Nomadic “lightning rod conservative” pundit Bill Kristol sees your North Korea and raises you a BOMB NORTH KOREA. Bomb what? Where? What in North Korea? Just bomb it? Yes! UPDATE: Oh look Sara already posted about this! Well this video is bigger. [Media Matters via Matt Yglesias]

Man, our Monday news is just such a bummer! You got your lost French airliner, your dead abortion doctor, a venerable car-maker going bankrupt, and now the Republicans have quit shouting “racist bigot” at the nation’s first Hispanic Supreme Court nominee, so there is pretty much nothing fun or funny to talk about today. Thankfully, Bill Kristol is still around for laughs. MORE »

In the words of Brian Lamb, the best human being on Earth, “Hey Ross Douthat, you seen this Wonkette thing here?” It’s a post about your New York Times “young lightning rod conservative” opinion column! It is not his debut — maybe second, or third, or fourth — but it’s the first one we’ve read so deal with it okay? It’s not bad! And because he is, again, a “youth,” he throws in many Internet hyperlinks to his sources. Clicky clicky hooray! So this post will be, unfortunately, a Civilized response to one of his points — that the grain of history favors the pro-life movement — which is less fun than just spitting blood at the computer screen, as we did for Bill Kristol. MORE »

What is the Bradley Foundation? Who knows, but it’s giving that dumb galoot Bill Kristol a $250,000 prize! No — STIPEND. Stipend? We’ll call it a stipend! What the hell? “The Bradley Foundation selected William Kristol for his outstanding achievements in a wide range of activities affecting the development of public policy from national and international perspectives. He is a widely respected conservative leader.” So it’s like a Genius Grant but with less money and given only to liars. (It is a money laundering front.) (For war.) Congratulations Bill Kristol! [Gawker, Bradley Foundation]

Even though Barack Obama is ramping up the Afghanistan war now, as well as the official policy towards Pakistan known as “Fucking Around,” what we need is more wars, all the time, doesn’t matter if they’re major land wars or just playful warring. This must be done, because if we truly want the oppressed world to enjoy our freedoms, we must first kill them in wars. Comically evil Republican handyman Bill Kristol, for example, would like to see at least one new war every day. And to get his opinion out there — because it’s not like every major media publication gives him regular column space whenever he asks — he has formed a new non-profit that is much like his old evil one, Project for the New American Century, the one founded during the Clinton years that went somewhat dormant during the Bush years when all of its members were busy invading Iraq. MORE »

Not that Bill Kristol can ever be replaced, but the New York Times has finally found a new conservative friend for David Brooks on the op-ed page! As usual, the pick is a white male, but for the first time it’s a young and dashing white male (sorry, Tom Friedman!) So let the record show that after Wonkette wrote in a post about the Times on October 23, 2008, “Just hire Ross Douthat and get it over with,” the Newspaper of Record had no choice but to comply. Congratulations, Ross! [Sigh] Why did they have to pick such a non-clown? [NYT]

JUST GIVE US ALL OF YR MONEY NOW: Peter Wehner of America’s favorite blog, The Corner, soon will be either broke or a chickenshit: “Bill Kristol… is easily among the most intelligent, creative, and articulate conservative voices in America—a fact, upon which I would be willing to bet a large sum of money, is what troubled the Times.” Well we’re willing to accept that bet! Count your assets, put a number on the table. Then we can call the Times to ask if they fired Bill Kristol because his perfection scared them. [The Corner]

We were preparing to write something else fairly epic about the end of Bill Kristol’s tenure as the New York Times‘ “lightning rod conservative” columnist, a position he accepted one year ago for the sole purpose of annoying people during an election year, but… something’s happened! MORE »

Today each of your editors was obliged to tender their own reflections on the tragic expiration of Bill Kristol’s tenure as Token Lazy Chucklehead on the New York Times op-ed page. It seems Ken does not care for this fellow, and Jim is working on some epic rant, so now your SKS will review Kristol’s most grievous sin, which is foisting the demoness Sarah Palin upon an innocent and unsuspecting populace. MORE »

Bill Kristol, the tragically dumb wingnut who wouldn’t be published beyond the Free Republic comments section if not for his famous conservative father who could actually write, was publicly fired from the New York Times this morning — ending a yearlong national comedy in which, each Monday, he would offer some banal nonsense that, if it wasn’t completely and indisputably wrong before he even typed it, would be proven to be utterly false within a few hours of publication. There’s only one way to improve a day like this, and the parody blog “Big Hollywood” has the solution: Offer $100,000 to the movie actor Matt Damon in exchange for, uh, calling Kristol a dipshit in public somewhere. MORE »

• Today is Day 1 of the Coleman-Franken battle royale. The real winners are the people of Minnesota, and also probably Al Franken. [The Corner]
• Most New Yorkers blame Caroline Kennedy for Caroline Kennedy’s decision to ruin democracy and publicly disgracing the esteemed office of Chuck Schumer’s intern by failing to get a Senate appointment. [CNN Political Ticker]
• Former (!) President George W. Bush won’t be allowed to take all of his diplomacy bonus prizes back to Texas. Such winnings include: the weird cowboy shit given to him by Australia’s PM, a (hardcover) book of sonnets from Putin, and a promise necklace from King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud. [Washington Post]
• Good to know: Bill Kristol was downsized from the Times because he was a terrible writer who made up facts for his weekly sloppy fictions, not because he is a conservative or Sarah Palin’s friend. [Daily Beast]
• RNC Chairperson Marc Ambinder has selected your new Republican Last Great Hope for 2012: it’s pretend human “Dirk Kempthorne,” which is an anagram for “Kathryn Jean Lopez”. [Marc Ambinder]

SO LONG, RELIABLE MONDAY POST TOPIC!: Sunday night news dud! Discreetly tucked away in italics at the bottom of this latest crap about Ronald Reagan and whatever: “This is William Kristol’s last column.” Jesus, New York Times, don’t get so excitable like that! FURTHER ANALYSIS IN THE MORROW… [NYT]

New York Times “lightning rod conservative” columnist Bill Kristol was among the group of East Coast elite conservative pundits who supped with communist Barack Obama last week at George Will’s oxen farm in Maryland, so we were “interested” to see what he would write in today’s edition of his war column. Alas, he simply offers a perfunctory mention of the dinner before this terrifying twist: “…I’ve found myself thinking these last few days more about the man who has shouldered the burdens of office for the past eight years, George W. Bush.” Thus begins a rant about his fellow Jews and the anti-Semitic PBS host Bill Moyers, who probably loves the Holocaust. MORE »