Wonkette
New York Times “lightning rod conservative” columnist Bill Kristol’s youth and young manhood was exactly this: Manhattan prep school, Harvard, more Harvard. Since then, he has devoted his career to sending other young people to die in catastrophic wars based on a false ideology of pre-emptive regime change. But as he notes in his column today, despite these great achievements, he can’t write an adequate commencement speech!
Kristol begins with the predictably insular self-descriptive cocktail party monologue:
I gave one at a college about seven years ago. I labored over it, consulting orations from years past, writing and rewriting drafts. I ended up with remarks that struck me — even while I delivered them — as banal and platitudinous. Luckily, no one seemed to be paying much attention — and at least I kept it short. I don’t think I did too much damage to the enjoyment of the day by the graduating students and their parents.
Since then, whenever I look at the annual roundup of commencement addresses, I can’t help but admire those who can pull off this mode of speechifying.
Then the predictably ominous transition to a famous person who recently gave a commencement speech:
Barack Obama, you won’t be surprised to learn, can pull it off. He spoke on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., pinch-hitting for Senator Ted Kennedy, on the theme of service to our country. The speech was skillfully crafted and well delivered, the grace notes were graceful, and the exhortations to public service seemed heartfelt but not cloying.
Hey, that’s nice, but will it last? No, because Bill Kristol fucking hates Barack Obama:
More striking is Obama’s sin of omission. In the rest of the speech, he goes on to detail — at some length — the “so many ways to serve” that are available “at this defining moment in our history.” There’s the Peace Corps, there’s renewable energy, there’s education, there’s poverty — there are all kinds of causes you can take up “should you take the path of service.”
But there’s one obvious path of service Obama doesn’t recommend — or even mention: military service. He does mention war twice: “At a time of war, we need you to work for peace.” And, we face “big challenges like war and recession.” But there’s nothing about serving your country in uniform.
Well maybe he has a small point — Barack could’ve mentioned military service, since it’s mostly po’ kids who are fighting Bill Kristol’s War in Iraq.
But at an elite Northeastern college campus, Obama obviously felt no need to disturb the placid atmosphere of easy self-congratulation. He felt no need to remind students of a different kind of public service — one that entails more risks than community organizing. He felt no need to tell the graduating seniors in the lovely groves of Middletown that they should be grateful to their peers who were far away facing dangers on behalf of their country
There’s no period at the end of that last sentence, because Kristol cannot type. But what can Kristol do? He’s already done so much. He’s shown these elite prep school students who then attend “elite Northeastern” colleges that the only honorable way to show gratitude is to fight in wars. Kristol may not have fought in a war himself, but he did generously create a war for these graduates to fight in today. And it would be disrespectful for them to leave such a great opportunity on the table.
What Obama Left Out [NYT]
Bill Kristol gets invited to cocktail parties?
Young Billy loved lighting his little army men into plastic pools. He couldn’t wait to see the same thing happen in real life.
ronaldpagan: Cock Tail parties, as is the norm with closeted repubs.
I gave a blowjob at a college about seven years ago. I labored over it, consulting oral-ations from years past, sucking and resucking drafts. I ended up with semen marks that struck me — even while I delivered them — as anal and shaped like a platypus. Luckily, he didn’t seem to be paying much attention — and at least I kept it short. I don’t think I did too much damage to the enjoyment of the day by the graduating students and their parents.
What now? Billy? What are you saying now?
This retard is officially ape-shit. He’s now writing crap about what Barry DOES NOT say when addressing a small podunk-elitist commencement? WHY DO YOU HAVE A JOB? What the NY times should do is put this half-wit cock-brain back on the streets of Camden, where he probably sold coke to various Republican jackasses for many years before writing a sentence that made sense. I hate you Bill Kristol. I am so sick of these baseless attacks on Barry. SURE he’s not perfect, but seriously- attacking him for what he DIDN’T say? Eat me.
Sorry the comments on the Political Machine post are really, really pissing me off today.
I always thought he did a good job with the Oscars.
We see them after school,
In a world of their own;
To some it might seem creepy what they do…
“Banal and platitudinous” sums up everything Kristol has ever written. Why should a commencement speech be different?
And for Kristol to recommend military service redefines “chutzpah.” He needs to give this speech to the Bush twins. Mary Cheney gets a pass since she’s a carpet-muncher unfit for service (sorry, my dander is up from watching L Word repeats).
bill kristol is fighting the war over here, so he doesn’t have to fight it over there.
“Obama failed to challenge — even gently — what he must have assumed would be the prejudices of much of his audience and indulged in a soft patriotism of low expectations.”
You know the neocons have reached a new level of desperation when a chickenhawk assails an openly anti-war candidate for not engaging in hypocritical chickenhawkery. Oh, and Bill? Obama also didn’t exhort the graduates to jump into a punji-stick-filled tiger trap either. Or are you saving that sin of omission for a future column?
“I ended up with remarks that struck me — even while I delivered them — as banal and platitudinous. Luckily, no one seemed to be paying much attention.”
He should have left it at that.
We can’t help it. When blowhards reach that portly age where we can’t see our dicks anymore because our bellies are in the way, we realize that damn, we should have joined the service when we were young instead of getting our asses paddled at that fraternity rush. So when we get a chance to give advice to the young, it’s don’t foget to do your part, youngster. Join the Marines, join the Army. Freedom isn’t free, ya know. Me? Well, no, I had this back problem, ya see…..
metropolitan: Brilliant!
Y’know what, Jim that was perfect, just nailed the tin soldier right on his ass, excellent, cuz I can’t even laugh at these asstards anymore.
By the way, I attended an elite northeastern prep school and an elite northeastern college, I most certainly fought for my country: in the Great Hotchkiss Dance-Off Massacre of 1996. (”Be My Lover” by La Bouche won, by the way.)
Oh My God, Barry forgot about the existence of the U.S. military!
He didn’t mention the CIA or FBI! He musta forgotted about them, too!!
He totally looks like an upscale pedophile.
Mr. Herpes: Well spoken, gov’ner.
This country’s bullshit embrace of military heroism as the ultimate metric of courage makes me mad enough to give up on war entireley. Is that an option?
Peggy Noonan is going to write a column explaining that Kristol is a sociopath, any day now.
I hated City Slickers, and was blown away they made a sequel to that shit.
“Hey kids, great to hear that you spent the last four years reading books, writing papers and becoming educated citizens. But, hey, have you ever thought that maybe now is the right time to go the other side of the world and risk life and limb for the chance to further a mis-guided, mis-managed war? Any psychology majors out there that want to study PTSD from a patient’s perspective?”
Kristol is right, Barry should totally be recruiting for a war that he has totally supported and pushed since day 1 or his political career. Thanks for the campaign advice Bill, now go back to your alma-mater and do some recruiting yourself.
Kristol is genius! “Placid atmosphere of easy self-congratulation” perfectly describes the attitude of every right-wing pundit during the first months of the war.
obfuscator: Upscale? He’s no more upscale than Putin!
http://images.google.com/url?q=http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2006/07/07/putin_wideweb__470×351,0.jpg&usg=AFQjCNFPwxkfHF3Owb-E_A0buHOrhgSnFQ
(I wish we could embed!)
So if Billy’s facts in this column are as tight as usual, I’m pretty sure Barry’s commencement address went something like this:
“Thank you for inviting me to speak here today. Congratulations, graduates. Please go join the military today.”
RaptorAvatar: If only they had cared so much about military service 8 years ago.
Bill Kristol is such a cock. The irony of his bitching about elite sheltered Northeastern college students is staggering.
Obama failed to challenge — even gently — what he must have assumed would be the prejudices of much of his audience and indulged in a soft patriotism of low expectations.
What’s a soft patriotism of low expectations? That sounds dirty.
ForTheTurnstiles:
Zappa!
Pop Socket: Yup. Reminds me of my days in catholic school when priests and nuns would preach abstinence with their worldly experiences in that area. Now, if they said something like,”Don’t fuck altar boys,” well, at least you’d have to give them credit for knowing a thing or two about the subject. In much the same way, I think Mr Kristol could probably extol the virtues of hiding from public service. That seems to be something he knows quite well.
I aways imagined, if Satan offered me a one-day visitor’s pass to hell, that I would use it on the day Dick Cheney died.
I’m now thinking I’d save it for when Kristol kicks, just to see the surprised expression on his smug mug as he slides down the chute.
According to Wikipedia, Kristol has three kids. Has he encouraged them to serve in the military?
Everytime this guy puts pen to paper, I hate him even more.
ronaldpagan:
Isn’t that phrase a rip for a Bush speech? The soft tyranny of low expectations?
Anyway, what a weiner.
obfuscator: It’s actually “soft bigotry of low expectations.” Which, for instance, got Dubya elected president in the first place — so you know it’s dangerous.
And leave aside whether $14,000 in 1985 was really such a shockingly low salary for someone recently out of college — in
inflation-adjusted dollarsautographed remainders of my books, it’s about what we pay entry-level editorial assistants today at The Weekly Standard.Corrected.
My favorite part is when he says that what Barry made as an organizer was equal (with inflation) to “entry level editorial assistants”.
With inflation, $14,000 would be about $28,000. That is the pay in Chicago for someone who graduated from a “Northeastern elite” school. I’m guessing that he could have done better than that, since I went to a crappy midwestern private school, graduated with a degree in history, and make more than that working for a University. Not to mention the fact that being a community organizer isn’t like working for a newspaper. It isn’t as though he knew that in a couple of years he could work his way up, and make more money.
The point of him mentioning his income was that he could have made more. He could have found a job with more stability, more potential, but instead he took a job that meant something.
I don’t know why I’m even writing this. It is just really frustrating.
Oh, and I thought that was a picture of Mike Gravel at first.
Speechify? This sounds like something Harry Potter should say while waving around a wand.
Sheesh, what sort of loser college do you have to go to to get Bill Kristol as your graduation speaker?
But don’t blame Bill to much for this column, as it looks like he stole lots of it: http://rememberthemidwest.blogspot.com/2008/06/nytimes-oringal.html
http://www.americablog.com/2008/06/plagiarism-on-nyt-op-ed-page.html
Uncle Al:
Yes, but then how do we know if he is talking about his speach or his columns?
To think that I wasted 6 years in the Navy, when I could have gone to prep school, and Harvard, and become a real patriot. I know…but I’m ashamed, so that should count for something.
Robert Gates spoke at my friend’s commencement. Apparently the thesis of his speech was that everyone in the entire audience needed to go enlist immediately, that moment. He was not popular.
The Times Arts and Leisure section needs reviews which deconstruct what is not said/shown/sung in plays/movies/operas. The Book Review could run articles on books that haven’t been written and authors who won’t write them.
There is so little of actual consequence happening in the world today that The Times employs hacks to write about what doesn’t happen at inconsequential events.
Miles Davis once said, “It’s not the notes you play, it’s the notes you don’t play.” Is Billy Kristol taking inspiration from this jazz legend?
Billy Kristol’s corollary to that statement, “It’s not the facts you check, it’s the facts you don’t check.”
Son of Mark Penn: “It’s not the facts you don’t check, it’s having no facts at all. This has made me an excellent commentator for the Times.”
This is basically like writing a column complaining that Obama doesn’t wear a flag pin when he showers.
And leave aside whether $14,000 in 1985 was really such a shockingly low salary for someone recently out of college — in inflation-adjusted dollars, it’s about what we pay entry-level editorial assistants today at The Weekly Standard.
This is my favorite part of his entire body of work thus far. When I graduated college in ‘96, I got a job that paid about $19,000. My rent was dirt cheap — $350 a month. I had no car payment. I had a bit over $20,000 in student loans to pay off. And for the next year and a half, until I got a new job, I was “rooting under the couch cushions for spare change to put gas in the car” broke. When my junker’s transmission died, I had to put a couple thousand dollars on my credit card, where it stayed for the next two years until the new job let me pay it off. I paid my bills, bought groceries, ordered the occasional sandwich or chinese food, and that would just about wipe out my paycheck.
In other words, Kristol is either insane, lying, or those $14,000 editorial assistants are all trust-fund wingnut welfare babies. Or I guess he could just be evil, and his editorial assistants subsist on the coffee grinds they scrape from the office filters.
Either which way, the cluelessness — it burns.
I agree with Kristol, actually. Obama should have mentioned military service. But only because every time Obama says anything about the military McCain has one of his hilarious old man freakouts.
Even the other Billy Crystal suited up before he struck out as a Yankee.
It’s hard to say what’s worse about Kristol’s or George Will’s columns — the laziness about preparing them, or the hypocrisy of their opinions.
Why is anyone surprised that Kristol served in the same unit as Cheney?
So Kristol held a breach where or landed in what hot LZ?? In what way can this neo-con clown question or request the service of anyone anywhere? Ask him next week at the Willard
Anyone remember when he played the gay guy on Soap? what the hell happened?
Is it ironic for someone who never served in the military to criticize Obama for not asking people to serve in the military? Honestly, I don’t know. I’m guessing it is though.
Also, imagine the reaction from the Rightwing media types if Obama did suggest that the graduates consider enlisting given the fact that he never joined.
What sort of loser school do you have to go to that you get Bill Kristol as your graduation speaker? Was Tucker Carlson busy that day?
The amazing thing is that it looks like Bill is having a hard time filling up his space at the New York Times on his own:
http://rememberthemidwest.blogspot.com/2008/06/nytimes-oringal.html
http://www.americablog.com/2008/06/plagiarism-on-nyt-op-ed-page.html
It must be pretty hard to write a thousand words now that they are forcing him to fact check.
Uncle Al:
True. But then how do we know if Billy is talking about his speach or his columns?
Lascauxcaveman: maybe we can make that a wonketteer field trip… we can sell tickets, newell can work the crowd selling programs, maybe we can hire some out of work pautards to act as ushers…the possibilities are endless!
Son of Mark Penn: I have to say that as a graduate student, your financial story is very familiar. I do believe having some struggle in your life (yes, Bill, getting an education is actually a struggle for people who work and pay for it) makes you appreciate what you have and any achievement you make on your own.
Personally, I plan to serve my country by using my cushy, ivy-league-esque education to develop better protection for soldiers, including friends of mine who are in Iraq as I write this.
Really, the BEST way to serve your country is to keep anyone (external or internal) from destroying it. In that sense, NYT should do its part and help deport this asshole, who probably doesn’t even KNOW anyone who has been in this war.
Oh, and the Weekly Standard must be employing illegal migrant labor at those salaries. Someone call La Migra!
Gawd, you Metros just don’t get it. The only reason this amoral, neocon piece of gutter slime pig shit biped has a job, is we give it Google points every time we mention it’s name. The only time i want to see its name in print again is when it is preceded by: The United States of America vs.
Or in an article describing a fiery mid-air collision over Crawford Texas.
Okay, sometimes i hold a grudge.
So, what sort of loser school do you have to go to to get Bill Kristol as your graduation speaker? What, Tucker Carlson was busy that day?
Uncle Al: True. But then how do we know if he is talking about his speach or his columns?
Lionel Hutz Esq.:
Kristol was filling in for originally scheduled graduation speaker Chauntzy the math problem solving horse, who had to be euthanized earlier in the week after stumbling off a stage in Greensborough NC and breaking a leg, while tapping out the answer to 5 + 7.
Another Kristolnacht in the blogosphere. Seriously, why won’t he die already?
He was circling towards the John Kerry gaffe along the lines “do well in college or you’ll have to join the military,” which despite being true is somehow offensive.
If Kristol had been in the military, or KNEW anyone who’d been in the military, he’d know that college graduates are past the age at which people (with rare exceptions) decide to join. Both officer and enlisted recruits are generally 18-19. The officer candidates go to college on ROTC scholarships, or to the academies, and the enlisted folks go to boot camp.
Seriously, what percentage of Ivy League or equivalent Northeastern elito-graduates will actually join the military after college, without a prior commitment? 1/1,000 of 1 percent? Less? Obama might as well have told them about the wonderful opportunities of assistant-managing a McDonald’s.
Speaking here as a career reserve officer with two wars (and a big roll of blubber) under my belt.
Serolf Divad:
Was Kristol able to provide the answer?
He was great at the Oscars though…