Obviously we live in a cruel and absurd universe of well-rewarded idiocy and undeserved second chances, but if we didn't, these are the ten people you'd meet in the nu-depression's breadlines.
Carla Bruni Sarkozy is celebrating today—France's First Lady is turning 41. CBS chief Les Moonves is 60. Conservative coumnist Bill Kristol is 56. Soap star Susan Lucci is 62. Badgley Mischka's James Mischka is turning 48. Author Donna Tartt is 45. Literary agent Elyse Cheney is 41. Retired Army General (and one-time presidential candidate) Wesley Clark is turning 64. Rock star Eddie Vedder turns 44. And The Girls Next Door's Holly Madison is 29 today.
Old-school journo Pete Hamill and Bill Kristol got together for a little argument, filmed by IFC's new Gideon Yago-hosted thing The IFC Media Project. As Bill Kristol is a sad joke and Pete Hamill is a legend, it was not really a fair fight. The topic, thankfully, allowed Bill to shill for his miserable lost war instead of having to defend Sarah Palin again. Hamill still schooled him. Kristol doesn't really think Americans need to see the "blood" and "coffins" that war creates, that way we can all feel much better about ourselves.
Times columnist Bill Kristol went on Fox back in June and told the world that this governor from Alaska named Sarah Palin would be the best Vice President ever! He loved her, very much, because she was a maverick. Five months later, she is a national joke, and he is a sad, sad man, trying desperately to salvage his credibility. "I met her for the second time in my life. I know we're supposed to be such great friends, but the truth is I've met her twice... I've spoken to her on the phone once. For all our great closeness," he tells The Observer, "I barely know her." Too late, Bill. You're all washed up! Since time immemorial the New York Times has kept its rich old conservative readers slightly satisfied with some token conservative voices in the Op-Ed section. For many, many years there was reliable old Bill Safire, the Nixon speechwriter, a member of the smart old educated class of Republicans who were able to write up support for disastrous policy implemented by the corrupt and incompetent with smart, almost plausible-sounding arguments. He left, replaced with John Tierney, a libertarian-leaning sort who didn't last long on the op-ed beat and now writes "researchers say a counterintutive thing" features instead. And there is David Brooks, a quietly doctrinaire Republican who fancies up his usual party line with armchair sociology. But Brooks broke with the party this year, calling Sarah Palin a cancer, leaving only poor, dumb, Bill Kristol. Bill Kristol, who tried to sell America on Sarah Palin, and ended up repeatedly embarrassing himself, over and over again, and losing John McCain his election. Now he just mumbles about hating the mainstream media, to all his mainstream media friends, in the pages of the New York Times. Already the vultures are wondering who'll replace him—you can be terribly wrong and stupid and remain a Times columnist indefinitely, but you must be terribly wrong and stupid in the service of the conventional wisdom. So Tom Friedman's Iraq columns get a pass, as does Maureen Dowd's constant stream of nonsense. But Kristol is no longer merely just a hack, he's a failed hack. No one bought his line this year. So maybe someone nutty and anti-Palin like, say, David Frum is next for the Affirmative Action Conservative Slot?
One of the best parts of that juicy NYT story yesterday about all the infighting in the McCain- Palin campaign was the fact that a huge chunk of the story was given over to exploring who was leaking to sniveling conservative columnist Bill Kristol—a Times columnist! It's pretty unusual for a paper to start digging on its own columnist's confidential sources, but hey, it's Bill Kristol and nobody at the Times likes him, so they just went for it. That prompted some further review by the Daily Beast, which concluded, yep, Bill Kristol is basically just a lackey for political operatives:
Here's Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, setting the mood for conservatives tonight on Fox News. He thinks it could be the worst election night for Republicans in 50 years, the second election in a row where the party loses seats in the Senate and House of Representatives, followed by a loss of the White House.
Neocon Times columnist Bill Kristol was of course acting smug and cute last night on the Daily Show, since that's basically his gig: Smarmy right-wing fish in left wing ponds. But he just didn't seem to have it in him to truly bait the other side. He declared John McCain would triumph on Tuesday but, wait, ha ha, it's just a joke of the make-a-Daily Show-audience-heckle-me variety, and Kristol admitted as much (and did succeed in getting booed).
Back in the day, confused Republicans used to like to pretend that careerist military hack Colin Powell would be the first Black President, because he is a Republican who is mostly well-liked. Powell never wanted the job, because he generally refuses to accept positions that force him to do anything other than follow orders (he is a very good soldier! cf. that fucking UN speech), and now he's a pariah for embarrassing the Republican Party in the UN speech and not being a very good Secretary of State. Now terrible hack Bill Kristol—who, as far as we can tell, has no professional or notable personal relationship with Powell—claims he knows for sure that Powell will endorse Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention. What a scoop! You know, if it's true.
Neocon NYT columnist Bill Kristol gets tongue-tied on Fox News Sunday in his zeal to explain some stuff about Hillary and the Dems: "White women are a problem, you know. That's something we all live with!" We assume he was attempting a joke about his wife maybe, but this should serve as a lesson to how humor can often go wrong when you're speaking in soundbites. (Really, though, "White women are the problem" is a perfectly acceptable shorthand behind the scenes for those who discuss politics and, as such, voting blocks for a living. "Blacks are a problem," "We've got to do something about the Jews," etc.) Kristol's mistake was not recognizing that he was actually on TV.
