FNS: William "The Bloody" says the surge has worked--to benefit McCain.
By Nicole Belle Saturday Jan 12, 2008 7:02pmIt's Sunday, so it's time for William "The Bloody" Kristol to pull more factoids out of the orifice of his choice to further his (and only his) agenda.
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Download | play (h/t Heather)
In the discussion of John McCain's "surprise" win in New Hampshire (don't let that polling that showed him ahead all the way up to the primary sway you) to rise from the dead of pundit-declared lost candidacies, Bill Kristol has just one factor that won it all for McCain: The surge.
KRISTOL: McCain advocated the surge, defended the surge. It was unpopular; people thought...two-thirds of his own campaign wanted him to abandon his position on Iraq. He stuck with it. He showed guts, he showed intelligence. The surge is now working, very, very well. And McCain, Republicans, like it.
LIASSON: And he held two town meetings. He worked his butt off.
KRISTOL: He worked his butt off too, but I don't think...that wouldn't have mattered, he could have had town meeting after town meeting. And if many voters had thought that perhaps it was a mistake to go into Iraq, we didn't change strategy effectively, it would have been disastrous for McCain. So he was identified with the surge, he is the most credible Commander-in-Chief. That's what worked for him in New Hampshire.
Leave aside the new and improved definition of what it means that the surge "has worked," does it surprise any of you to know that Kristol is completely and utterly wrong, again?
New Hampshire Republicans said the economy was the nation's most pressing issue, with the war in Iraq barely edging illegal immigration for second place. McCain, 71, fared well among those preoccupied by the economy and the war.
Four in five New Hampshire Republicans are worried about the economy, and they preferred McCain over Romney (with Huckabee and Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, tied for a distant third).
Nearly two-thirds of the Granite State's GOP voters approve of the war in Iraq, and that group gave slightly more votes to Romney than to McCain. But McCain more than made up the deficit by winning big margins from the one-third of GOP voters who disapprove of the war.
So, in a classic case of voting against your interests (or, in other words, the platform upon which all of the Republican party rests), NH Republicans who are against the war voted overwhelmingly for the biggest war cheerleader in Congress today (outside of Joe Lieberman). Way to go, smart guys.
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Oh no. Not this loser again.
By the way. Kristol is one of McCains advisor's. He's behind this McCain campaign.
Every day when I wake up, I thank GOD that I am not Kristol.
What a disaster.
This type of blog is against the interests of the American people.
Nicole, why do you write here about what Bill Kristol says?
Are you looking for something to say?
Bill Kristol should be ignored.
My money is on McCains going to be the front runner. Don't forget this the guy who threw a fit-tantrum on Sept 11 because we didn't immediately nuke Afghanistan.
L.A. Confidential @ 5:
L.A., my bet is Hillary vs. McCain, and McCain wins.
VietVet8666 @ 4:
I couldn't disagree more. Besides being spawned from a line of rightwing fanatics, Kristol (for worse and worser) is an influential player in the world of rightwing disinformation. He is an integral part of the well-coordinated and well-funded VRWC slimebucket. His statements must be challenged in the strongest way, every step of the way. The once effective RW tactic of "repeat a lie often enough and it becomes truth" is no longer as effective as it once was thanks, in part to progressive blogs.
So I say: hit 'em hard! Challenge! Defend! Enlighten! Expose them for what they are: frauds.
Bit delusional Billy? Even if this supposed strength were to get McCain the Republican nomination (it won't), it would get crushed in a national election, as most Americans don't have our heads up our collective "orifices of choice" when it comes to this war.
I always love the way fat ass Republicans "worked their ass off"
If he thinks riding the surge is the winning horse, then Kristol keeps his remarkable .000 lifetime batting average. The surge failed, the deaths are still there, the animosity is no less, there is no working government, but the players are better armed.
There is no spin to sell the imperial occupation. And when McCain tries, his candidacy goes in the same toilet as the Bush legacy.
VietVet8666 @ 6:
Not with a motivated Dem voter base he won't.
This seems to be something peculiar about GOP voters. How is it that otherwise intelligent people can look at something that by any reasonable measure is a bad idea to them and think that the best way to keep it from happening is to vote for someone that is most closely identified with making that measure happen.
I don't accept that it is just a matter that all GOP voters are dumb as rocks. It is tempting to believe that but I just cannot bring myself to think it is the whole story.
I havent seen any recent polls so its hard to say. My inclination is that McCain is just a blip on the radar in NH and that someone else will edge him out. His odd speech after the NH win just reinforces the idea that he is just too f'ing old to put in the hours.
But Kristol is right that the "surge" (aka bribing of sunni and shiite leaders and the short term troop increase) has calmed things down for now. So it is a plus for McCain.
"L.A., my bet is Hillary vs. McCain, and McCain wins."
And America rides the bullet train straight to hell, singin' bomb-bomb-bomb, bomb-bomb Iran.
theWalrus @ 7:
I agree that the misinformation of the wingnuts need to be challenged, but outside of Keith Olbermann, how many takes these people on? Our media has failed us when it comes to reporting facts and debunking the garbage that is thrown at us. If the MSM was doing its job, Kristol wouldn't be able to get a paid gig as he would have zero credibility.
theWalrus @ 7:
I would add that the name of this site is "Crooks and Liars".It's obvious purpose is to monitor the doings--nefarious or otherwise--of our shiny happy right wing friends.I would have thought that fact would be self evident.
theWalrus @ 14:
Clinton won't take us into WW3.
VietVet8666 @ 6:
Lord help us. I watched him speak a couple of times and his mind is not sharp, his jokes are repeated over and over already, and he has a "my friends" tourettes which is going to drive people crazy. Lastly he looks haggard now and is 71. I don't think he will physically be able to make it through another year of brutal campaigning.
Kay, may I beg to differ but until we remove our head from the "Diebold Orifice" the war will continue and we will be told the majority voted to keep on killing.
"If the MSM was doing its job, Kristol wouldn’t be able to get a paid gig as he would have zero credibility."
Forget the MSM. Really. It's hopeless. They are bought and paid for. Their "journalists" are politico-starfuckers, their owners could care less about what the people need or want. That's why the progressive blogs are so vital and important.
Andy @ 18:
He's the ultimate flip flopper also. This guy changes positions and flip flops so fast I wonder sometimes if they have a wireless cattle prod implanted up his as*.
Being blackmailed by Sunni terrorists is now called a success by the republicans. America will pay them half a billion dollars not to attack our troops. What do they think will happen when that money stops? How could congress ever have approved this spending? This is definitely something that will never be discussed on television.
Bush the Liar @ 22:
Just like everything this administration does, they didn't ask for approval from congress.
I just wish the Dems would start tar and feathering the Republican candidates with George Bush's 7 years of failed policies and disasters. Everytime they speak. I mean, how much more unpopular can a President get? They are an integral part of his party. The Party that has failed, miserably. Make 'em one and the same so that when the voters go to vote they'll see Bush's face where the Republican nomimee's is.
"The surge has worked." "The surge has worked." "The surge has worked." "The surge has worked." "The surge has worked." And on and on and on. It's working based on what? Kristol's word? Bush's word? Cheney's? It's more spin.
VietVet8666 @ 6:
mccain is two breaths away from senility. he is not presidential material. that aside, he does not have the intelligence to read even those speeches written for him.
dadams @ 26:
Knowing the Cons they would wheel him around the White House Comatose, roll him up to the oval office desk, pick up a rubber stamp, put it in his hand and help him stamp whatever bill they want to get out.
Bill HR134684 Authorizes continued looting of the American Treasury. Stamp.
dadams @ 26:
McCain is evidence that the republican presidents are not the ones who call the shots. They are just mouthpieces for the corporatists who really call the shots.
Nicole, I love what you do and have a lot of respect for you, but will you please, please stop calling him William "the bloody", this guy is a douchebag, do nothing, meaningless, hack pundit. He has no balls, no courage, and no say about anything. William "the cheerleader", or William "the hack", or even William "the Butthead" fit - but calling him bloody gives the connotation that he might have some idea what combat actually is.
How about William "the pasty"?
Hopefully soon: William "the unemployed" =)
VietVet8666 @ 4:
No!
Make 85% of America understand that Kristol is "pure fuckin Evil"! Than ignore him!
I didn't know Kristol was McCain's advisor, what a shame for McCain-
Kristol & O'Reilly must share the same brain - they never let the facts get in the way of their own delusions of grandeur!
If Bill Kristol says it's raining outside, feel free to go out and suntan.
Bill Kristol: Wrong On Everything, Guaranteed!
C'mon .. BE FAIR !!
Kristol said the SUCCESS OF THE SURGE is what won McCain the NH Republican Primary -- not his support of the war.
Kristol even acknowledges that 2/3 of his own people wanted him to "abandon his position on Iraq" but THE SUCCESS OF THE SURGE is what changed their minds!!
Yeah. I know. How can one be impressed by the success (?) of the surge AND be against the war .. but there you have it.
Willy "Can't Miss" Kristol is making more predictions?
Where can I make book against whatever this moron says?
tjb @ 9:
When I Republican talks about "working his ass off," I always think, "Wow, that's a lot of work!"
jimbo92107 @ 35:
Then you know they're lying.
Kristol makes me suspicious. I mean, the man is chronically wrong. You can almost make a universal constant out of his stuff: 'If Kristol says A is true, A will therefore be exactly not true'. Now, where the problem comes in is that since despite the rule, people still have him talk. He might, just by statistical likeliness, hit on something true. And when a neocon stumbles on something true, you will be hit over the head with it forever.
=my2c
BC
The Surge, by definition, has FAILED -- the stated intent was to create a situation where the factions in Iraq would negotiate an arrangement that would permit the government to operate effectively and democratic reforms to take root -- that has NOT happened. Therefore, anything else going on in Iraq is irrelevant -- if there were ZERO US troops and Iraqi civilians being killed, the surge would still, by definition, be a failure, because the factions have not even attempted to settle, the government is ineffective, and the democratic reforms can't take place.
If you enter the Daytona 500, the obvious intent is to finish 500 miles and be in first place at the end of the race. If you finish 495 miles, you can't claim victory. If you finish 499.99999 miles you can't claim victory. If you finish second, you can't claim victory. Why, then, is this administration allowed to keep changing the definition of success and claim the surge is working, when the stated intent has not come close to being realized?
i only read the blurb
But
He is right!
listen folks ... spin it as you like
but
the surge worked enough to slow the violence
that helps the people on the ground
less death = good
I cant stand the war or the folks who waged it
but
we must accept that the mess is ours dem or repug
so if it slowed the violence it did work
did it fix the many other problems no
ugh
Ron @ 28:
My take is the Cons don't even care if they win They've achieved their objective and are shoving McCain out there for the base (all show) so when The Dems get in they can cut and run. They know The Dems will be to busy to even have time to run them down.
b @ 39:
When did the surge actually begin? I believe it was Febuary or March. Then they said they didn't have all the troops deployed all the way up to June and still had more U.S. casualties than previous years. And you say the surge worked? Get real.
Of course there's less violence since we've murdered over 4% of the population, I should expect the violence to drop by that much.(23 Million at the start of the war over 1 million dead)Not to mention 2-3 million who have left.
BTW George Bush was never President he just plays one on T.V.
please stop ripping on mccain's age....age is not his prob....his soul is
he lost his soul in 04 when he embraced bush
the man wants to be president so badly that he lost the things that made him palatable to the masses, and that must be killing him slowly
Isn't SURGE the same as escalate? Or is it one of two motions in osculate? And if so we are all getting humped BIG TIME!
p-funk-diddy-blaster @ 3:
Every day I wake up, I ak God, "Why, if you love us, is Bill Kristol still Bill Kristol?"
Way tired of hearing how the f'n surge has worked. I think it isn't that simple. The neighborhoods have segregated, the walls were put up, many folks flat out left the country, folks got tired of having their friends and family killed so they teamed up with the troops ( for a small fee ). It wasn't just the extra boots on the ground. Surge this!
theWalrus @ 7:
I agree 100%. He has been proven wrong on every single drive he has incited, yet he retains a platform to further poison American values and thinking.
If the MSM was even remotely interested in promoting "Truth" over this bastard's Fiction, life would be a lot easier in America.
I have always had saith that the American People would make the right decisions given the facts, and I still do. The problem, is that for so many years, the facts have been denied the American public.
Some asshat from Australia has dictated for so many years what the American public is "allowed" to know, that we no longer know which end is up if we listen to the MSM.
Finding out what is really happening in our world takes time and research independant of the MSM,
You wonder why the economic situatiopn in America is what it is? I don't.
If people are too busy at two or three jobs to make ends meet, there is no time to investigate or do research for the truth.
This was the original purpose of the fourth estate, to keep us abreast of what was happening in our world. This has been perverted for profit by the likes of rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes.
I beg of you, if you truly love America, do your homeworl and don't let the MSM pick your candidates. They are out for themselves, and not for you.
God! I hate these people. Why do they give these assholes a platform? I don't understand how disconnected the people of this country are about our political enviroment! What can we do to tell Americans that they are being played like a bunch of saps? Maybe if half of them read a friggen newspaper once in a while!
"NH Republicans who are against the war voted overwhelmingly for the biggest war cheerleader in Congress today (outside of Joe Lieberman). Way to go, smart guys."
That may or may not be the case. The primary in NH was BULLSHIT, run on completely unsecured Diebold tabulators (80% of all ballots), and they let the Diebold fraudsters replace memory cards, chipsets, whatever they wanted. They "unsealed" and then "resealed" the security seals which are supposed to be in place throughout from the time of certification to the end of the election canvass and any court or state-ordered recounts.
Go fish. We got screwed again, and now the pseudo-media (even the blogs) wants to wallpaper over another turd.
More neo/psuedocon spin from Faux Noise, the surge is not working and McCain is insane. Kristol the bloody is totally wrong as usual.
b @ 39:
I, along with many others I'm sure, disagree with your claim that the surge worked. Of course violence slowed in the areas where extra troops were deployed. Common sense tells us that people aren't going to be violent if there are suddenly 20,000+ extra troops ready to make you pay for your violence. Do you drive faster when you see the speed trap on the side of the road, or do you slow down? The violence just moved to other regions of Iraq (don't forget about Afghanistan either). But the real purpose of slowing the violence was to allow for political reconciliation among differing sects of Iraqis so that occupying forces could leave, and Iraq could deal with its own problems. That country is no better off now than it was before the troop surge, so it has failed. Militarily, the surge worked (allegedly), but politically it didn't. I don't know where you are from, but where I live, 1 out of 2 is 50%, and not successful.
It's Sunday so it's time for lefty blogers to write yet another piece about Billy KKKristol. The man who is never right basically because everything he says is a lie. If you think it's only HIS agenda then you haven't understood the point of the neo-con movement. If you really cared about stopping it (and Billy the guttless) you would expose these people for what they are: traitors to America, war criminals, Zionists. There are two kinds of neo-cons, the kind that want to make money off the death and suffering of millions, and the kind that wand Israel to expand and rule the Middle East. I don't care if Israel expanded to rule the entire Middle East, I just don't want to pay for it or fight for it. If that's what Israelis want, THEY can fight and pay for it.
You do a real disservice to your readers by portraying these people as clowns that are washed up and lost. They are deadly serious people with a decades long agenda that is still moving forward. They are far from lost and far from finished. And if you think Hillary or Obama are going to stop them, then maybe you need to review the voting records of those senators.
Amazing that anyone listens to this guy with out slapping his face with that shit eating grin of his.
Every time I hear this buffoon talk, he sounds more and more ridiculous. I can't believe he's still around.
Kristol is the chairman of PNAC, the think tank that includes Dick Cheney. To understand the agenda of this dangerous man, neocons, and how it was set up to influence as many people in Washington as possible it helps to read this primer.
WTF??-I thought these places had standards.
Taken from Kristol wikipedia page
Kristol graduated in 1970 from The Collegiate School, a preparatory school for boys located in Manhattan. In 1973 he received a B.A. from Harvard, graduating magna cum laude in three years. He received a Ph.D. in government, also from Harvard, in 1979. During his first year of graduate school, Kristol roomed with fellow conservative and government doctoral candidate Alan Keyes. In 1988, Kristol ran Keyes' unsuccessful Senatorial campaign against Paul Sarbanes in Maryland.
After teaching political philosophy and American politics at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, Kristol went to work in government in 1985, serving as chief of staff to Secretary of Education William Bennett during the Reagan Administration, and then as chief of staff to Vice President Dan Quayle under the first Bush Administration. The New Republic dubbed Kristol "Dan Quayle's brain" upon being appointed the Vice President's chief of staff
Call a spade a spade. A surge is an escalation. Everytime we use the word "surge" instead of "escalation" we buy into the Bush administration's semantic spin.
the beltway bumpkins have made baal statues in McCain and Betray Us' honor
I don't have the slightest idea of WTF I'm talking about!. But, being a wingnut welfare nepotist, it really doesn't matter. I make lots of money, and I'm wrong more often than the weather channel!
Hahahahaha..................And those dumb-asses at the NYT's just hired me too, Hahahahaha.........
you guys really spend time listening to these clowns huh?
give me two minutes and i could summarise what they've said the past 10 years without even paying attention to them
but i guess someone's gotta keep an eye on the maniacs...better y'all than moi
Surge? Surge?
What's there to be proud of?
=>chimpy told lies about Iraq. A country that didn't do shit to us.
=>he bullied, rallied up assholes, promised "untold wealth" to his buddies then "shock-and-awe the hell out of Iraq.
=>We were told an Iraqi wounded and body count won't
be toldbe kept by the military.=>chimpy dismantled Iraqi's army.
==>The leader of Iraq and a lot of his family were killed by chimp's kangaroo court or by bombing.
=>chimpys military won't train Iraqi police.
=>chimpy supplys "both sides" with arms.
=>chimpy doesn't know "al Qaeda" from a hole in the ground.
=>chimpy sends in more troops to bomb the hell out of Iraq again...this time chimpy calls it a "surge."
For what purpose?
FOR CHIMPY'S MANIC EGO.
What the hell is there to be proud of? More dead bodies?
These are the kind of people this disgusting media continues to present to us. This cheap thug, along with Thom Delay and Karl Rowe are people that need to be in jail and not all over our networks, still lying like the dogs they are.
This unscripted media has no control at all. They just shove any and everybody, willing to lie, cheat and steal from American citizens, out and in our faces.
This is all done for the big bucks these ass holes are making. How sad for this country.
Actually I suggest the GOP try to remind the American people during this election how better off we are since we torture others now, spy on our own citizenry, redistributed money into the hands of the wealthy form the middle class and poor, borrowed this country into servatude debt for a long time to come, invaded Iraq for the WMD they knew exactly where hidden, provided Gov't contracts with law breaking immunity, How the surge was to completely establish a Iraqi Gov't by providing a space of peace to foot itself.
Are these someof those?
Why aren't the GOP candidates running on Bush and his accomplishments?
And McCain, how glad he is that more troops were killed and we slaughtered more Iraqi's.
Now thats a real bragging rights issue....................
The surge hasn't worked until we can GET THE FUCK OUT.
The anti-war folk voting for McCain is the microcosm of what is wrong with our democracy. I propose that every voter be quizzed with 20 questions pertaining to the events of the day, some historical events, and events from the previous four years. They will be allocated "voter points" based on how many they get correct. 0% correct and you just disenfranchised yourself. 50% correct = .5 of a vote for your favorite causes. 100% = 1 traditional vote for your candidates.
A stupid populace habituates the organs of government to ignoring the will of the people. Is it any wonder that our ruling elites just whatever the fuck they want without reference to what the people want? Heck,if I were them, I KNOW I wouldn't be listening to the stupid people.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
The Surge, or at least how it is being portrayed particularly on right wing outlets is indeed the wave McCain is riding. The irony is that these conservative outlets that are trumpeting the successes of the surge dislike McCain almost as much as they dislike Huckabee.
LA Confidential:
Ain't that the truth! Much like the way Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond were pushed around until they were certifiably expired. Nothing will stop these people when money is involved, they are drunk on power and privilege and will stop at nothing to keep the cash train running. Sticking a broom up McCain's ass to prop him straight in a chair and drugging him senseless would not be beyond the pale for them.
Being here in NH, I think I can say with confidence that the Rethuglican vote for McCain was simply a choice of the lesser of three evils. Being more libertarian than evangelical, most found Huckles strange and scary and many remembered very well Romney's pandering to the left in order to get elected governor of Massachusetts, also his strong ties to the Mormon church don't sit too well up here either. People around here are pretty quiet and conservative about their religious views and New Hampshire has a very strong French Canadian-Catholic population that usually votes Republican that deep down distrusts protestants of any stripe.
That Republicans historically vote against their own interests I think has only become more apparent as Reagan galvanized the white working class male vote in the 80's by exploiting the bigotry and misogyny that the Democrats had erroneously thought they'd wiped away.
If I had to make a guess and if Bill Kristal can get paid to who says I can't, I'd say Huckles will do well in the south, Romney better closer to his home base, but McCain will hold his lead. We can only hope a Clinton/Obama ticket will face McCain. The issues of sexism and racism in this society need to be pushed to head and people forced to look at themselves in the mirror. I'd like to see what the choice will be. Either way, its going to be an interesting race all the way.
"the surge is working" is a complete myth, the reason violence is down is because the UK has pulled back from Basra and allowed the Iraqis to take control, the south has now effectively been lost.
The US changed strategy and began arming the sunni's they had been fighting to go after the foreign fighters ("al qeada") so for now the guns are off the US, although americans are still dying just at a slower rate.
Moqtada Al sada called his army off and has effectively called a cease fire for the time being.
as Ron Paul recently said "THIS WAR IS NOT OVER", no matter how the MSM is trying to paint it, for obvious reasons, election coming up = take Iraq of the debate table = benefits top tier candidates of both parties.
Have people forgotten "mission accomplished" ?, we've been here before when the likes of Bill Kristol have proclaimed victory prematurely, anyway with hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead and 4 thousand US servicemen and 170 UK service men, there is no victory to be had, it's already a tragic mess.
How stupid is the New York Times for caving in and putting this moron on the payroll???
I'll let Tom Tomorrow indicate....
http://www.salon.com/comics/tomo/2008/01/07/tomo/
There should be an upper age limit to run for POUSA.
I suggest 60. If you served 8 years you'd be about 69 at the end of the final term.
I'm a geezer, 68 years old, and there are very, very, very, very few geezers that I want in charge of anything other than walking the dog.
McCain is already senile. Imagine what he'll be like in 4 years.
Billy Crystal... he's such a Comedian.
;)
Everything Bill Kristol says about the surge in Iraq is true--it's WORKING! Regardless of Americans' apparent willingness to heed the Left's propanganda machine, President Bush is slowly turning the war into a success story. This may be a terrible inconvenience for Democratic candidates this year all over the country.
L.A. Confidential @ 27:
Absolutely right. How many hears was Ronnie Raygun a certifiable drooler and yet he was still trotted out to periodically to gut America?
"hears" = "years" btw.
I think that the GOoPers (and we) should be more concerned with who McCains' running mate is. I mean, he had a big fucking melanoma removed from the side of his head a few years ago and folks, unless he got IV interferon for a whole year, he is a timebomb. These tumors just LOVE the brain. And when they come back, you are DEAD. And they ALWAYS come back. Personally, I don't want a dead man walking in the White House. They have nothing to lose.
Perhaps The New York Times hired Bill Kristol in order to fire him. And perhaps calling Bill Kristol "a serious, respected conservative intellectual" should not be taken as praise for Bill Kristol but as a rebuke of conservatism.
72: "The surge is working."
Time to change your Depends and head down to the rec room. They're working on a Dick Cheney jig saw puzzle down there, and will re-fill your glass of Kool-Aid. Don't worry, they have Fox on the TV down there.
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