Nothing negative to say here of the recently departed. I always find it interesting that he began as a Trotskyite. In my opinion, the Trotskyite notion of permanent revolution informs neoconservatism very strongly to this day. The J-curve, for example, seems to me to be nothing but a quasi-quantitative argument in favor of revolution.
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MoeLarryAndJesus
He raised Bloody Billy. Not exactly a legacy of decency.
Anne Laurie
I’ll try to stay positive, too: Perhaps the tragedy will cause his son William to reflect upon his father’s life and legacy, and perhaps wonder whether his career to date has been the best witness to intellectual rigor and philosophical integrity. Or at least maybe getting the old man’s affairs in order will keep Bill too busy to pollute the public airwaves for a while…
slippy
If you don’t want people to say anything negative, I am afraid I must take my leave.
Because I have nothing good to say about the “father” of neoconservatism.
Jamey
Well, at least heaven won’t be any more crowded by his passing.
There, positive enough?
Just Some Fuckhead
Here’s hoping Bill Kristol being wrong about everything doesn’t spill over into his personal life and cause him to accidentally attend the wrong funeral service or cremate the wrong parent.
Tax Analyst
Positive, eh? Well, he’ll never say or do anything to piss me off again.
Slightly more seriously, I agree that Trotskyism and neo-conservatism probably spring from some very close roots on the vine. There’s certainly a lot of Authoritarianism and Party discipline running through both of them.
arguingwithsignposts
@Anne Laurie:
He said positive, not positively fictitious.
arguingwithsignposts
I wonder how many Democrats will testify at his wake?
Mark S.
I’m pretty skeptical of people who move from hard left to hard right (and vice versa, but I don’t know anyone who has done that). It seems to me that if you are able to do a 180 like that, you probably don’t really have any principles to begin with and are really just interested in power.
To be fair, I am not that familiar with Irving Kristol. I am rather familiar with David Horowitz, who I think the preceding paragraph describes very well.
Dream On
positive?
Somewhere up in heaven, departed neo-cons are having a big Ayn Randian pajama party, playing global multi-dimensional chess with the fate of millions resting in the balance. And God is starting a think tank.
Assuming it IS in heaven – personally I think they can all just go to hell.
srv
On a positive note, Bob Novak will have someone to share time with.
Leelee for Obama
I disagreed with everything he believed in, whatever his politics of the moment. I feel for his family; they loved him, I’m sure.
arguingwithsignposts
@Mark S.:
I think Cole and myself are examples of the right>left conversion. Not that I’d put myself in league with JC, just that I went through the same evolution. And I’m not interested in power. I like to think there were principles involved, but disillusionment too with talk vs. walk among the right.
The Moar You Know
I loved him. The time we spent joined as lovers beneath the spectral moonlight of the autumn will remain forever in my mind, as will his lovemaking, which was passionate and wild like the free-minded stallion he was. No man, no institution, no philosophy would tame Irving, no sir!
He knew how to please a man, Irving did; and he delighted in displaying his copious knowledge at every opportunity.
I shall never forget him. The world shall never forget him. Good night, sweet pri-
“Yo Moar, I’m really happy for you, I’ll let ya finish, but Michael Jackson had one of the best deaths of all time”
Goddamn you Kanye West!
Mark S.
@arguingwithsignposts:
I’m really talking about hard left (i.e. Communist) and hard right. I’m not talking about someone who switched from Republican to Democrat or vice versa (shit, that would include me). I definitely do not think you or Cole are disingenuous bastards with no principles.
mai naem
Well, Irv can talk about the neocon wet dream movie that was Red Dawn with Patrick Swayze and that other real war what was the Korean War with Larry Gelbart.
See, I is being good, I am saying nothing negative about Irv.
Evinfuilt
I feel he’s probably as appalled at the modern Republican party as Buckley would have been. Of course he did father the neocon movement, he might be proud of how insane it is now.
arguingwithsignposts
@Mark S.: yeah, i see your point. I’m probably more of a sockalist, although I listened to all those damned anarchist punk bands in my youth, which may explain why my wingnut transplant didn’t take.
AJ
“Nothing negative to say here of the recently departed.”
Old Jewish joke (shortened).
Because he was a nasty person, no one would get up at the synagogue and say anything nice about the departed at his funeral. The Rabbi was mad at this assault on tradition and said no one could leave the synagogue until SOMEONE said SOMETHING nice about the departed. After a long silence, a voice from the back: “He had a brother dat vas vorse.”
Substitute brother for son, if you like.
Calouste
@Tax Analyst:
You can go around the block by turning right twice, or turning left twice, but you still end up in the same place.
I don’t think people who go from far left to far right go through the center. They just realize that there are a lot more resources on the far right for their authoritarian ideas. (Well, at least in the US. In the Soviet Union these kind of people would have been hardcore apparatchiks.)
ericblair
@Mark S.: I’m really talking about hard left (i.e. Communist) and hard right. I’m not talking about someone who switched from Republican to Democrat or vice versa (shit, that would include me).
I guess the problem with that is that there is very little that could be considered hard left in the US to move to. I’m of the opinion that the radical lefties and radical righties are radical first and left/right as an afterthought, so going from radical to moderate is a much harder switch than radical about one thing to radical about another. And if you really don’t care what you’re radical about, radical right’s gonna pay your bills a lot easier these days.
Just Some Fuckhead
@The Moar You Know: lmfao
JK
Many years ago, I saw a great documentary called Arguing The World which traced the political evolution of four alumni of the City College in New York.
The 4 alums were Irving Kristol, Irving Howe, Nathan Glazer, and Daniel Bell.
For anyone interested in politics or history, this film is worth checking out.
http://www.pbs.org/arguing
http://www.neh.gov/news/humanities/1998-01/arguing.html
Mark S.
@ericblair:
Good point.
General Winfield Stuck
@The Moar You Know:
Cheer up. You’ll always have Baghdad.
neil
A dead rattlesnake isn’t a dead puppy. It’s a dead rattlesnake.
arguingwithsignposts
@JK:
That doc is on netflix. i’ll have to check it out.
HumboldtBlue
I always chuckle at the “don’t speak ill of the dead” meme. Why the fuck not, they’re dead, they don’t give a flying fuck what you say, they can’t hear you and they can’t be insulted. The motherfucker is dead, he was an authoritarian fuck and while alive and spawned stupid so deep, so powerful that it has polluted our national discourse to the point where a brownfield designation won’t help.
serge
De mortuis nil nisi bonum…but in this case I really want to. I’ll resist.
Warren Terra
I hate the tradition of not speaking ill of the dead, at least for controversial public figures and people you know well enough to offer an informed opinion. But for all that I hate the neoconservatism I’ve seen in the last decade, I don’t actually know much about anything Irving Kristol ever actually did, or for that matter any specific action he espoused in his role as the godfather of neoconservatism. So I don’t really have anything to say about the deceased Mr. Kristol.
Zifnab
http://wonkette.com/411178/irving-kristol-dies
I thought Wonkette wrapped it up rather well. Particularly the finisher:
Also, Dick Nixon was a douche. Wait? Too soon?
Xenos
@HumboldtBlue: It may seem quaint, but it is out of respect for the family and friends of the deceased. And it seems like an invitation for bad karma, too. Most of us have had moments of serious moral failure at one time or another, and the difference between Irving and many people I love is one of degree, not substance.
So give it a week and then have at him.
Legalize
For some reason this thread reminds me of the “wake” sequence on the Sopranos when Tony’s mother died.
geg6
@Leelee for Obama:
You are a much better person than I. And so I’ll just say ditto to your sentiment.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Xenos: When you have less respect for the deceased’s friends and family than the deceased, there’s no reason to hold yer tongue.
Zifnab
@ericblair:
The country has never been very leftist, by any stretch of the imagination. In Europe, where the National Socialists and the Communists battled for control over the German Legislature (before the Nazis just burned the whole damn thing down and blamed it on the opposition) you had hard left and hard right political forces butting heads.
At the same time, in the United States, you had land owning Democrats arguing with rail road sponsored Republicans about exactly which old rich white people were going to get the biggest government subsidies.
It’s just a different kind of country. The free market lets people unhappy with their current situation pick up and leave. You didn’t have the freedom of mobility in Europe. A Frenchman couldn’t just move to Brussels to find a new job. A religiously persecuted Englishman couldn’t take his crazy cult to Ireland to do their crazy cult thing.
If you don’t like the job market in California, move to Texas. If you don’t like Chicago traffic, hop in your car and drive to Montana. If New Jersey taxes are too high for your liking, try Florida.
Now that there’s no where to run and the national check is finally coming due, we’re beginning to see people get interested in reform again. But back in the day, you could just go find a town that fit your flavor, and become entrenched their. And that kind of cultural segregation breeds a lot of Republicans, because people like what they’ve got now that they’ve found it, and they don’t want you changing it.
drillfork
@HumboldtBlue:
I. Love. This post…
Svensker
@AJ:
“He had a brother dat vas vorse.”
LMAO
chuck
Huh. Bill must have recently predicted his dad would have a long life ahead of him.
kindness
OK….What is the appropriate amount of time I should wait before opening up a beer concession over his grave so ‘mourners’ can piss all over it.
WWmissmannersD?
Corner Stone
When someone passes who’s spent a lifetime working vigorously to damage our nation and national discourse, piss on those beneath them and generally tried their fucking best to destroy those they were opposed to – well, in times such as these I look back to read the letter they wrote their grandkids after Obama’s election.
For that is the true measure of what kind of man they were.
PanAmerican
On the hard left -> right flip. Reading folks who’ve done it wax on about the greatness of the Wobblies, Pete Seeger and those old timey Reds. What it boiled down to was it was all right as long as it was all white.
aimai
I have mixed feelings about even commenting. Kristol and his whole family were and are pretty horrendous public people. As a young leftist he was on the side of some crazy, authoritarian, leftist shit and he swung hard behind the craziest public authoritarian neocon shit in revolt. Those people are responsible for a lot of deaths–a *lot* of deaths. But I’m sure they were very nice privately. Now take Teddy Kennedy, for example–just the opposite. In fact, exactly the opposite. He had a messy personal life, suffered very publicly, was partially responsible for the tragic death of a young woman, was married twice and all that jazz–and yet the far right and especially right wing catholics had no trouble dancing on his grave for his personal failings and ignoring completely his body of great humanitarian good works. Why should their side get a pass when our *very nice public people* are attacked for their private lives?
I say “don’t speak ill of the dead in their private capacity, or ignore the very real grieving and suffering of those who loved them” but speak the truth about their public lives. They were, supposedly, proud of their convictions and their acts. Why should we be ashamed to name them for what they were–public failures, apologists for murder and torture, lackeys of corporate power, faux religious elitists who openly espoused a doctrine of religious bigotry for the masses and atheistical freedom for the elites.
aimai
someguy
RIP – Republican Idiot Passed.
I’ll definitely drink a toast to him tonight. Him, and whichever one of Beelzebub’s minions drew the job of poking him in the ass with a red hot pitchfork for the rest of forever.
Leelee for Obama
@aimai: Every thing you say is true, aimai. But it’s like the torture argument, it isn’t about what the bad guys do or did, it’s about what we do. We’re better people; proving that is it’s own reward.
Leelee for Obama
@Leelee for Obama: I have to add: I’d like to join Obama for that really small meal with the Mahatma. He won, against an Empire that called him a half-naked Indian Fakir. His patience and determination beat the worst they could throw at him. That’s what wins, in the end.
Mike in NC
Probably decided it was time to check out since the neocon movement has pretty much shot its wad.
gypsy howell
So when Osama Bin Laden dies, do we have to say nice things about him too?
Just wondering where the line is on this “being nice to the dead” thing is. Because in my mind, Irving Kristol and his evil spawn have done way more damage to my country than Osama ever did.
But in the spirit of things….
“He had a son dat vas vorse.”
(h/t AJ)
Brachiator
Irving Kristol, The Neoconservative Persuasion
I never wanted to see anybody die, but there are a few obituary notices I have read with pleasure.
Clarence Darrow
Zifnab
@gypsy howell:
That’s some ridiculous hyperbole. I mean, snark and sarcasm is all in good fun, but you can’t seriously compare a neo-conservative policy advocate to an actual third world militant anarchist.
Irving Kristol sold an ideology to a public that was in the market for war porn. Blaming his writings and debates on the deaths in Vietnam or Afghanistan or North Korea makes about as much sense as blaming Playboy for teen pregnancy.
At a certain point, you have to divide the policy advocates from the policy makers. In that case, feel free to pillary Nixon and Kissenger or Reagen and Rumsfeld and Cheney. And, hell, even all the voters that put them in power. But don’t go blaming Irving Kristol on combat deaths in foreign nations. All he had was a soapbox.
Leelee for Obama
@gypsy howell: No, because he’s a criminal, in the legal sense. Morality wise, the list is unbelievably long.
These are my rules-no one else needs to adopt them.
SiubhanDuinne
@Brachiator:
I never wanted to see anybody die, but there are a few obituary notices I have read with pleasure.
Clarence Darrow
I truly love that line! Also, this @Leelee for Obama: :
If yah can’t say somethin nice . . . don’t say nothin at all.
Thumper
Brachiator
@SiubhanDuinne:
“If you haven’t got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me.”
– Alice Roosevelt Longworth (1884-1980)
mellowjohn
i predict a lot of liberals will attend the funeral/memorial service.
you know… just to make sure he’s dead.
LD50
Okay, here’s something nice to say about Kristol: the very last thing he ever did in his life made America a much better place.
MNPundit
Have a good time in hell you fucker!
And that’s all I got.
LD50
@neil: Well put.
SiubhanDuinne
“Every time a man dies, it is the end of the world, and the last judgment.” — Marie-Claire Blais (translated by Merloyd Lawrence)
DonkeyKong
Give Irving a Slim Peckins style funeral send off. Strap his corpse to a cruise missle and launch him into a Iranian hard target.
I’m sure his son would approve.
Jason Bylinowski
On the one hand: an old man died, which is sad.
On the other: it was Bill Kristol’s dad, which in my mind at least suggests that Bill Kristol is also mortal, and not the undead monster I had previously thought.
eemom
I hope the “don’t speak ill” folks will make an exception for Dick Cheney. IF he ever dies.
Leelee for Obama
@eemom: Unless he goes to prison, Cheney is dead to me now. I wouldn’t write anything, because his family(sort of excluding Mary) are miserable excuses for people.
TuiMel
I am pretty much left absolutely cold by this news. I consider myself a compassionate person, yet I feel no compassion at all for Bill Kristol, who has just lost his father. I suspect Bill is mourning for his loved one, and normally I could find within me some empathy for that. Apparently I concluded long ago that Bill Kristol’s “contributions” to our civil society are such that I cannot feel anything but nothing for his loss. I suppose I spent any empathy I might have offered Bill Kristol on the families of all those soldiers that Bill so blithely is willing to sacrifice in the pursuit of his dream of empire. I guess I think nothing, nothing will ever cause Bill Kristol to openly (or privately for that matter) admit the bill of goods he hoped to push on this country in the person of Sarah Palin. I guess I should stop now; I am speaking ill of the dead’s son.
Robertdsc-iphone
RIP. Thoughts go to Bill & the rest of the family.
Corner Stone
@Robertdsc-iphone: It’s like you’re bipolar – robertdsc is capable of making coherent and usually left of center comments. But robertdsc-iphone is a full on wingnut whackjob.
WTF?
NobodySpecial
It’s a sad day who people who liked him.
Also, I am totally not wearing a party hat and carrying a noisemaker.
General Winfield Stuck
@Corner Stone:
WTF is the matter with you. People can if they choose respect the dead, even the ones they don’t like and it doesn’t make them a wingnut or anything else.. Chill out already .
robertdsc
LOL. I’m the same whether I dial in on the phone or on the computer. My comment was made out of a simple human response to such sad news. Never mind that I oppose every bit of what Irving and Bill espoused every day. Their family is in grief right now. Never mind that when Bill goes back to doing what he does, I’ll still oppose him all day all night. Just for a minute, I’m offering condolences to him and his family for their loss.
If you don’t like it, then I can’t help you.
Josh
Panamerican 42: The Left of the Twenties and Thirties was hardly “all white” –consider Pete Seeger’s pals, Lead Belly and Paul Robeson, for example; also Langston Hughes, Duke Ellington, and W.E.B. Du Bois — all admired by the Reds at some point.
Didn’t Irving Kristol on a National Review cruise just a few years ago suggest that Buckley was getting senile on accounta he (Buckley) denied the existence of those WMDs that everyone knows Saddam hid in Syria?
Steeplejack
@The Moar You Know:
Win!
joypog
RIP…or rather, don’t rest in peace…fucking come back and tell us how wrong you were Mr. Kristol.
As for Kristol vs Osama…those who spawn ideologies of hate and war are equally bad…especially when one of them happens to help guide policy in the superpower of the universe.
No need to be a fucking wus about it. The dead is the dead, let’s talk of their legacy as if they were alive yesterday.
PanAmerican
I didn’t say it was.
Corner Stone
@General Winfield Stuck: I’ve thought about this a while and well,…fuck you clown shoe.
My comment was satire on what I thought was a pattern of random commenting by robertdsc vs robertdsc-iphone. I’ve made random fun of it before on BJ.
Had nothing to do with Kristol or anything else. And it sure as fuck had nothing to do with you.
So fuck off douchenozzle.
Will
Anyone who make Pat Buchanan look restrained can’t be any good. Sorry…
General Winfield Stuck
@Corner Stone:
Satire? LOL. You buckwheat, are some piece of work.
jack fate
Fuck Irv. Fuck his corpse long and hard and in the ass – repeatedly. The suffering (and death) his brand of ideology has imposed upon untold thousands of human beings leaves me with no sympathy for his passing due to old age.
While I will not and never will celebrate death, I find the occurrence Irv Kristol’s passing hardly a reason to pretend that the notoriously heartless dickbag was not, in fact, notoriously heartless. Fuck him. Fuck him angrily.
mutt
He’s happily playing pinochle with Novak and Franco in hell.
that turds been flushed.
The bathroom, however, still stinks…..
Flugelhorn
@Mark S.: What about John Cole?
LarryM
jack fate – you are entirely too easy on him. I’ll celebrate his death, that’s for damn sure. No crocodile tears from me. May he burn in hell for all eternity, and may he soon be joined there by all of his family members.
Jose Padilla
I don’t know what little Billy is going to do now since every opportunity he’s had in life was arranged by his father.
Wile E. Quixote
@aimai
Bravo, Irving Kristol was an authoritarian asshole. He started off as a left-wing authoritarian and then migrated to the right when he saw that he’d have better access to the levers of power there. He was a complete and total piece of shit and America is a better country now that he’s dead. I can only devoutly hope that his son BIlly will soon follow him.