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The Pelosi Plan ... and the Swine Flu Democrats.by William Kristol 11/09/2009, Volume 015, Issue 08 In 1993, a newly elected Democratic president and a Democratic Congress pushed through a tax increase on a party-line vote. The next year Democrats lost control of Congress, with House Speaker Tom Foley defeated in his reelection bid and the Senate seat of retiring majority leader George Mitchell going Republican. In 1995, the newly elected Republican Congress tried to reduce the rate of growth of Medicare. The proposal was pilloried by the Clinton White House as drastic and unconscionable. The bill did not...

Bien-pensant conservative elites and establishment-friendly Republican big shots yearn for a more moderate, temperate and sophisticated Republican Party. It's not likely to happen. And probably just as well. This Story A good time to be a conservative Who's 'us' to the GOP? Time to reawaken young voters The Gallup poll released Monday shows the public's conservatism at a high-water mark. Some 40 percent of Americans call themselves conservative, compared with 36 percent who self-describe as moderates and 20 percent as liberals. The conservative number is as high as it's been in the two decades that Gallup has been asking the...

Irving Kristol, who died last month at age 89, inspired some highly mixed feelings in me. On the positive side, this renowned public intellectual was possessed of political realism, a firm anti-utopian grasp of the possible. Like Thomas Sowell and P.J. O’Rourke, though more understated, he had a superb gift for deflating the morally-charged conceits and histrionics of Left egalitarianism. On the negative side, he exhibited a shockingly narrow and vitriolic view of contemporary culture. That hatred, unfortunately, did much to sour his view of capitalism. And his widespread influence on this count has become painfully apparent. Arguably more than...

"Keep America Safe will make the case for an unapologetic approach to fighting terrorism around the world, for victory in the wars this country fights, for democracy and human rights, and for a strong American military that is needed in the dangerous world in which we live." (See their lead video, aimed squarely at Obama, 'Rhetoric vs. Reality')

Here is video of Bill Kristol on FOX News saying that it is "pathetic" that the White House thinks it is an "excruciating" decision whether to send more troops to Afghanistan. Kristol said "General McChrystal and General Petraeus think this is necessary, this should not be a difficult call." (Watch Video)

The intellectual leader of a movement of thinkers remained humble through his many influential works, and his spirit of creative skepticism will be his legacy. After the plain pine box is lowered into the grave, the mourners are asked to come forward -- immediate family first -- and shovel dirt onto the casket. Only when it is fully covered, only when all that can be seen is dust, is the ceremony complete Such is the Jewish way of burial. Its simplicity, austerity and unsentimentality would have appealed to Irving Kristol, who was buried by friends and family Tuesday. Equally fitting...

According to his obituary in the NY Times, Irving Kristol once felt intimidated among NY intellectuals when he found himself seated with Mary McCarthy on one side, Hannah Arendt on the other, and Diana Trilling across from him. This standard—of intellect, to say nothing of other allures—was very much relaxed by the time he found himself placed next to me at a dinner at the Lehrman Institute in Manhattan in the mid-1980s. Determined to upset his likely expectation of me—I having hung onto a version of Trotskyism many years after he had discarded it—I inquired politely about his time in...

... "Irving Kristol was an intellectual giant who played a major role in developing the anti-communist arguments that led to the defeat of the Soviet Union," former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told The Washington Times. ... ... Known as the godfather of neoconservatism, Mr. Kristol was a youthful radical who went from embracing communism in his 20s to attacking it publicly in his 30s. In subsequent years, he became an equally forceful advocate of free-market economics, including the supply-side tax cuts enacted during the Reagan administration and dismantling much of the so-called welfare state. Neoconservatism was a label originally bestowed...

The sickos over at Kos never cease to amaze me. Irving Kristol died today. He was a great writer and thinker and admired on both sides of the aisle--even my own liberal father loved his columns and books. Yet here I see a thread on DailyKos tonight where they are reveling in his death, and even hoping his wife (and Bill Kristol's Mom) Gertrude Himmelfarb would die soon too. Here are the lovely comments... Paging Bill O'Reilly. He's been silent on them for a while.

Irving Kristol, the political commentator who, as much as anyone, defined modern conservatism and helped revitalize the Republican Party in the late 1960s and early ’70s, setting the stage for the Reagan presidency and years of conservative dominance, died Friday in Arlington, Va. He was 89 and lived in Washington.

Irving Kristol, 89, a forceful essayist, editor and university professor who became the leading architect of neoconservatism, which he called a political and intellectual movement for disaffected ex-liberals like himself who had been "mugged by reality," died Friday at the Capital Hospice in Arlington. He spent much of his career in New York but had for the last two decades lived at the Watergate apartments in the District. He died of complications from lung cancer, said his son, William Kristol, the founder and editor of the conservative Weekly Standard magazine.

In his 60 Minutes interview to be aired tonight, President Obama apparently says, "I intend to be president for a while and once this bill passes, I own it....I'm the one who's going to be held responsible. So I have every incentive to get this right." No, Mr. President. It’s not about you. If legislation passes, you don’t own it. We all own it. Any health care bill will become part of the U.S. Code, not simply an item on the Obama White House web site. We will all feel its effects. We are all responsible for the future of...

An e-mail from my friend Michael Anton, who gave me permission to pass it on: I visited West Point today for a series of business meetings, mostly with faculty and some with Cadets.**** It was of course the eighth anniversary of 9/11, which was on my mind as I listened to the NY radio stations' remembrance shows on the way up..***** They feed the entire Corps (4,400) plus much of the faculty and staff in one sitting, every day, in a gigantic building shaped like a six-pointed asterisk.***** About halfway through the meal, there was another announcement from the poop...

The sale of The Weekly Standard should put paid to any lingering illusion that the neoconservative empire was anything but a Potemkin Village. Whatever happens from this point on, the news of Rupert Murdoch’s repudiation of his ugliest stepchild is as refreshing a pick-me-up as the morning’s second Bloody Mary I am enjoying, anchored off Spetzai on the Bushido with Chronicles’ incomparably hospitable columnist, Taki. The only thing needed to make my happiness complete would be for the boys of National Review to take the hint and sell out for oh, maybe $2 million. Allegedly, Murdoch sold the magazine for...

William Kristol of The Weekly Standard writes: A friend sends along this link, apropos my comment last night on the Special Report panel that President Obama’s instinctive identification with Professor Gates (and his willingness to attack Sergeant Crowley without knowing the facts) was as much about class as race. In a short note in the August 2007 Travel and Leisure magazine, Gates explains why Oak Bluffs on Martha’s Vineyard is his favorite place: “I started going to Oak Bluffs in 1981 and fell in love with the light. It reminded me of the light in the south of France, near...

Apparently trying to relive his glory days, Bill Kristol this morning exhorted Republicans to try to finish off the Obama healthcare reform plan: With Obamacare on the ropes, there will be a temptation for opponents to let up on their criticism, and to try to appear constructive, or at least responsible. There will be a tendency to want to let the Democrats' plans sink of their own weight, to emphasize that the critics have been pushing sound reform ideas all along and suggest it's not too late for a bipartisan compromise over the next couple of weeks or months. My...

Late Friday afternoon, Silvestre Reyes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, announced that his panel would be undertaking a formal investigation of the CIA. The ostensible subject of the probe is a highly classified program that targeted al Qaeda leaders for assassination and which CIA director Leon Panetta briefed the committee about on June 24. "After careful consideration and consultation with the Ranking Minority Member and other members of the Committee, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence will conduct an investigation into possible violations of federal law, including the National Security Act of 1947," Reyes said in a statement....

LEIGH SALES: We heard part of her press conference in that story, and the reporter said it had been described as rambling. What did you think of it? WILLIAM KRISTOL: You know, I rather liked it. I mean, she wrote her own statement. It wasn't the most beautifully crafted, elegant, speechwriter-produced, professionally-marketed statement, but it seems to me, frankly, if a liberal had made a statement like that, people would have said, "You know, it's great - it's refreshing to have someone right her own stuff and be honest and straightforward and not be totally packaged." The liberal media here...

But the panic among mainstream media commentators and the GOP establishment suggests real worry that if she does, she might pull off an upset. Why else the vehement assertions that she's clearly made a terrible mistake? Why else the categorical insistence that her political career is finished? Aren't they all protesting too much? The media establishment didn't protest much about the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama. He gave a good speech at the 2004 Democratic convention, was elected to the Senate that fall, and immediately started running for president. He didn't accomplish much in his four years in the Senate...

On Fox News Sunday this morning, Weekly Standard editor, and FNC contributor, Bill Kristol predicted Sarah Palin’s path to the White House in 2012. He predicted that Palin would become a leader of conservatives, the leader of the GOP, and then president, just like Obama did. According to Kristol, Palin is just like Obama. Here is the video courtesy of Think Progress: (VIDEO AT LINK) Kristol said, "Barack Obama ran for Senate in 2004, was elected to the Senate and the moment he was sworn in began running for president of the United States. He had no Senate leadership record...

The latest issue of Vanity Fair isn't even on newsstands yet and it's already making headlines for a not-so-politely titled article, "It Came from Wasilla," about Gov. Sarah Palin. William Kristol at the Weekly Standard is calling it a "hit piece," taking writer Todd Purdum to task for his "dubious claims." A blogger at the Atlantic writes that the article "paints a gruesome picture" of the governor. Politico's Jonathan Martin mulls the "political fallout from the very tough piece."

The reason is pretty simple. Sarah Palin loves America. And she knows we are a hair's breadth from losing much of what we and millions of our countrymen have painstakingly built with sweat and blood over more than two centuries. She knows that Cap and Trade is not just another piece of legislation. It is a hollowpoint bullet aimed straight at the heart of the American economy. She knows that health care reform is designed to, and will, utterly devastate the quality and availability of health care that is currently the best the world has ever known. She knows that...

If Palin wants to run in 2012, why not do exactly what she announced today? It's an enormous gamble - but it could be a shrewd one. After all, she's freeing herself from the duties of the governorship. Now she can do her book, give speeches, travel the country and the world, campaign for others, meet people, get more educated on the issues - and without being criticized for neglecting her duties in Alaska. I suppose she'll take a hit for leaving the governorship early - but how much of one? She's probably accomplished most of what she was going...

I've heard that Bill Krisol has been informally (or maybe formally) advising Sarah Palin for a while now. Does it seem like possibly Kristol gave her some advice for 2012? The thing is, if Kristol predicts 90 degree weather I grab my jacket. edit: I flipped to msnbc and it says that sources are telling andrea mitchell that Palin is out of politics for good. But then again, it is nbc...

The publication of a Vanity Fair profile of Sarah Palin appears to have opened old wounds in the McCain campaign. At issue is a question that was never resolved following McCain’s loss in November: Who in the McCain campaign was secretly trashing Sarah Palin to the press? (snip) .... What follows is the email exchange with Bill Kristol that Schmidt rooted out, where Scheunemann speculates that the source of the “Diva” leak was Nicolle Wallace’s husband. Read from the bottom up: ——- Original Message ——- From: Randy Scheunemann To: William Kristol Sent: Sat Oct 25 19:44:44 2008 Subject: Re: who...

A new Vanity Fair article on Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has re-ignited animosities among feuding high-profile Republican advisers who worked on Arizona Sen. John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign. The in-depth profile, which describes Palin as the "sexiest and the riskiest brand in the Republican Party," raises questions about McCain's decision to pick the Alaska governor as his running mate and her "disastrous" performance in the 2008 campaign -- sparking a vicious back-and-forth between former advisers to the GOP ticket. "Perhaps most painful, how could John McCain, one of the cagiest survivors in contemporary politics...ever have picked a person whose utter...

A hard-hitting piece on Sarah Palin in the new Vanity Fair has touched off a blistering exchange of insults among high-profile Republicans over last year’s GOP ticket – tearing open fresh wounds about leaks surrounding Palin and revealing for the first time some of the internal wars that paralyzed the campaign in its final days. Rival factions close to the McCain campaign have been feuding since last fall over Palin , usually waging the battle in the shadows with anonymous quotes. Now, however, some of the most well-known names in Republican politics are going on-the-record with personal attacks and blame-casting....

A hard-hitting piece on Sarah Palin in the new Vanity Fair has touched off a blistering exchange of insults among high-profile Republicans over last year’s GOP ticket – tearing open fresh wounds about leaks surrounding Palin and revealing for the first time some of the internal wars that paralyzed the campaign in its final days. Rival factions close to the McCain campaign have been feuding since last fall over Palin, usually waging the battle in the shadows with anonymous quotes. Now, however, some of the most well-known names in Republican politics are going on-the-record with personal attacks and blame-casting. William...

WASHINGTON -- Gov. Sarah Palin's supporters got yet another request to donate money this week, this time to her political action campaign. Seeking a bump in the committee's fundraising numbers by the June 30 deadline, SarahPAC sent out an e-mail soliciting as many contributions as possible by day's end today. "Please give before June 30th. Your help is critical," wrote SarahPAC spokeswoman Meghan Stapleton in an e-mail sent Monday from the political action committee. Stapleton was referencing the deadline for reporting donations to the PAC from the first half of the year. The report is due to the Federal Election...

Lefty journalist Todd Purdum has a hit piece in the new Vanity Fair on Sarah Palin. You don’t have to be a big Palin fan to recognize the article is full of dubious claims, and is dependent on self-serving stories provided on background by some of the people who ran the McCain campaign into the ground. Here’s a highlight of Purdum’s reporting: “More than once in my travels in Alaska, people brought up, without prompting, the question of Palin’s extravagant self-regard. Several told me, independently of one another, that they had consulted the definition of ‘narcissistic personality disorder’ in the...

Grandstanding against obvious and violent hate is easy – too easy. The mainstream media and politicians make a living off violent hate. Campaign contributions are raised, donations given and newspapers sold through this grandstanding against hate. On June 11, Democratic Congressman Ron Klein sponsored a resolution, unanimously passed by the House, condemning the sicko racist James von Brunn, 88, who gunned down a security guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in our nation’s capital. That’s all well and good, and something all reasonable people agree with. But it’s easy – too easy. Let’s be truthful here. Passing a resolution...

Clarity Media Group CEO Ryan McKibben announced today that the company had acquired The Weekly Standard magazine, which he characterized as “one of the most highly respected publications of public policy and political commentary in America.” According to McKibben, Clarity Media Group intends to build on the editorial strengths of The Weekly Standard’s current staff and increase the magazine’s circulation and ad pages. “We have the highest regard for the editors and staff of The Weekly Standard, particularly founder William Kristol and executive editor Fred Barnes. The Weekly Standard’s content deals with the most critical public policy issues of our...

Bill Kristol thinks President Obama isn't being tough enough on Iran. In a post on the Weekly Standard's blog, Kristol noted that administration officials, including the president, have avoided using the word "condemn" in talking about the situation in Iran right now, and wrote: Question for White House spokesman Robert Gibbs: As "things" have continued to unfold, is President Obama now willing to condemn the brutal actions of a violently illiberal regime? If not, what would the regime have to do to generate clear moral and political condemnation from our "deeply troubled" president? Some of Kristol's ideological allies, like Michael...

FBI agents visited the offices of the conservative Weekly Standard magazine yesterday after a shooting at the Holocaust Memorial Museum and told employees they'd found the magazine's address A senior Standard staffer confirmed the visit but declined to discuss it in detail. An FBI spokeswoman, Katherine Schweit , also declined to comment on the investigation. Two other sources said two FBI agents arrived shortly after 5:00 p.m. Thursday at the 17th Street offices of the magazine. They told staffers that they had found the address of the magazine on a piece of paper associated with the shooter, James von Brunn,...

"First Latina Picked for Supreme Court; GOP Faces Delicate Task in Opposition," blared the four-column headline on the front page of the May 27 Washington Post. Leave aside the Post's odd failure to put in the headline the name of the person nominated--itself a nice example of the de-individualizing effect of identity politics. Consider instead the even odder decision to highlight neither the nominee's potential influence on the Court, nor the president who picked her, but the "delicate task" faced by an opposition party powerless to block her. It was a theme the White House and much of the media...

I've read both speeches. Obama's is the speech of a young senator who was once a part-time law professor--platitudinous and preachy, vague and pseudo-thoughtful in an abstract kind of way. This sentence was revealing: "On the other hand, I recently opposed the release of certain photographs that were taken of detainees by U.S. personnel between 2002 and 2004." "Opposed the release"? Doesn't he mean "decided not to permit the release"? He's president. He's not just a guy participating in a debate. But he's more comfortable as a debater, not as someone who takes responsibility for decisions. Cheney's is the speech...

Barack Obama spoke at the National Archives last Thursday on the war on terror (not that he used that term). After paying tribute to the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, and before turning to a defense of his policies, the President of the United States said: I stand here today as someone whose own life was made possible by these documents. My father came to our shores in search of the promise that they offered. My mother made me rise before dawn to learn of their truth when I lived as a child in a...

Barack Obama spoke at the National Archives last Thursday on the war on terror (not that he used that term). After paying tribute to the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, and before turning to a defense of his policies, the President of the United States said: I stand here today as someone whose own life was made possible by these documents. My father came to our shores in search of the promise that they offered. My mother made me rise before dawn to learn of their truth when I lived as a child in a...

"We have been through a dark and painful chapter in our history," President Obama said when he ordered the release of the Justice Department interrogation memos. Actually, no. Not at all. We were attacked on 9/11. We responded to that attack with remarkable restraint in the use of force, respect for civil liberties, and even solicitude for those who might inadvertently be offended, let alone harmed, by our policies. We've fought a war on jihadist terror in a civilized, even legalized, way. Those who have been on the front and rear lines of that war--in the military and the intelligence...

It is by now a cliché to say that the most important political event of the twentieth century has been the collapse of the Communist regimes and of the socialist idea on which they ultimately rested. True, there are still quite a few intellectuals who try desperately to distinguish one from the other, who insist that there is still some life left in the socialist idea, conceived of as a kind of immortal political soul that survives the corruption and decay of its worldly incarnations. But political ideas do not have any such Platonic or otherworldly status. They live and...

"Liberty" isn't a word you'll find in President Obama's Iranian New Year message to "the people and leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran." Nor is "freedom." Nor "democracy." Nor "human rights." Nor will you find any expression of solidarity with the people of Iran--though you'll find plenty of solicitude for their rulers. The president bends over backwards to reassure the mullahs that our government wishes them well. You'll find a paragraph addressed to "the people and leaders of Iran," as if the people and leaders were in harmony, and shared a need to be reassured that we seek "a...

The mistakes liberals like Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are making can teach Republicans how to regain power—and how to hold onto it. In recent weeks, I’ve been critical of some of the most hard-core ideological elements of the GOP. As a consequence, some have requested I leave the party altogether, and say that I am now an unwelcome member. Let me be clear: No one wants the Republican Party to succeed more than I do. I spent nearly two years on the road during my father’s presidential campaign, in my early twenties, surrounded by hygienically deficient, middle-aged political strategists...

Talk about strange bedfellows. The neocon godfather, who started a new policy group, loves Obama’s plan for Afghanistan. He tells The Daily Beast why Obama is a Democrat he can get behind. For those of you scoring at home, here’s who doesn’t like President Obama’s new Afghanistan strategy: John Murtha and Bill Ayers. Here’s who does: John McCain and Bill Kristol. One place where President Obama has followed through on his post-partisan promise is foreign policy. With centrist national security Cabinet picks, he built on the success of the surge in Iraq and managed to depolarize the most divisive debate...

I asked the boss for a reaction to the Afghan speech. He said he would have framed a few things differently, but his basic response was: "All hail Obama!"

Here is video of Bill Kristol yesterday on Fox News Sunday where he said President Obama's message to Iran over the weekend is an "embarrassment," and that he is trying to "kowtow" to Iran . . . . . Kristol is absolutely right in his assessment of Obama's message to Iran. His message is a pathetic attempt at appeasement. What Obama does not understand is that in the Asian/Middle Eastern cultures, his moves will be seen as weakness -- weakness the Iranians are very likely to seek to exploit. Obama is sending all the wrong signals to a despotic regime...

EXCERPT Though neocons formed a kind of Praetorian Guard around John McCain during his campaign, their truculent approach to foreign affairs sabotaged rather than strengthened McCain’s appeal. The best that Sarah Palin, a foreign-policy neocon on training wheels, could do was to offer platitudes about standing by Israel. It seems safe to say, then, that the neocon credo is ready to be put out to pasture. Or is it? One problem with this line of argument is that it’s been heard before—sometimes from the neoconservatives themselves. In 1988, after George H.W. Bush replaced Ronald Reagan, neocon lioness Midge Decter fretted,...

"Rule one: Never allow a crisis to go to waste," chief-of-staff-designate Rahm Emanuel told the New York Times the Sunday after Barack Obama's election. "They are opportunities to do big things." Emanuel deserves points for candor. But perhaps not for perspicacity. His assumption was that the economic crisis was and would remain Bush's crisis and that the opportunities were and would remain Obama's opportunities. But what if the crisis becomes Obama's crisis? Then the opportunities can be Republican opportunities. The first two months of the Age of Obama haven't turned out quite the way Emanuel and Obama's legions hoped and...

Rule one: Never allow a crisis to go to waste," chief-of-staff-designate Rahm Emanuel told the New York Times the Sunday after Barack Obama's election. "They are opportunities to do big things." Emanuel deserves points for candor. But perhaps not for perspicacity. His assumption was that the economic crisis was and would remain Bush's crisis and that the opportunities were and would remain Obama's opportunities. But what if the crisis becomes Obama's crisis? Then the opportunities can be Republican opportunities. The first two months of the Age of Obama haven't turned out quite the way Emanuel and Obama's legions hoped and...

NEW YORK - The New York Times is describing its newest opinion columnist as young and conservative. The Times announced Wednesday that Ross G. Douthat (DOW'-thut), a 29-year-old writer and editor at The Atlantic, will initially write online columns for the newspaper beginning in mid-April.

Ross Douthat, 29, a senior editor and conservative blogger for The Atlantic magazine, has been hired by The New York Times to write a regular column online and then fill the weekly Op-ed slot occupied by William Kristol during 2008. A New York Times spokeswoman confirmed the hiring to E&P this afternoon. Andrew Rosenthal, editorial page editor, asked by E&P's Joe Strupp why Douthat had been picked, cited his youth, Republican politics, "iconoclast" leanings and intelligence. He also said that he had interviewed several applicants after reading widely the work of many conservatives (see separate story). Rosenthal had sent around...