If you read through this article, you get a picture of Bill Kristol's behavior through the last few years, and it is obvious that as I have often pointed out, he chooses positions and personalities which are detrimental to the Republican party. He isn't a conservative at all.
He is a mole.
This article fails to document his long campaign to get Colin Powell to run as the Republican nominee in 2000. This is the same Colin Powell which Kristol now routinely trashes.
Kristol was originally backing Powell because he knew it would cause a split in the Republicans. Now he trashes Powell as Secretary of State, for the same reason.
So, thanks for posting this article, as it documents other incidences of the same type of behavior.
I would characterize him more as a weasel, but you're not far off.
Kristol was originally backing Powell because he knew it would cause a split in the Republicans. Now he trashes Powell as Secretary of State, for the same reason.
Occam's razor suggests a much simpler reason, but I hesitate to suggest it while we're making some headway on the main points.
Certainly Powell's reluctance to pursue an aggressive foreign policy like his predecessor must have some bearing on Kristol's current criticism of the SecState.
He was campaign manager for John McCain's presidential bid for the same reason. I consider him a Democrat. fsf
"He is a mole."
Mole? Or opportunist?
It strikes me that, at every turn, Kristol has adapted or created his "ideas" and chosen his standard-bearer so as to attract the most attention for himself and his "ideas".
In this sense, Kristol isn't a mole. He's a parasite.
Buchanan has the nasty habit of calling everybody who doesn't agree with him a "neocon". This creates the misconception that neocons are legion. In turn, Kristol dubs all those at odds with him as "paleocons". Thus, the forces of the paleos are enormously magnified.
So we have two fringes -- one actually Populist, the other some kind of "Manifest Destiny", both irrelevant -- whose inner linings define the outer limits of conservatism.