Remembering 2007: the Day I Didn’t Punch Bill Kristol in the Throat

by shep

I am not a violent man.

Yes, I’ve fought for sport - light contact only (sort of). And I like football (the American kind) as long as no one is seriously hurt.

And I think that strictly measured violence is sometimes justified if necessary to protect the weak or defenseless. For example, I thought that the Clinton Administration’s campaign to stop the Serbs’ genocide was justified even though possible war crimes were committed.

But violence out of any base emotion (greed, pride, anger, envy, etc.), with the possible exception of pure fear, disgusts me and demonstrates a throwback mentality in any post-19th Century human being. So my wife was quite surprised when I told her that I had started having these invading thoughts about accidentally running into Bill Kristol and, without hesitation, punching his lights out.

Now most people haven’t much of a clue the role Kristol has played as an agitator and cheerleader for the most reckless and traitorous policies of the Bush Administration, they just know him as the smug, arrogant and consistently wrong bloviator employed by “news organizations” such as Fox and Time Magazine and now, The New York Times. As smintheus put it:

” You would be hard pressed to find another private citizen who has had a more pernicious influence on American foreign policy than William Kristol.”

So that’s how I justified these uncharacteristic flights of violent fantasy, as a sense of implementing some rough justice. The plot thickened when I read Digby’s suggestion to attend this at just about the time my wife was going to be in DC on business. I was honestly curious to see the-nothing-conservative-about-him Kristol defend the conservative movement he had just helped manage to destroy.

So I signed up, got to town, went down to the Press Club, got my pass, staked out my seat and stepped up to the buffet table. Where, what to my wondering eyes appeared right in front of me on the other side of the ham salad but Mr. Bill Kristol. As he stood there, engaging in obviously uncomfortable small talk with the guy next to me, our eyes met and for one second I thought of reaching for the knot of his necktie and clearing the table with his smarmy, pasty face.

Just as quickly, I felt a wave of disgust and pity wash over me and it was over. I got my lunch, wrote my question (something like” “if the conservative movement was valid enough to win in the marketplace of ideas, why did it have to create conservative-only, billionaire funded think tanks and alternative “news” outlets to sell its case?”) and watched Robert Kuttner make mincemeat out of Bill Kristol. As it turned out, that and the crowd reactions were more than satisfying (and since it was free, a lot less expensive that a battery charge and civil suit).

Postscript: on my way out we held the elevator as (debate moderator) Karen Tumulty jogged in and joked that she was just happy that no one had thrown any food. I pointed out that ham salad makes a lousy projectile and we all chuckled a bit at the imagery.

Here’s to a (more) peaceful New Year.

[Cross-posted at E Pluribus Unum]

Explain This To Me

How on earth does a neocon warmonger like Bill Kristol work for editors who write this and maintain any sense integrity?

Out of panic and ideology, President Bush squandered America’s position of moral and political leadership, swept aside international institutions and treaties, sullied America’s global image, and trampled on the constitutional pillars that have supported our democracy through the most terrifying and challenging times. These policies have fed the world’s anger and alienation and have not made any of us safer.

In the years since 9/11, we have seen American soldiers abuse, sexually humiliate, torment and murder prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq. A few have been punished, but their leaders have never been called to account. We have seen mercenaries gun down Iraqi civilians with no fear of prosecution. We have seen the president, sworn to defend the Constitution, turn his powers on his own citizens, authorizing the intelligence agencies to spy on Americans, wiretapping phones and intercepting international e-mail messages without a warrant.

We have read accounts of how the government’s top lawyers huddled in secret after the attacks in New York and Washington and plotted ways to circumvent the Geneva Conventions — and both American and international law — to hold anyone the president chose indefinitely without charges or judicial review.

Those same lawyers then twisted other laws beyond recognition to allow Mr. Bush to turn intelligence agents into torturers, to force doctors to abdicate their professional oaths and responsibilities to prepare prisoners for abuse, and then to monitor the torment to make sure it didn’t go just a bit too far and actually kill them.

The White House used the fear of terrorism and the sense of national unity to ram laws through Congress that gave law-enforcement agencies far more power than they truly needed to respond to the threat — and at the same time fulfilled the imperial fantasies of Vice President Dick Cheney and others determined to use the tragedy of 9/11 to arrogate as much power as they could.

Oh yeah, this was actually snark. You could tell by the way I used the word "integrity" in the same sentence as Bill Kristol. Funny, huh?

(H.T. Tristero)