rated into oblivion. It's not perfect because no moderation system built by humans can be perfect, but it stands head and shoulders above most conservative sites in both the quality of discussion and the overall decorum.
While it's easy to guess that Bill Kristol is clueless, which he is, there's an arrogance there that is antithetical to democracy. Kristol has no moral standing to pass judgment on me (or you, or you or you out there in progressive blog-o-land.) None. Kristol is one of the pundits most responsible for the disastrous occupation of Iraq, and in most professions when you screw up in an historic fashion you get fired. For wingnut welfare recipients, they get lots of face time on Fox Noise.
As many, many blogs have pointed out, the American people are with us. The failed conservative movement is outside the mainstream, and for pundits like Kristol to keep trying to demonize progressive bloggers is ridiculous. But then, they can't really point to the positive record of accomplishment of the Cheney-Bush administration, can they?
It's true that there will be some issues where progressives will not, at first, succeed. There are powerful interests arrayed against meaningful health care reform, for example. But people like Kristol think we don't even have the right to be heard by candidates from our own party. In other words, Kristol doesn't seem to believe in democracy at all. He's a monarchist.
It's a futile question, but I can't resist: why is an arrogant fool like Bill Kristol even on the television? I'd be more interested to hear Britney Spears' and Lindsay Lohan's opinions. At least we know they're human and feel pain.
Kristol sits there in his tailored suits, blithely proclaiming who can be heard and who can't. He wouldn't last a minute in a real world situation; most city council candidates would clean the floor with him. But then Kristol wouldn't have the guts to actually put his name on a ballot anyway. History, if it remembers him, will place him as a footnote in the history of propaganda of this era.
Today on Fox News Sunday, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol attacked the Democratic presidential candidates for their decision to attend the YearlyKos blogger convention. He held it up as evidence that the presidential candidates have “gone left.”Imagine, Democratic candidates speaking to Democratic activists. How shocking.
“Every Democratic presidential nominee is going to the DailyKos convention,” said Kristol. “That’s the left-wing blogger who was not respectable three or four years ago. The Howard Dean kind of sponsor. Now the whole party is going to pay court to him and to left wing blogs.”
As Think Progress and others have noted, the YearlyKos convention is independent of its blog namesake, and will be comprised of some 1,500 or so activists representing a wide range of viewpoints and backgrounds.
What's been going on with conservative attacks against Daily Kos and the convention is another case of conservative projection. Lacking much ability to understand those who are different from them, they seem to assume that since their own bloggers are generally borderline types with extreme views, then those who read and post on Daily Kos must be a mirror image of the conservative blog world.
As anyone who has ever read Daily Kos for more than five minutes will tell you, that simply isn't true. Falsehoods are rapidly exposed there, and over the line comments are quickly troll rated into oblivion. It's not perfect because no moderation system built by humans can be perfect, but it stands head and shoulders above most conservative sites in both the quality of discussion and the overall decorum.
While it's easy to guess that Bill Kristol is clueless, which he is, there's an arrogance there that is antithetical to democracy. Kristol has no moral standing to pass judgment on me (or you, or you or you out there in progressive blog-o-land.) None. Kristol is one of the pundits most responsible for the disastrous occupation of Iraq, and in most professions when you screw up in an historic fashion you get fired. For wingnut welfare recipients, they get lots of face time on Fox Noise.
As many, many blogs have pointed out, the American people are with us. The failed conservative movement is outside the mainstream, and for pundits like Kristol to keep trying to demonize progressive bloggers is ridiculous. But then, they can't really point to the positive record of accomplishment of the Cheney-Bush administration, can they?
It's true that there will be some issues where progressives will not, at first, succeed. There are powerful interests arrayed against meaningful health care reform, for example. But people like Kristol think we don't even have the right to be heard by candidates from our own party. In other words, Kristol doesn't seem to believe in democracy at all. He's a monarchist.
It's a futile question, but I can't resist: why is an arrogant fool like Bill Kristol even on the television? I'd be more interested to hear Britney Spears' and Lindsay Lohan's opinions. At least we know they're human and feel pain.
Kristol sits there in his tailored suits, blithely proclaiming who can be heard and who can't. He wouldn't last a minute in a real world situation; most city council candidates would clean the floor with him. But then Kristol wouldn't have the guts to actually put his name on a ballot anyway. History, if it remembers him, will place him as a footnote in the history of propaganda of this era.
