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You are here: Home / Kristol out

Kristol out

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It looks like the New York Times won’t have Bill Kristol to kick around anymore. From today’s Kristol column:

This is William Kristol’s last column.

(via)

Let’s just hope he doesn’t have to get Ben Stein to help him out with his interest-only mortgage.

Update: From Michael Calderone (bold mine):

It remains to be seen if Rosenthal fills the spot with a conservative or libertarian voice. But some of the writers he’s spoken favorably of include the National Review’s Byron York and The Atlantic’s Megan McArdle.

York may be worse than Kristol, if only because he’s so proud of his hair. McArdle is annoying and often glibertarian, but probably about as good as it’s going to get for the Times conservative position.

Reader Interactions

90Comments

  4. 4.

    jp2

    Still nailing the douche thing so well…his base argument:

    "Conservatives are better than liberals."

  5. 5.

    Simone

    Kristol isn’t the main problem, anyway. Pinch is the problem (maybe the fact that he ran the family company into the ditch will resonate – one hopes) . I.E, where is Friedman going? Nowhere.

  6. 6.

    Crusty Dem

    This is William Kristol’s last column.

    Sounds good, but is this just in the NYT or anywhere? Could he also stay off my TV? Please?

    Because I’ve really had enough of these idiots describing anything conservative as good and everything good as conservative (as well as anything liberal as evil and anything bad as liberal – and I’m looking at you, doughy pantload). Obama=good, therefore Obama=conservative. How about the NY Times just hire someone who’s a little smarter than that? Given their history, the answer is probably no…

  8. 8.

    Adrienne

    @jp2: He even seems to have given that one up. He basically just told the entire Republican party that they suck. Major.

  10. 10.

    The Dangerman

    Of COURSE it is his last column; it was printed today. Tomorrow will also be his last column and this one will then be the second to the last column. Time to start thinking like Republicans.

  11. 11.

    burnspbesq

    @The Dangerman:

    Time to start thinking like Republicans.

    If I ever start thinking like a Republican, just grab the biggest gun you can find and blow my head clean off my shoulders.

  14. 14.

    El Cid

    Ha ha! Fuck you Bill Kristol, you little sh*t, getting ahead by begging influence from your dad.

    I don’t care that your replacement will likely be, somehow worse; at least simple probability crowds out the chance that they could be as continually wrong as you.

    Plus, at least a few days, maybe weeks will pass in which I can enjoy your leaving, you little war-mongering nasty turd, before some meaner and even dumber right winger takes your place.

    Hopefully you’re replaced by an column alternating between Chuck Norris and some creationist.

  15. 15.

    Stooleo

    HA!

    The bitter silver lining of a bad economy. Economic hardship knows no political affiliation. See you in the unemployment office douche bag.

  16. 16.

    Incertus

    Well, it’s not like they’ll be putting a fact checker out of work at the same time. I don’t suppose it’s too much to ask that the Times hire someone intelligent to replace him, is it?

  17. 17.

    burnspbesq

    @Incertus:

    I don’t suppose it’s too much to ask that the Times hire someone intelligent to replace him, is it?

    Pray a novena to Saint Jude, the patron saint of hopeless cases.

  18. 18.

    TenguPhule

    Pray a novena to Saint Jude, the patron saint of hopeless cases.

    Is it too early for a sacrifice of Broder?

  19. 19.

    Maus

    Well, it’s not like they’ll be putting a fact checker out of work at the same time. I don’t suppose it’s too much to ask that the Times hire someone intelligent to replace him, is it?

    This is true, it could be like CNN canceling Glenn Beck to add another idiot conservative.

  20. 20.

    kid bitzer

    "you little war-mongering nasty turd"

    now look, that kind of language has no place in this discussion.

    what you should really say to kristol is, "you nasty little war-mongering turd".

    it’s important to get your word order right.

  21. 21.

    kid bitzer

    and, yeah, he may be followed by something worse, but in itself it is still a *great* piece of news.

    his presence at the nyt just kind of embodied the liberal defensive crouch.

  22. 22.

    R-Jud

    I’m holding my hosannas in abeyance until I see who the replacement is. In a just world, they’d start putting Olivia Judson’s science columns in the print edition as well as online.

    @Crusty Dem:

    Because I’ve really had enough of these idiots describing anything conservative as good and everything good as conservative (as well as anything liberal as evil and anything bad as liberal)

    Saw a great example of this last night while doing some totally unrelated product research. On a forum somewhere a woman was whining about how she had taken up co-sleeping with her second child, and it really made a difference in terms of bonding and lost sleep, but that all her friends and relatives told her it was a "horrible liberal" thing to do. "Why do [co-sleeping advocates] have to make it seem so liberal? It just makes sense, it doesn’t make me a bad, liberal person."

    /facepalm

  24. 24.

    Napoleon

    What took the NYT this long. You just know they will pick another bozo to replace him, there are so few interesting, independant more or less honest conservative writers out there (by the way, I seem to recall that there was a whole thread devoted to that topic when picking who it would be last year).

  25. 25.

    Redhand

    This is William Kristol’s last column.

    "And a good thing, too!"

    I was always amazed that The Times gave this blivid a column.

  26. 26.

    oh really

    I don’t suppose it’s too much to ask that the Times hire someone intelligent to replace him, is it?

    Being intelligent isn’t enough. There are lots of different kinds of intelligence and Bloody Billy definitely qualifies as intelligent (in one way or another).

    What the Times needs is someone who is thoughtful and has been right (not right wing) about something important at least twice in the last decade (Kristol fails both of these criteria).

  27. 27.

    forked tongue

    Well, what took them so long was that they gave him a one-year contract a year ago. I like to imagine that, in the meantime, even the Timesmen must have looked on in horror as their boy used his prestige to foist Sarah Palin on the luckless nation.

  28. 28.

    ppcli

    New York Times won’t have Bill Kristol to kick around anymore.

    Yikes. Six years after Nixon uttered that immortal line he was president. And of course ultimately got kicked around a whole bunch more. I hope that history doesn’t repeat itself, and Kristol becomes Secretary of State in the Palin administration.

  29. 29.

    Comrade Baron Elmo

    This is William Kristol’s last column.

    In light of the Kristol tradition of always being wrong about everything, I am terrified that he penned the above line himself.

  30. 30.

    Comrade Baron Elmo

    A parting shot at William the Bloody… because some folks really do deserve to get hit when they’re down:

    I remember back in the late ’90s when Ira Katznelson, an eminent political scientist at Columbia, came to deliver a guest lecture to an economic philosophy class I was taking. It was a great lecture, made more so by the fact that the class was only about ten or twelve students and we got got ask all kinds of questions and got a lot of great, provocative answers. Anyhow, Prof. Katznelson described a lunch he had with Irving Kristol back during the first Bush administration. The talk turned to William Kristol, then Dan Quayle’s chief of staff, and how he got his start in politics. Irving recalled how he talked to his friend Harvey Mansfield at Harvard, who secured William a place there as both an undergrad and graduate student; how he talked to Pat Moynihan, then Nixon’s domestic policy adviser, and got William an internship at The White House; how he talked to friends at the RNC and secured a job for William after he got his Harvard Ph.D.; and how he arranged with still more friends for William to teach at UPenn and the Kennedy School of Government. With that, Prof. Katznelson recalled, he then asked Irving what he thought of affirmative action. "I oppose it", Irving replied. "It subverts meritocracy."

  31. 31.

    RSA

    Conservatives have been right more often than not — and more often than liberals — about most of the important issues of the day: about Communism and jihadism, crime and welfare, education and the family.

    I wonder what Kristol means by conservatives having been right in all of these areas (since 1980) and liberals wrong? Unless he means that high military spending and low taxes are always good, for everything.

  32. 32.

    JGabriel

    So long, Bill Kristol!

    At only a passing acquaintence, we still know you better than we’d like.

    .

  35. 35.

    John S.

    They will replace him with…

    Charles Krauthammer!

    Anything that ‘pisses off’ liberals is good for readership. Also.

  36. 36.

    Roza Hussein

    Kristol will just peddle his bs elsewhere.
    Being wrong about everything all the time is a great gig.

  37. 37.

    J Royce

    If this worm-tongue is not held accountable for treason, what is to keep them from doing this again? Oh, wait, people still somehow think that "conservatives" really believe their own lies.

    No, they resurrected the Right in the modern era and laid waste to our nation. Evidence suggests these new Cons were simply trying to perfect a Fascism 2.0 using think tanks as the propaganda catapults, melding the Church, State, Big Business and the Military into a new World Order.

    Of course he will slink away, it is what Righties always do after they’ve crippled and boobytrapped a society. He will now attempt to return later as a savior of the nation.

    We flushed the Righties out of Europe after WWII, but we never addressed the problem here at home. And now another one just … walks.

  38. 38.

    Mazacote Yorquest

    This is not my beautiful Times… This is not my beautiful White House… How did I get here?
    My God, WHAT HAVE I DONE?

  39. 39.

    J.D. Rhoades

    Kristol:

    Can Obama reshape liberalism to be, as it was under F.D.R., a fighting faith, unapologetically patriotic and strong in the defense of liberty? That would be a service to our country.

    We have, and all you wankers did was whine about "tone" and "incivility,"

  40. 40.

    Reverend Dennis

    Still at war, six years on.
    Ninety percent of the wealth in the hands of less than ten percent of the population.
    Middle Class about to be redefined as "Not living in your car."

    Bill Kristol; "My work here is done."

  43. 43.

    kid bitzer

    oh for christs sake.

    not mcardle.

    please–i can just *barely* understand the nyt’s feeling that it should have a diversity set-aside for conservative views (though in most countries, papers just publish their own line, and if you want political diversity, you buy two papers).

    but 1) the nyt already has david brooks to sugar-coat the republican propaganda and tell lies for rich people.
    2) why is there *any* diversity set-aside for stupid people?

    mcardle’s record of wrong easily challenges kristol’s. she has no knowledge base of any kind, no ability to deploy facts in arguments, and no coherent ideology (beyond "i’m clever!" "aren’t i contrarian!" and "liberals will hate this!")

    will she be better than kristol? i don’t want to debate it. i’d rather spend my time wondering whether it’s better to die by fire or drowning.

  44. 44.

    DougJ

    she has no knowledge base of any kind, no ability to deploy facts in arguments, and no coherent ideology (beyond “i’m clever!” “aren’t i contrarian!” and “liberals will hate this!”)

    How is that different from most of the writers at Slate and New Republic? You make it sound like it was unusual.

  46. 46.

    Comrade Darkness

    Ha. This supports my theory that the Bush Admin was blackmailing the NYT with stuff from the wiretaps to get these Party mouthpieces in place. Kristol is by far the largest waste of space they hired and should be the first against the wall when the revolution comes. And look, here he is.

  48. 48.

    forked tongue

    Megan McFucking Ardle??? Jesus. What is she, 22?

    The only way I would even skim that is if they allowed Roy Edroso a few inches of snark at the bottom of very column.

  49. 49.

    Punchy

    In likewise incredible news (from my standpoint)….Pzifer buying Wyeth for 68 Bill (i.e., 0.097 TARPs) and cutting jobs. I imagine a lotta peeps I know may be looking at pink paper in a week or so. Damn.

  50. 50.

    BenA

    Times are tough…. money’s tight… the newspaper industry is in trouble… I say they make the tough choice and just leave this position open. :-)

  52. 52.

    JGabriel

    DougJ @ Top:

    McArdle is annoying and often glibertarian, but probably about as good as it’s going to get for the Times conservative position.

    Isn’t David Brooks already filling the Safire con-slot? Why does the Times Op-ed page need another conservative?

    I can see the argument that the Times needs another female voice on the Op-ed page (because they do), but McArdle seems like a Randian Alessandra Stanley/Maureen Dowd lite.

    (Pause)

    Fuck. She’ll fit right in.

    I guess that means it’s her.

    .

  53. 53.

    DougJ

    McArdle seems like a Randian Alessandra Stanley/Maureen Dowd lite.

    I get the Randian part, but I don’t think she’s much like MoDo and Alessandra.

  55. 55.

    The Grand Panjandrum

    I second the Larison nomination. The other good choice for a conservative voice would be Andrew Bacevich. He would actually be my first pick. The guy is brilliant and thoughtful. You don’t have to agree with his POV to appreciate his intellectual depth and thoughtfulness.

    What about P.J. O’Rourke? He might be a good choice as well.

  56. 56.

    Napoleon

    @TR:

    I recall when the issue came up last year on whether Larison would be a good choice, that someone pointed out some totally off the wall idea he pushes, like the southern states had every right to secede from the Union, or something like that, that likely disqualified him as a crank (my characterization).

  57. 57.

    JGabriel

    The Grand Panjandrum:

    What about P.J. O’Rourke? He might be a good choice as well.

    Since I don’t buy the idea that the Times’s new columnist must be a conservative, how about Jon Stewart? Or if, in fact, they’ve just gotta have another con, how about Stephen Colbert?

    Or how about a blogger of the month, or quarter? Each month, or three months, give the column to a well-regarded blogger. Say Josh Marshall, or Duncan Black, or Jane Hamsher, or even Larison, or John Cole.

    .

  58. 58.

    Napoleon

    @The Grand Panjandrum:

    Bacevich would be good.

    Kevin Phillips would be also. Of likely parties I would think that Andrew Sullivan, or maybe Ross D. would be the best you could hope for in a readability/not completely in the tank/ hack conservative.

  59. 59.

    JGabriel

    DougJ:

    I get the Randian part, but I don’t think she’s much like MoDo and Alessandra.

    I was thinking along the lines of priviliged Villager consumerist twit. Granted, McArdle’s more likely to write about buying an iPod rather than designer shoes, but is that really a point of major differentiation?

    .

  60. 60.

    Cyrus

    @forked tongue: 35, actually. 36 in mere days, according to Wikipedia. And you know, maybe I’m just still too overcome with hope and stuff, but if we take it as inevitable that the NYT will have at least one Kristol-ish writer on staff, McArdle doesn’t sound like a bad choice at all.

    Unlike some current Republicans, she’s only advocated violence against peaceful political disagreement once, as far as I know, and rather than being proud of it she now tries to weasel out of it. (She claims she was only referring to rioters or something, but that’s self-evidently bullshit just by reading what she wrote.) She’s not theocratic either. The fact that she offers nuanced perspectives on insane positions may make her more persuasive, but it also makes her less entertaining, and therefore less able to get attention.

    McArdle seems like a courtier. In the Founding Fathers’ infinite wisdom (/tongue in cheek), we have a political system with room for contrarian courtiers, or perhaps alternating courts is a better way to describe it. She’ll offer fair criticism when it’s convenient to do so and take a holier-than-thou stance when it isn’t, which hardly seems threatening. She’s a proud advocate of amorality, which is nothing to be proud of, but is a lot better than advocating immorality or insanity.

  61. 61.

    NonyNony

    York may be worse than Kristol, if only because he’s so proud of his hair. McArdle is annoying and often glibertarian, but probably about as good as it’s going to get for the Times conservative position.

    York might be worse than Kristol, I don’t know. I’d need some kind of proof. But Kristol has the amazing quality of being totally fucking wrong about every single goddamn thing he opens his mouth about. Which is at least useful in that you can read what Kristol writes and eliminate whatever Kristol suggests from consideration. York is more subtly wrong most of the time, so I could see him being worse by his lack of reliability.

    McArdle. Sigh. The only purpose of promoting Megan McArdle’s writing is if you want to completely discredit the "libertarian" point of view by giving it a defender who is utterly useless. McArdle’s entire purpose in life is to state something that is libertarian "doctrine" (or as close as libertarians tend to get to doctrine) and provide examples that turn out to be ill-thought out at best and utterly, mind-numbingly, completely counter to what she’s advocating for at worst. She reminds me of a guy I knew in High School – bright guy at the "book larning", but totally lost in an argument – to the point where if he was on my side in a class debate I felt the need to take him aside and tell him to STFU. Because you just knew that every time he opened his mouth he was going to be undermining your side’s argument.

  62. 62.

    John Cole

    I third or fourth or whatever the Larison nomination, but once again with the caveat that if some of you knew his positions on a lot of things and not just the Bush-bashing ones, you would freak out.

  64. 64.

    Mike in NC

    The only purpose of promoting Megan McArdle’s writing is if you want to completely discredit the "libertarian" point of view…

    I’ve yet to encounter a so-called Libertarian who, when push came to shove, couldn’t be classified as just another conservative Republican without the courage to just admit it. (I’m going out on a limb to use the words "Republican" and "courage" in the same sentence.) McArdle’s an airhead.

  66. 66.

    ricky

    I think they should call it the nepotism slot and hire Luke Russert. That way when he becomes a big shot at NBC he can point to some "journalism" background, unlike his late lamented Daddy.

  67. 67.

    cleek

    I’ve yet to encounter a so-called Libertarian who, when push came to shove, couldn’t be classified as just another conservative Republican

    oh i have. and lemme tell you, they can be scary. when they get around to explaining their theories (and they will, without fail) it sounds like they’re describing a fantasy world – a board game, or a MMORPG maybe – where everything is simple, logical and consequences are, well, inconsequential. sometimes, listening to these people, i get the feeling the libertarianism is the way social misfits want to organize society simply so they can understand it.

    YMMV, of course. i probably just have crazy friends.

  68. 68.

    Andrew

    Hopefully the new Times overlord, Carlos Slim, will just wipe out the op-ed section and replace it with exciting new lucha libre coverage.

  69. 69.

    gex

    Larison would be awesome. But I suspect the NYT is going to go for a talking head, mistakenly thinking that’s how to generate revenue, rather than providing the kind of quality that Larison would bring.

    Hey, NYT! If you offer Krugman and Larison on your Op-Ed page, I’ll probably subscribe.

  71. 71.

    Napoleon

    @Incertus:

    Of course it doesn’t. On a related matter about a year ago someone tried the silly "WaPo is liberal" with Chris Matthews on Hardball and in one of his you really love him or really hate him moments (this was a love him) he slapped the guy down with a (and this is close to an exact quote) "what are you talking about? The editorial page is neo-con and has been for years".

  72. 72.

    gex

    I should add that I’m not afraid of ideas that I don’t agree with. I can disagree with some of Larison’s without finding him unpalatable. What we’re really going for is demeanor here, not ideological tests. More ideas, more intelligent discussion = better.

  74. 74.

    mapaghimagsik

    There are plenty of good conservative writers, and it seems that The Times would have to reach out of the "celebrity" pundit bubble to get one.

    Oh wait, we’re talking about the Times here.

  75. 75.

    Tsulagi

    Commander E.E. of the feared silly putty brigades saw Kristol’s GBCW coming. As always, he sees the big picture in advance…

    I knew the moment I found out he was having dinner with Obama that this would happen. A batted eye lash, a smile, and a shared meal gets you pretty damn far with Bill Kristol. Never mind that despite posing as a conservative for years, Kristol has been anything but a real conservative.

    RedState, where 99.9% pure stupid is just not pure enough.

  77. 77.

    jcricket

    Why do we need to have "balance" by having morons on the right in the NYTimes? If there are no non-glibertarian, non-wingnut people on the conservative side, they get no column space. Is there a reason (outside of needing a target for mockery) we have to have affirmative action or quotas for conservatives?

    I think the MSM, while still in serious trouble, would be far better off if they followed a more singular ideological bent (i.e. not "centrism uber alles").

    I’m not suggesting everyone become hypocritical water carriers for Democrats (i.e. Fox News for the left), but there’s no reason to cater to or appease those on the right. That ship has sailed. There’s no more William Buckleys or George Wills (much as I disagree with them). Time to jettison that, cordone the right-wingers off onto their respective organizations, and move forward.

  78. 78.

    NonyNony

    @Mike in NC:

    I’ve yet to encounter a so-called Libertarian who, when push came to shove, couldn’t be classified as just another conservative Republican without the courage to just admit it. (I’m going out on a limb to use the words "Republican" and "courage" in the same sentence.)

    I do. I know some self-proclaimed Libertarians who ditched the Republicans during the Bush years. Mostly I think it was the Iraq War that got to them – they couldn’t see any reason for it, there was no benefit to us and a lot to lose. They were pretty excited about Ron Paul and thought that maybe it was an opportunity for the Republican Party to be reclaimed, but after his brutal rebuke by Republican primary voters they ended up voting for Obama. In fact, the two of them are actually both actually pretty liberal socially, and the recent economic crisis has them rethinking their basic beliefs about libertarian economic views (helped along by those of us in the group who like to sarcastically ask "so where’s your precious god of the Invisible Hand these days?". But we’re assholes like that). Mostly their reflexive anti-Democratic stuff comes from the gun control debates. But these days they see the whole "illegal imprisonment without trial" and the "setting up of kangaroo courts to give prisoners sham trials" and the "wiretap American citizens without a warrant" as more important "libertarian" issues and have been getting more and more pissed off over the years at how "libertarians" seem to be ignoring them and voting for Republicans anyway.

    McArdle’s an airhead.

    Eh. I wouldn’t go that far. She actually seems reasonably intelligent. But she’s about the same age as I am and doesn’t seem to have had half of the life experience that I’ve had (and I’m not a particularly adventursome example of my age group). She seems to have grown up in an upper-middle-class bubble and she’s never had to leave it behind and see life outside of it. As such, the general assumptions she grew up with about the world have never been shaken and so she seems to me to have a very immature and ill-informed view of life. That’s not stupidity, that’s ignorance. And McArdle’s ignorance almost visibly drips off of every bit of writing she does.

  79. 79.

    liberal

    @TR:

    What about Larison? Too sane?

    Too paleo-, not enough neo-.

    Meaning, re foreign policy he actually thinks about the true national interest of the US.

  80. 80.

    liberal

    @Cyrus:

    Unlike some current Republicans, she’s only advocated violence against peaceful political disagreement once, as far as I know…

    Yeah, good ole Jane "2×4" Galt. What a scum.

  81. 81.

    Tom Levenson

    McArdle? She doesn’t even understand her supposed area of competence, economics. Which is, of course, why the Times might select her. Have to have balance to weigh against actual knowledge in the form of a Nobel(ish)* Laureate, Krugman.

    *Just a touch of Nobel snideness there, nothing against Krugman. The econ "Nobel" is not part of the old dynamiter’s original bequest, but is rather a Bank of Sweden Prize "in memory of Alfred Nobel."

  82. 82.

    Tom Levenson

    Also: Bacevich should be the choice — he’s smart, he’s a clear writer, and he actually has had some experience of the world, something McCardle et al. conspicuously lack.

  83. 83.

    liberal

    @Tom Levenson:

    She doesn’t even understand her supposed area of competence, economics.

    Not that I think credentials matter a lot, but she doesn’t have a PhD in econ IIRC.

    Given that her actual knowledge isn’t very good as you point out, it’s strange that people pay her to bloviate on a technical subject she has no PhD in.

  84. 84.

    Andrew

    If they’re going to hire a female glibertarian with no qualifications, they should at least pick a hot one, like Kerry Howley.

  85. 85.

    Xanthippas

    McArdle is annoying and often glibertarian, but probably about as good as it’s going to get for the Times conservative position.

    She also qualifies by virtue of the staggering clueless-ness she exhibits from time to time. On that basis alone she should fit right in with the greats of the op-ed pages like Friedman.

  86. 86.

    liberal

    @Andrew:

    If they’re going to hire a female glibertarian with no qualifications, they should at least pick a hot one…

    LOL! Yeah…

  87. 87.

    Crusty Dem

    McArdle is a twit. However, now that the definition of "conservative" no longer requires genuflecting to W on a regular basis, she’s perfect for the job. With her contentless, pointless blather, she’s a typical Times columnist (more Friedman than Kristol, though). I doubt she has the potential to be the right’s version of Maureen Dowd, as she has never demonstrated any latent sense of snark.. She’s just too dim.

  88. 88.

    binzinerator

    @NonyNony:

    In fact, the two of them are actually both actually pretty liberal socially

    Who? Ron Paul? I wouldn’t call someone like RP who has been publishing racially incendiary bullshit for decades as pretty liberal socially. Certainly the white supremacist groups who endorse him aren’t, and you damn well know it’s not his economics or his obsession with the gold standard that attracts them.

    Mostly their reflexive anti-Democratic stuff comes from the gun control debates. But these days they see the whole "illegal imprisonment without trial" and the "setting up of kangaroo courts to give prisoners sham trials" and the "wiretap American citizens without a warrant" as more important "libertarian" issues

    The fact these abuses happened makes a powerful argument for the obsolescence of the 2nd Amendment upon which the much of the resistance for gun control by rightwing fucktards is based. You ought to ask those same reflexive anti-gun control glibtards just how the private ownership of 200 million firearms prevented or even checked those abuses, abuses which if you ascribed them to any government other than ours they would denounce reflexively as tyranny.

    After the Bush years their defense of the 2nd Amendment is as full of shit as the Laffer Curve.

    Libertarians. Fuck ’em. Not only has the past 8 years pulled the rug out from under their 2nd Amendment arguments, it has unmasked most libertarians to be little more than conservatives with a bigger vocabulary to bullshit their way over any cognitive dissonance.

    The 2nd ain’t go no clothes. Bush and Conservatism ain’t got no clothes. And Libertarianism ain’t wearing nothing but buttfloss.

  89. 89.

    binzinerator

    McArdle?
    …
    If they’re going to hire a female glibertarian with no qualifications, they should at least pick a hot one…

    Libertarianism ain’t wearing nothing but buttfloss

    McArdle. Buttfloss.

    NO. Must. Not. Think of this. Must…eeeeewww. Ickky-ickky yuuucky.

    Jesus, I really hate it when I think of shit like that.

  90. 90.

    pseudonymous in nc

    if some of you knew his positions on a lot of things and not just the Bush-bashing ones, you would freak out.

    I know them, and I’d rather hear them out loud on the op-ed page than the usual wank. Paleocons aren’t great at selling advertising space, though: for that, free-market types are preferable, especially Brooks’ line of brand-dropping consumerist pop-psychology.

    To reiterate Crusty Dem, McArdle is a twit. She has expertise in nothing beyond self-aggrandizement, and it would be nice if that were, for once, not rewarded with accelerated promotion. Of course, since the hiring choices appear to be aimed at stealing eyes from the Journal, and Amity Shlaes is flavor of the month there, McArdle’s the next best thing.

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