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Go Home Kristol Lite

THE PLANK AUGUST 22, 2007

Kristol Lite

BY TNR STAFF AND TNR STAFF

My latest TRB column is about how Bill Kristol (and, to some extent, neoconservatism in general) has abandoned its idealism and its intellectual content, and has sunk to hoary, illiberal pro-war arguments. Matthew Yglesias chides:

this is silly -- neither Kristol nor The Weekly Standard has changed. It's just that The New Republic used to join up with neoconservatives to bully people who disagree with its foreign policy views and now TNR is being bullied. It wasn't The Weekly Standard that this article calling John Mearsheimer and Steven Walt un-American. Nor was in The Weekly Standard that published this article about how liberals don't want to invade Iraq because they don't like advancing America's interests. Nor was it The Weekly Standard that analogized MoveOn to Stalin-controlled Communist agents.

This is a strange rebuttal. He doesn't even attempt to contest my argument that Kristol's public discourse was once driven by idealistic humanitarian goals (nevermind how successfully his methods would achieve them) and has since abandoned them. He simply assumes it away and moves straight into an ad hominem attack on -- well, not even on me, but the publication I write for, by citing several past TNR articles that purportedly fall into the same vein as Kristol's writing.

He probably assumes, correctly, that his audience will not read the articles he cites and will simply rely on his characterization of them. But his characterization is highly misleading. The article on Walt and Mearsheimer calls them "un-American" because it points out that ethnic lobbying on foreign policy is a venerable American tradition. Krauthammer's piece conceded that "Liberalism does not lack for patriotism" and that "American liberals are not pacifists," but argued that liberals are averse to using American power in the pursuit of pure national interest, except in the case of self-defense. Beinart's article did analogize Moveon's opposition to fighting al Qaeda in Afghanistan to left-wing communist fellow travelers, but an analogy is not a comparison.

You can disagree with some of these articles -- and I mostly disagree with Krauthammer and partially disagree with Beinart -- but I don't see how you can call them bullying or deny that they lack real intellectual content. What Yglesias is doing here is simply defining "bullying" so broadly that his definition sweeps up almost any foreign policy criticism of liberals from the right. Indeed, by his definition, much of Yglesias's own writing -- which frequently compares his opponents to Nazis -- would qualify as bullying also.

In any case, even if he were right -- even if TNR printed articles that were nothing more than mindless sloganeering -- I don't see how this in any way refutes my argument that Kristol's writing has become less idealistic and more reminiscent of classic right-wing jingoism.

Update: Ross Douthat criticizes my column on the grounds that TNR has not editorialized about Iraq since May. It's logical non-sequitur day at the Atlantic!

--Jonathan Chait

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30 comments

i don't think you focus on the decline of kristol as much as his machiavelian nature.

- benberger

August 22, 2007 at 12:36pm

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Wait, did you really write "an analogy is not a comparison"? Please do not make me go and cite the number of dictionaries and thesauruses in which "analogy" and "comparison" are given as synonyms. They do not measn precisely the same thing, but if you make an analogy you are engaging in comparison. dcat

- derekcatsam

August 22, 2007 at 12:49pm

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wwhhhaammmm, and he is down for the count. that one got by the censors at TNR.

- blackton

August 22, 2007 at 1:01pm

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Why do TNR scribes waste so many cycles responding to "Matt Yglesias"? Who is he, what's his audience, why does he matter outside the magical mystery world of blogblathering?

- teplukhin

August 22, 2007 at 1:04pm

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Another question: how do you pronounce his name? I like to think it's /WHY-glay-sias/.

- ratnerstar

August 22, 2007 at 1:06pm

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Here's Kristol and Kagan from January 30, 1998 op-ed in the NYT: We can do this job. Mr. Hussein's army is much weaker than before the Persian Gulf war. He has no political support beyond his own bodyguards and generals. An effective military campaign combined with a political strategy to support the broad opposition forces in Iraq could well bring his regime down faster than many imagine. And Iraq's Arab neighbors are more likely to support a military effort to remove him than an ineffectual bombing raid that leaves a dangerous man in power. Does the United States really have to bear this burden? Yes. Unless we act, Saddam Hussein will prevail, the Middle East will be destabilized, other aggressors around the world will follow his example, and American soldiers will have to pay a far heavier price when the international peace sustained by American leadership begins to collapse. If Mr. Clinton is serious about protecting us and our allies from Iraqi biological and chemical weapons, he will order ground forces to the gulf. Four heavy divisions and two airborne divisions are available for deployment. The President should act, and Congress should support him in the only policy that can succeed. Let me suggest that one man's idealism is another man's "batshit crazy warmonger already dangerously detached from anything resembling reality", but hey, that's just my opinion. The intellectualism, though, and all the amazing ideas are so incredible that I'm sure 12-year olds and a few TNR authors must be truly impressed.

- jfabermit

August 22, 2007 at 1:09pm

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Plus, in what sense was MoveOn.org the ideological bedfellow of either the al-Qaeda movement or the Taliban regime which harboured it? Call it an analogy or comparison, Beinart's assertion fits snugly into the larger framing of the so-called GWOT which enabled the advocates of the Iraq War to demonize opponents of the war or the way it was being carried (or those who doubted the competence of Team Bush to organize a pissing contest in a brewery). It also worked well with Beinart's half-assed historical parallel, or analogy, or comparison, of the immediate post-9/11 moment to the famous split in the left following WWII, a framework that was no less weak for being obvious. None of which served to make it either fair or true, any more than the constantly reiterated canard about Chamberlain and Munich.

- alberti

August 22, 2007 at 1:10pm

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I meant "carried out" for "carried".

- alberti

August 22, 2007 at 1:13pm

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No, before you move on or snark, I wish you'd read my question again? When, precisely, was Bill Kristol this dreamy idealist who wanted to spread sweetness and light throughout the world? I still have not seen any examples. Do they even exist?

- Fairfax

August 22, 2007 at 1:32pm

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Matt Yglesias blogs for, among others, The Atlantic Monthly. One can only assume that TNR contributors regularly discuss and debate Mr Yglesias' writings because they respect him enough to do so.

- Fairfax

August 22, 2007 at 1:33pm

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The snippets of his stuff I've seen show him to be the typical blogger: a concatenation of sneers and smirks with the occasional foray into analysis of topics on which he has no particular insight or expertise. I suppose The Atlantic's editors are thinking they've got to make sure they have some kind of offering for those Krazy Kids who're shaking up with the world with the innernet thing. Sort of like Pinch Sulzberger buying up About.com.

- teplukhin

August 22, 2007 at 1:42pm

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Of course you are right on the "thuggery" of Kristol, might Yglesias nonetheless raises a good point. The treatment of the Walt and Mearsheimer paper by TNR was nothing short of disgraceful, and it mimics whta Kristol is now doing to TNR over Beauchamp: picking out minor errors to trash something for purely ideological reasons. I liked the old TNR, and I like the new TNR even better. But it needs to cast off the last vestiges of the neocon worldview, and that means its insanely biased approach to Israel. Is that simply the influence of Peretz or soemthing broader? And why do we need so much coverage of Israel in the first place, anyway? As for Walt and Mearsheimer, the best response was Michael Massing in the New York Review of Books. Highly recommended. And again, a very very low point for TNR.

- tonyannett

August 22, 2007 at 2:02pm

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The treatment of the Walt and Mearsheimer paper by TNR was nothing short of disgraceful WTF? I read careful rebuttals by three esteemed academics-- Michael Oren (Harvard), Josef Joffe (Stanford), Andrei Markovits (U Michigan)-- whose credentials rival those of WalMears. These rebuttals, unlike the slipshod WalMears' London Review of Books piece that Oren rightly characterized as being of tinfoil-hat caliber, were solid, well-argued, amply documented with evidence. They could stand review by any serious panel of the authors' academic peers. Frankly, TNR has give WalMears more courtesy and thoroughness than their ridiculous thesis merits. Advantage, TNR. btw, TNR is much, much more than Marty Peretz. Try searching within TNR's own archives for pieces by Joffe, Oren, et al. Oh, and you might be surprised to learn that Joffe's never been a friend of the neocons.

- teplukhin

August 22, 2007 at 2:39pm

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I, too, have just finished reviewing the TNR pieces on Walt and Mearsheimer and I've concluded that anyone who thinks their treatment was "disgraceful" simply thinks that any disagreement whatsoever with W & M is disgraceful.

- cfoster1

August 22, 2007 at 3:04pm

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All this talk of bullies and thugs just indicates how unserious this is. Chait and Yglesias haven't seen a real thug or bully in quite some time, if ever. Real bullies don't write biting articles or mean editorials. Real bullies push you down the stairs. Real thugs throw you to the floor, sit on your chest and beat you in the face. Kristol is not thug; you just don't like him. And TNR is far from a collection of bullies; pencil-neck geeks, maybe, but bullies, please. Don't mistake insults and argument for intimidation. You guys should get out more.

- tdneeley

August 22, 2007 at 3:09pm

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Can you really not see how TNR

- egibson

August 22, 2007 at 3:24pm

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Reading the remarks of my esteemed colleagues who wonder who this Matt Y is makes me chuckle a bit. The new challenge the old and my guess is that the reason the striplings at TNR respond to Matt Y is because they know that he is a rising star in the blogoshere, he is, among the younger staffers here at TNR, a contemporary, and more and more people are reading his blog, hearing his name, and referencing his opinions. In other words, he is hot in the current market and competitors/contemporaries know, almost by magic, who they're being compared to. This sort of reminds me of that TNR article two years ago when Bush didn't know who Barack Obama was and when Bush said that he had never heard of him, the Obama supporter said, "Oh but you will Mr. President, you will."

- MrCookie1

August 22, 2007 at 3:33pm

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Interesting to see the blogger and The Spine discussed seriatim. They occupy the same media category: off-the-cuff personal attacks and idle musings laced with sneers. The difference of course is that TNR in addition to The Spine continues to offer a broad and deep array of the very best academic talent AND top-notch young journalistic talent to be found on either side of the Atlantic.

- teplukhin

August 22, 2007 at 3:59pm

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First of all, read what they say themselves. Then read the Michael Massing piece, the fairest commentary out there. I remember it well: I had not even heard of the W-M paper when my TNR issue came with multiple denunciations. Don't get me wrong, I love the magazine, but I'm sick of the pro-Israel bias. When you are on the same page as the National Review and the Weekly Standard on a certain issue-- you should know something is not quite right.

- tonyannett

August 22, 2007 at 4:12pm

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Funny you should mention this. I too love TNR and I always take EVERYTHING they say about Israel and the Middle East with a veritible mountain of proverbial salt. I too remember the preemptive strike on the W and M piece and the Carter book. I won't go as far as to say that I don't trust TNR in this area but I recognize their bias and blinkered perceptions. As for The Spine, well, I read that for comic relief....

- MrCookie1

August 22, 2007 at 4:22pm

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I'll grant you Massing's piece is very good. I'm not saying NYRB aren't good at what they do, but let's be honest: Tony Judt's hysteria on this issue didn't reflect so favorably on NYRB. Not Spine-worthy, OK, but he's also rather excitable and not very reliable-- just in the other direction. What I'd like to see is an online point-counterpoint thread argument between Oren-Joffe-Markovits OTOH and Massing and a few other partisans of the other side.

- teplukhin

August 22, 2007 at 4:25pm

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When you are on the same page as the National Review and the Weekly Standard on a certain issue-- you should know something is not quite right. I suppose, if one insists one's biases always be flattered. For me, I read to be challenged, not bored by constant reaffirmation of my own opinions.

- cfoster1

August 22, 2007 at 4:31pm

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"...but an analogy is not a comparison"

Wow, talk about sophistry!

- jm_rice

August 22, 2007 at 5:00pm

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"As for The Spine, well, I read that for comic relief...." Really? I have read some of your (among other's) brick-a-bats with Peretz over at Subluxation Central, and I didn't detect anything comedic, let alone a relief. ;-)

- tomeg

August 22, 2007 at 6:45pm

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hee, hee...one man's perception of comedy may be another bloke's perception of grief... Though I sure am enjoying Marty's sabbatical. I do sorta miss jacksondyer though. Appears that Marty is the bait to get that loveable grouch engaged. No Marty, no jackson. I am working on my Peretz obsession...really I am...

- MrCookie1

August 22, 2007 at 6:51pm

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I cannot compare you to a Nazi or a Communist, because I know nothing about you. But I can say that you are analogous to a Nazi and a Communist, because you subscribe to magazines that somewhat fit your political affiliation (TNR), just like a Nazi subscribed to Der Stuermer or a Communist to Pravda. If you know anything about the SATs, the reason they took analogies off the new version is because ANYTHING in the world can be made analogous to anything else, and it doesn't have to be remotely comparable.

- achester99

August 22, 2007 at 7:03pm

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My mother caught me subluxating one time. I've never been more humiliated, before or since.

- williamyard

August 22, 2007 at 8:24pm

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whoa...nazis...communists...der stuermer...pravda? where did all that shit come from? I do agree that comparison and analogy are not really all that alike. Comparing two items is not necessarily saying that they're analogous but still, why the hyperbolic markers? and if subscribing to magazines that "somewhat fit our political affiliation" is a marker for latent Nazism or Communist leanings, then practically everyone who subscribes to any magazine fits into your definition. Which, in truth means that it is meaningless... achester, please try to control your inner acolyte...

- MrCookie1

August 23, 2007 at 10:12am

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The guy is a scumbag of the Markos Moulitsas style, a self-aggrandizing loud little creep. He's the Left's own Grover Norquist. Taking him seriously is a mistake. You help him this way.

- sleepyavl

August 23, 2007 at 6:18pm

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To use an earthy phrase, that disquisition of yours, above, is so full of shit its eyes are brown. (And I mean that in the nicest possible way.) I have five dictionary definitions of "analogy" in front of me and every last one of them includes the words "similarity", "comparison", or both. There is neither a philosopho-jargony nor a common vernacular use of the word "analogy" that will support the statement "an analogy is not a comparison." An analogy is not an equivalency, in general. But it is a comparison. Where you have no comparison, you have no analogy. Words mean things.

- austinexpat

August 24, 2007 at 2:26pm

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