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Go Home Bill Kristol Measures The Drapes

JONATHAN CHAIT AUGUST 23, 2011

Bill Kristol Measures The Drapes

BY JONATHAN CHAIT

The Weekly Standard's editorial moves beyond its familiar ritual of predicting victory and begins simply assuming it as settled fact:

In 2013, we’ll need action on the order of 1933 or 1981. Hoover, Carter, and Obama will go down in the history books as failed one-term presidents. Will Obama’s Republican successor be remembered as acting on the scale of FDR and Reagan?

As is always the case with Kristol, you have to examine anything he writes with the question in mind, what political end is he trying to achieve here? My guess is that this is part of his fervent campaign to draft Paul Ryan into the presidential race by persuading him that he'd likely win.

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I suspect that President Perry would be more likely to challenge the neocons than President Ryan, so it's understandable Kristol would prefer the latter.

- rayward

August 23, 2011 at 12:43pm

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President Perry won't stop with the neocons, he's also gearing up to challenge biology and the weather. All Ryan can offer is some pithy 20 year plan to end human evolution.

- Pnaut

August 23, 2011 at 1:05pm

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I think Kristol's daydreaming on a summer day at the end of a dock with his foot in a pond, chewing on a long piece of straw. Does he really think the Republicans have anything to offer on the economy? Like what?

- Nusholtz

August 23, 2011 at 1:18pm

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Bill Kristol is predicting a Republican victory? Oh, thank God. Now we can sit back and relax; a Democratic sweep of House, Senate, and White House is assured.

- Dausuul

August 23, 2011 at 1:21pm

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Paul Ryan? Why not Sarah Palin?

- miceelf

August 23, 2011 at 2:11pm

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Nusholtz, like what? Like tax cuts for the wealthy, spending cuts for the rest of us, and deregulation. That'll work, for sure, just as it always has before...

- ramcat

August 23, 2011 at 3:32pm

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ramcat -- exactly.

- Nusholtz

August 23, 2011 at 4:58pm

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It certainly doesn't look all that good for Obama to tell you the truth.

- MikeB.

August 23, 2011 at 5:09pm

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What awesome policy is Kristol fantasizing about? A double US invasion of Iran and Syria with the US forcing Israel to annex the West Bank and expel all the Palestinians to Jordan? Perhaps maybe also an invasion of Lebanon? Maybe placing nuclear weapons on Taiwan? Bombing North Korea? A doubling of the DoD budget along with an elimination of capital gains taxes?

- MikeB.

August 23, 2011 at 5:16pm

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:) Pnaut

- IggyPop

August 23, 2011 at 5:42pm

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