Bill Kristol Writes New Partisan Column That Compromises Everything He Pretends To Stand For

 New York Times "lightning rod conservative" columnist Bill Kristol today continues his titular free fall from superficially respectable-sounding "foreign policy conservative" to "comically shameless Republican purveyor of cynical misinformation who does not actually believe in or fact-check anything." We recommend you sit down before reading this snippet from today's column: "Should voters be alarmed by a relatively young or inexperienced vice-presidential candidate? No." He adds that Teddy Roosevelt and Harry Truman were both new to the scene when their bosses croaked in office, and they turned out just fine. This is the same Bill Kristol who has spent all summer deriding Barack Obama's relative youth and inexperience. Why do we even bother...

Here's the full paragraph:  

Should voters be alarmed by a relatively young or inexperienced vice-presidential candidate? No. Since 1900, five vice presidents have succeeded to the presidency during their term in office: Teddy Roosevelt in 1901, Calvin Coolidge in 1923, Harry Truman in 1945, Lyndon Johnson in 1963, and Gerald Ford in 1974. Teddy Roosevelt took over at age 42, becoming our youngest president, and he’s generally thought to have proved up to the job. Truman was V.P. for less than three months and had been kept in the dark by Franklin Roosevelt about such matters as the atom bomb — and he’s generally thought to have risen to the occasion. Character, judgment and the ability to learn seem to matter more to success as president than the number of years one’s been in Washington.

What a stunning paragraph to come from Bill Kristol, because this is ALL TRUE. No sarcasm either! Experience, to a certain extent,isan empty metric by which to judge a candidate, because every now and then new events or situations will develop in the world, believe it or not, and the traits a president will need are steady temperament, intelligence, and confidence in judgment.

How shocking that it took the selection of Sarah Palin for conservatives such as Bill Kristol to realize this after months of bashing Barack Obama's inexperience, exclusively. And yet how bizarre that Kristol -- who we *thought* had built his career on and evaluated himself by cataloging as many random facts (or assumptions) about foreign policy as possible -- is not GOING UTTERLY INSANE over one notable fact, which is that Sarah Palin has never said a single thing about foreign policy in her career.

 A Heartbeat Away [NYT]