Can Bloody Bill just once make it through an entire column without whipping out a talking point (or ten) that is laughably refutable?

As long as they’re pointlessly simple to refute, it bothers me only on an aesthetic level. Even my dad, an instinctive centrist who voted for Bush twice, can spot the lies in a Kristol column.

Yeah Bill, if it doesn’t involve killing people you don’t like, it’s not REAL service.

“Er, Bill, if military service is so important, why did you, even though you were of military age at the height of the Vietnam war, choose to sit it out and instead dodge volleys of gunfire in the Harvard Quad?”

Why Clif, can’t you understand he’s fighting the war of ideas? That’s even more important than the regular kind of war. Any Bronze caste shlub can shoot someone!

I read the whole Kristol abomination piece (honestlyly), yet find the first line the epitome. How sadlyly that no one has asked the poor deluded neo-con huckster to give another commencement speech in the last 7 years. Why, if only his father owned a college, by God then Billy Boy would have an annual forum to implore our nation’s best and brightest to emulate not emulate him in volunteering for the war in Vietnam occupation of Iraq. And then the world would be a better place. The End.

The starting salary for a polisci grad is how much? This is what I get for taking a career path where the ads list “low pay” as a benefit.

Inflation, inschmation. I mean you can still buy a 1985 car for $2000.

Here’s a Lincoln he could properly pimp out. The $250 left over would get him some sweet ass rims.

The $250 left over would get him some sweet ass rims.

Yeah, I’d say about an hours worth. Not a mental picture I was looking for, but whatever.

Well you see, Bill Kristol probably *mentioned* how great military service was during the Viet Nam war. He just thought it was great for *other* people to go.

This makes him not a hypocrite because – look! Bright shiny thing that’s not a flag pin! Kill it!

I wrote to Billy-boy to ask him about why he didn’t go to Vietnam if he thinks military service is so wonderful but I haven’t heard back from him. I’m sure he will have a perfectly valid explanation.

My first job out of college in 1979, I made $12,000 but inflation was so high we were getting two 20% raises per year. So a starting salary in 1984 of $12,000 was not very good.

Is Kristol including the drool bucket in that assistant’s salary? Or is that deducted from their first paycheck?

Brooks and Dunce: my favorite humorist duo. Their op-ed section has replaced the daily crossword as my favorite NYT puzzle. They’ve created the text version of those old “What’s Wrong With This Picture” brainteasers and served it with a heaping plateful of pedantry.

It’s always edifying when an elitist prick who attended one of the most exclusive prep schools in the nation as a springboard to a post-Ivy League sinecure lambastes other people for not joining the military or for spurning high income for public service.

Gerald Curl said,

June 4, 2008 at 17:48

Brooks and Dunce: my favorite humorist duo. Their op-ed section has replaced the daily crossword as my favorite NYT puzzle. They’ve created the text version of those old “What’s Wrong With This Picture” brainteasers and served it with a heaping plateful of pedantry.

They could do a Hocus Focus version as well. All they have to do is print Kristol’s op-ed column next to a factual news article on the same subject, and then you have to spot six differences between the two.

To be fair to Bill (as much as I loathe doing so), he’s not saying that editors of the Weekly Standard should come with military service, he’s saying that Presidents would do well to have some military background. It’s not a key requirement for me in a President, but it may be for some people. So, Clif, I’m not sure your point is especially chuckle-worthy on THAT ground.

However, a better point would be acknowledging the blatant hypocrisy of this article with what Bill Kristol wrote about the military backgound of the candidates in 2004. Where was the outrage then?

Another aspect that deflates this argument is timing. After all, we were actively engaged in a pretty big war-ish activity when Bush and Kerry were in their early 20s, so I can understand, if not agree with, an attack on Clinton (or Rush, or Newt, or Mitt, or…) for not serving. But Barack turned 18 in 1979- why should we have expected him to enlist if he thought he could do more good helping people here in the States? I mean, would he really have better served his country by serving in a Cold War army than by helping less fortunate Americans?

I distinctly recall my prospects in 1982 of starting a job with my little BA at ~$17,500. I did not consider it enticing. $12k in 1985 was a miserable salary. Hell, I was a summer intern in 1984 at $10.50/hour.

I think Bobo is way better than Kristol. Yesterday he scoffed at the idea that Republicans would be polling better if they were more conservative. The dude’s full of shit, but every once in a while he says something smart.

I mean, would he really have better served his country by serving in a Cold War army than by helping less fortunate Americans?

Well, you should ask the Germans.

Who’s Kristol’s surgeon? A little heavy on the botox, but the chin lift and eye tucks are holding up surprisingly well.

I was gonna say, that’s like, $4,000 a year less than I was making 1985, and I barely made it out of high school. I mean, granted, I’m female, but even so.

In 1985, I made $16,500 as an assistant manager at Popeye’s Fried Chicken, but even that came with guns pointed at me. Oh! And a used 1979 Pinto station wagon, baby blue: $1900. Bet if I’d finished high school, I couldn’t had an awesome Dodge Dart.

Why Clif, can’t you understand he’s fighting the war of ideas? That’s even more important than the regular kind of war.

Heh. You don’t hear that “war of ideas” spiel much anymore, now that it’s clear they’re losing that war too.

And the current starting salary for graduates with political science degrees, which is what Obama received from Columbia, is $43,594.

The starting salary for a polisci grad is how much? This is what I get for taking a career path where the ads list “low pay” as a benefit.

Seconded. I mean, maybe this is a really dumb question, but just to make totally sure, “graduates with political science degrees” means that you got a bachelor’s degree and you majored in Political Science, right? Because if so, damn, I’m getting paid less than half the average.

… I guess it isn’t all that surprising, really. My alma mater was less prestigious than Columbia, and I think my area has a lower cost of living than most, and unlike me a good chunk of poli-sci majors went on to law school or whatever, and so on. But still, it’s a reality check.

I wish somebody would take his column away and put a pie in his mouth that he can’t chew or spit out.

The dude’s full of shit, but every once in a while he says something smart.

I get the sense that Bobozo’s love of imaginary centrism is genuine, and that he isn’t merely using it as a front for supporting right-wing nutjobs (hi, Michael Barone! hi, David Broder!). Much in the same way you can really tell Ed Wood really really loved making movies.

Whenever someone smooshes a pie in Kristol’s face, an angel gets its wings.

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Can that vein in his forehead

PLEASE JUST POP ALREADY?

The man looks like he is eternally struggling on the can.

it’s about what we pay entry-level editorial assistants today at The Weekly Standard.

That’s a high salary for a monkey with a typewriter.

I gradjitated in ’86, and my first job out of the box was running a small-market AM radio station (program director/news director). I made under $11K the first year.

Realizing that I was never going to be able to pay off the student loans with that kind of scratch (let alone save up for grad school), I enlisted in the Army. Once I got to my first duty station, I realized that I had pretty much doubled my pay. And scored the GI Bill into the bargain.

Being bashed in print by Kristol should be a requisite to running for public office … he’s that consistently wrong.
Let us hope that The Yoda Of Stupid continues to enlighten America as to what Obama should’ve said – so everyone knows without a doubt that he said the right thing.

Kristol said:

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.

I took Kristol’s complaint to be that Obama wasn’t trying to entice the graduates into enlisting. It’s no secret that army enlistment standards are racing downwards as promised rewards for signing up are increasing, but recruiters are still struggling hard to meet quotas. Where are we going to get soldiers so we can stay in Iraq for a hundred years while invading Iran?

Clearly Kristol believes Obama should put in a word with the graduates encouraging them to join up. It’s not as though they’d be denied educational benefits to earn their graduate degrees unless they sign up for additional years of service. It’s not like army doctors are being ordered to under-diagnosis PTSD. It’s not as though they’d have to wait for months for an appointment for treatment if they got a diagnosis. It’s not like their tours of duty might be lengthened unexpectedly. It’s not as though they’d be put into sub-standard barracks or hospital quarters. It’s not like they’d be denied properly armored trucks or given contaminated water. It’s not as though mercenaries would be making lots more money for doing a similar job for private companies. It’s not like they’d be at the mercy of boneheaded leaders who would squander their sacrifice in worse than useless military actions. It’s not like they’d be asked to perform actions that resulted in the deaths of innocent civilians with no clear benefits to the U.S.

Yeah. Why didn’t Obama urge those graduates to join up ASAP? He certainly could have done that with a clear conscience.

Whenever someone smooshes a pie in Kristol’s face, an angel gets its wings.

Spicy wings with extra bleu cheese, to be precise.

So, is the inability to write factually correct columns an actual indispensable and essential job requirement at the New York Times, or is it merely a “nice-to-have,” one of those all-else-equal tie-breaker qualities?

“Oh Stewardess, I Speak ‘Nut”

Best new username I’ve seen yet.

I was making 20,000 as an entry level computer programmer at around that time in Chicago and I was just getting by in my 325 a month studio apartment and ’67 Mustang. Man, I wish I still had that car.

I was making 400 quatloos per gladiator match, but my sweet-ass ride could go from zero to Warp Seven without anyone having to lean back and forth across the soundstage.

Whenever someone smooshes a pie in Kristol’s face, an angel gets its wings.

Are you openly advocating the delicious violent overthrow of Bill Kristol?

Because, if you are… OK, then.

Whenever someone smooshes a pie in Kristol’s face, an angel gets its wings.

In honor of the late Utah Phillips, that should be a Moose Turd Pie.

“Oh Stewardess, I Speak ‘Nut” Surely that’s the best new username I’ve seen yet.

Fixed. Thanks, Brandi.

$27k…/2…that’s £13.5k sterling. No, that’s poverty pay in any language. And if that’s what the Weekly Shithouse pays, you can see who they’re recruiting as interns – people who don’t need the money.

You totally photo-shopped that top pic to make it a Kristol/Bush/The Joker hybrid, didn’t you?

…right?