You know, I saw Kristol on The Daily Show the other day and I wondered, "What the hell is Jon Stewart thinking?" If you're going to have Kristol on, can't you at least ask him, "Hey, have you ever been right about anything? Ever?" or "How do you feel that many people on the blogs call you William the Bloody? Does it make you re-think anything?"

But, no, just banter and pleasantness -- with a man that should be shunned and ridiculed so that he can never work again.

Good find and a good essay as well. I really appreciate this site. Keep it up

Nice catch! I had heard of such a discussion, but figured no record was likely to survive -- I thought it'd be kinda like the matter-antimatter interaction...

Anyway, you're quite influential -- up to 118 viewings!

Found at thismodernworld.com and thought it would be a wonky deal that I might read part of and run away (essay about a cspan call-in show, c'mon), but I actually really enjoyed reading this. Not just because it righteously exposed a loser who helped create piles and piles of dead bodies for no good reason, but because it was simply very well written. Guys like Kristol are often forgotten about many years later, as the star politicians are all that people remember. It is important to know who helped. While few would ever have checked the cspan store, you did that for us. You brought the news to us with style. Style helps us keep reading, and we are then rewarded with the knowledge that this guy Kristol is a first class ass. I have forwarded it to friends. Hopefully, this will be posted far and wide, so that even people who do not check liberal blogs will learn about Bill, and that we should beware that which he praises. Thanks to Tom Tomorrow, and Thank You Jonathan.

The thing that's so chilling about the interview is just how innocently depraved Kristol is. He has no idea of what he's doing or the impact it has on others. Classic sociopath behavior. And he's so damned cheerful, with that strange jester smile and the sad eyes.

What's revolting is not that people like Kristol exist, but that they are given any credibility at all in what I had once thought our civilized country.

Planet B: Jon Stewart is a comedian. I know it's easy to mistake him for a journalist because The Daily Show delivers just as much useful information as news shows do, but it's silly to hold him to journalistic standards when he's just there to lampoon current events, not critique them.

But there are a lot of news shows that should be embarrassed that they can't impart any more information than that.

Kristol and the Konservative Boys at the WS and the NR would love to be Ann Coulter, but haven't got her balls. Or, legs.
TV commentary is to thought what a Hostess Cupcake is to French pastry.

Thank you for the thoroughness of your research, as well as for the lucidity and wit with which you convey your exegesis. And still more, I thank you for your hermeneutical dexterity, your ability to coherently interpret that which you have found. I am sure that many are the times that you feel yourself to be like Cassandra, condemned to not be believed no matter the import of your insights. For my part, I prefer to think of you and other kindred spirits as sappers diligently working to undermine the - seemingly - impregnable walls around The Village. The sounds of those shovels are music to my ears.

Bravo, Jonathan! Sapping with style. I fell over laughing at Teaching Toni Morrison starts wars.

Though, of course, the joke is on us.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for the bitter, healing laughter that keeps the head from exploding.

What with the Powell thing you've been on some roll lately Jonathan - thanks for showing again that US journalism lives! - just not at the same high street addresses it once did.

This is a much-needed public service; thanks. The tsk-ing liberal in me would've been pissed that he ever got column space on NYT's op ed page, but then I come back to my wits and remember that that filthy degenerate, Michael R. Gordon still writes "articles" for the paper citing only "anonymous white house officials" that up and get published as "fact". They've taken their queue it seems from Stalin the murderous thug: "paper will put up with anything that is written on it".

While I agree this is a valuable interview/discussion,

Kristol and Ellsburg are both wrong to so blithely discuss the partition of Iraq. Jon, I realize you may see that as a prejudice on my part because of my mother's family being Iraqi, but the best way for a long lasting peace to come to pass in Iraq is if Iraq holds together, and whether it's unfortunate or not, part of that is achieved by mollifying the Turks.

Iraq in 2003 had approximately the same borders for nearly 60 years, yet people who've never met an Iraqi feel perfectly comfortable asserting that "it's not a real country," mainly because they've heard somebody else on tv make that assertion.

When De Toqueville wandered around the US in the 1830s, she was a younger country than the Iraq of 2003, but he thought she was a real country, slavery and the expulsion of thousands of royalists to Canada notwithstanding.

But then, nobody knew about how valuable oil was in 1789 or 1830...

Well, I had a prof in law skool quite similar to Kristol, and he reminded me of you people. Someone ignorant of actual facts, and blinded by ideology. I am quite certain few if any of you have any greater sense about Iraq, or the Middle East, or the world, than Kristol does. You just subscribe to different albeit ungrounded beliefs.

Yeah, but then we're not the ones trying to reshape it in our own glorious image, are we?

Congratulations. You seem to have found the one work of Machiavelli these people don't know. Then again, maybe not. They've also shown a remarkable ability to believe what they want to believe and discard the rest.

Thanks Jonathan! Kristol's case is instructive indeed. The empire's workings in a nutshell. Thanks again!

On the other hand,xyz,we do seem to have a greater sense of our limitations.Like the limitations I'd think a lawyer would be aware of when it comes to their ability to craft a sentence.

3-1/2 billion years of evolution and still producing William Kristols?
No wonder space aliens don't want to be seen with us in public.

Hey, xyz! You're an ignoramus too! Did your folks pay extra for that, or did you get it at the usual knock-down price?

Or perhaps you are just too smug (or inarticulate) to impart your invaluable wisdom to us? I've yet to see any from you.

(That's a nasty stutter, Greg.)

Well, I had a prof in law skool quite similar to Kristol,

Congratulations on your acceptance to Liberty U. Fashioning a swastika out of a crucifix is among the tougher entrance exams, indeed.

and he reminded me of you people. Someone ignorant of actual facts, and blinded by ideology. I am quite certain few if any of you have any greater sense about Iraq, or the Middle East, or the world, than Kristol does.

So, Kristol is a moron, and so are we. Any cites?

For myself, as a child of empire, I'd learned three languages and lived in four countries by the time I was 13. My knowledge of the world is not limited to book-larnin', though Araby and its surrounds are not among my experiential data (I seem to have a Semitic dyslexia, I keep reading left-to-right); but that's of no never-mind. You see, to know of Saddam's close relationship to American oligarchy requires merely an elemental reading of U.S. history, not a "sense of Iraq", whatever TF that means.

You just subscribe to different albeit ungrounded beliefs.

One might say that different beliefs are not equal in absurdity, or one might point out the difference between empiricism and belief. I'll just say, "Welcome to ATR, Billy Boy."

As I write the program has been viewed 645 times.

And, extremely tangentially - it's no lost Beatles album, but a '60s discovery of mine (i.e. it's news to me, not that it's news in general) is a Hendrix cover of Bob Dylan's "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window", on the Jimi Hendrix Experience BBC Sessions cd. Very nice.

As you say, we mustn't expect better of capitalist media. It's there to do a job, and not to report the truth.

A new media system requires a new political-economic system.

Then we can leave airheads like Kristol and this "xyz" dimwit to chatter to each other in their padded cells, where they won't bother the rest of us.

Excellent piece. It is not only insightful (inciteful?), but unlike certain of the subsequent comments - - I'm looking at you "xyz, Esq." - - it is exceedingly well-written.
I have a different interpretation of the caller's reference to American Indians, however. Given his/her use of present tense ("how we treat the American Indians"), I doubt that it was a reference to Manifest Destiny, or TR, or the like. I myself took it as a reference to our "recognition" of tribal sovereignty, all the while treating them like anything but sovereigns, including in their own land (whether you want to call that the U.S. generally, or merely the reservations). That to me is the intended parallel - but I could be wrong.
Oh, and good luck thinking about tribal sovereignty without thinking about GW's eloquent and thorough explanation of same.

'trane

@Max Kaehn:
Stewart may be a comedian, but that doesn't mean he shouldn't use his platform to challenge egregious behavior. Would you say the same thing were he to interview Pol Pot or some other murderous dictator? Interviewing Kristol and acting like he's not a cancer on humanity is immoral itself, whether one is a comedian on a comedy show or not. There is such a thing as basic human decency, even if it ruffles the feathers of the power players in our society.

Planet B: Decency? Where? America 2008? Is that what you mean?

Up to 1866 viewings.

Up to 1866 viewings. Bloody Bill is definitely in way over his head. Needs scuba gear.

"Our policy is to get rid of Saddam Hussein, not the regime."

Geez, I'm glad someone else remembers that quote. It so perfectly summed up the whole policy, I wanted it bronzed and glued to the desk of every member of Congress, every newspaper editor, and every TV/cable news direction as a daily reminder.

I have tried to play the cspan Elsberg/Kristol program in Foxfire, IE, Windows Media Player, Winamp, RealPlayer, and Quicktime. None work. I have a 2.5 Gbps DSL connection; 1GB RAM; 3.5GH dual-core cpu; 500GB HD space.

So I think somebody just might be sabotaging it. Or am I just paranoid?

Jon Harger

xyz, esq.?

More like Troll McTrollypants, esq.

More like Troll McTrollypants, esq.

You guys are humorless. I'm going with one of the regulars that's just funnin.

There's something slightly forced about the writing style that comes through. And like SteveB said elsewhere, the investment in time alone makes it suspect.

oh, crap, it's been 5 years.

I saw Kristol on the Daily Show as well and thought that Stewart threw him softballs instead of softballs.

Kristol is the Joker of the bush criminal league. He will say anything to create chaos in the Middle East in order to profit Israel.
Like Gush Pimpwhore, Kristol is an amoral sociopath.
Great catch, great article, great dissection. You're bookmarked.

Current count, less than a week later, is at 5124.

This reminds me very much of an episode of Crossfire (I think) on CNN from 1997 (? I wish someone would go look it up for me) that I happened across and was quite poignant. It was the debate about re-bombing Iraq under Clinton (though in fact the bombing never stopped). The guest was OLIVER NORTH. And the Orwellian aspect was that he was playing the dove. Of course he was still being hawkish and arguing for a ground war as being better (because we could win it)... Something which seemed absurd at the time to suggest. But the net effect was that he was arguing against the Democrat who was playing the hawk - yes we should bomb, we need to support the president (clinton then). So Oliver North was the voice of peace at that moment. Not exactly the same as your Bill Kristol bit but nevertheless a poignant moment of empire on TV.

This is a great piece of writing. Thank you.

(Though I do not think incompetance is a greater sin than evil genius - that's not your main point nor are you the champion of it... But it seems quite horrific to basically say that --- as was said many times leading into the 2003 invasion --- that the morality of the invasion is judged on if we win: might makes right?)