He had an irrational, full-throated defense of the Confederacy yesterday on MSNBC. It doesn't really make a whole lot of sense when you recall:
1. History. This was not really about the Civil War as the flags weren't brought out in the South until 100 years after the war with the rise of the Civil Rights movement.
What the flag really means is: Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!!'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLLDn7MjbF0
2. The Civil War was fought over 150 years ago. Germany has gotten over being defeated in WWII-it's not like they keep saying 'Remember Dresden'-so why can't the Civil War be let go when it was almost a century before the Reich?
Yet Kristol complains of the South being disrespected:
"Conservative pundit Bill Kristol got into a minute-long shout match with Bloomberg Politics editor John Heilemann on Wednesday's "Morning Joe" after he warned of a campaign to disrespect the memory of Confederate soldiers in the wake of the South Carolina church massacre."
http://irvingkristol.org/essay/civil-liberties-1952-a-study-in-confusion/
If you look at the interventions of the Kristol family-including the matriarch Midge Decter, is is always taking a reactionary social line.
Bill Kristol is most closely associated with Bush's disastrous war in Iraq.
This article of Irving Kristol in the New Republic in 1983 seems like downright hagiography in retrospect.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/two-cheers-irving-kristol
1. History. This was not really about the Civil War as the flags weren't brought out in the South until 100 years after the war with the rise of the Civil Rights movement.
What the flag really means is: Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!!'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLLDn7MjbF0
2. The Civil War was fought over 150 years ago. Germany has gotten over being defeated in WWII-it's not like they keep saying 'Remember Dresden'-so why can't the Civil War be let go when it was almost a century before the Reich?
Yet Kristol complains of the South being disrespected:
"Conservative pundit Bill Kristol got into a minute-long shout match with Bloomberg Politics editor John Heilemann on Wednesday's "Morning Joe" after he warned of a campaign to disrespect the memory of Confederate soldiers in the wake of the South Carolina church massacre."
"On the MSNBC show, as well as in several tweets the day before, the consistently wrong Kristol accused "the left" of trying to tear down Confederate statues and ban the teaching of speeches by Abraham Lincoln after retailers like Amazon and eBay announced they were pulling Confederate memorabilia."
"Nobody is talking about any of those things," Heilemann shot back. "Literally, I know of no one. This is the classic exercise of straw man building and knocking down."
"And I know it's fun for you. You are trolling by doing these things, because no one on the left is suggesting what you're suggesting," Heilemann said.
"The flag debate Kristol had weighed in on was itself a reaction to the killing of nine worshipers at a historic black church on June 17 in Charleston, South Carolina. The suspect, who appears to have white supremacist leanings, has been charged with murder."
"The exchange culminated in Kristol yelling, "I am not a free market fanatic!"
"Before the Heilemann showdown, he had been more or less shut down by the entire panel."
"Oh, good God," Mika Brzezinski said under her breath before quoting Kristol's tweets at length, as their author sat a few feet away.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/bill-kristol-john-heilemann-msnbc
No one was saying here that he's a free market fanatic-though he was the 1 credited with killing any healthcare reform for 20 years
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2015/06/suderman_on_rep.html
but his argument here is not very logical. Here is a tweet by him:
"The Left's 21st century agenda: expunging every trace of respect, recognition or acknowledgment of Americans who fought for the Confederacy."
The question that begs is why should their be such respect? Why do the Germans not demand respect for their fighting in WWII? Because while no doubt many young German men fought for what they saw as their national duty, at the end of the day, the reason they fought is hardly worth honoring.
How is fighting to secede from the Union to perpetuate slavery forever admirable?
P.S. Really, going back to his parents, what a sorry legacy the Kristols have. They always claim not to be free market fanatics-though on healthcare, Kristol took a line that was against any reform of the free market health insurance system.
The claim to accept some scope for the welfare state always strikes you as little more than window dressing.
However, when you think of the legacy of the Kristols you think of his father, Irving Kristol, 'holding the coat' of McCarthy and his wold accusations.
"For there is one thing that the American people know about Senator McCarthy: he, like them, is unequivocally anti-Communist. About the spokesmen for American liberalism, they feel they know no such thing. And with some justification."
If you look at the interventions of the Kristol family-including the matriarch Midge Decter, is is always taking a reactionary social line.
Bill Kristol is most closely associated with Bush's disastrous war in Iraq.
This article of Irving Kristol in the New Republic in 1983 seems like downright hagiography in retrospect.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/two-cheers-irving-kristol
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