The pathetic and dishonest Weekly Standard, run by failed prognosticator Bill Kristol (who, like many others, never had a clue), is flat broke and out of business. Too bad. May it rest in peace!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 15, 2018
December 15, 2018
Trump bids good riddance to The Weekly Standard.
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122 comments:
Trump is too kind.
The Weekly Standard was always lame. And Bill "Daddy's Boy" Kristol was always a putz.
Is this more about founder Kristol than the Weekly Standard?
Weekly Standard Executive Editor Fred Barnes speaks favorably about Trump's handling of the press last summer. (Boy, Fred's getting old.)
But what does George Takei think about all this? Althouse doesn’t care.
Why would anyone lament the passing of this fake "conservative", lefty billionaire funded, FusionGPS & lefty narrative partnering, democrat policy and electoral operational pal, Cory Booker praising, real conservative attacking, conservative policy success hating, complete and permanent democrat victory praising hack rag?
I dont suppose one could fail to notice that LLR Chuck loved loved loved this rag.
Big surprise as Chuckie is also 100% operationally aligned with the left/dems.
Because thats what "true conservatice" open borders types do, isn't it?
LOL
Thank goodness Trump won and helped expose these 5th Columnists who have always worked behind the scenes to deliver lefty permanent power.
Yeah, the Free Market has spoken.
We need to import a better class of conservative writers.
Super-cucks David French and Erick Erickson are playing the "how dare you Christians do a happy dance over the Weekly Standard closing".
French implied it was "ungodly" while Erickson brought up Jesus.
LOL. As if Jesus or God cares about the Weekly Standard and Bill Kristol.
TWS writers need to move away from NY/DC area to where they can find stable jobs making good money.
I'd suggest the Dakotas or West Texas. If they want to stay near the east coast, they can move to West Virginia and get an CDL and drive long haul trucks. There's a real shortage right now.
Even though Kristol was just an editor at large, these days, it was still 'his baby' in the minds of the readers. His relentless Trump Derangement Syndrome drove away enough of the subscribers and donors to kill his own creation. There were still a lot of writers there that I enjoyed reading (I never subscribe to anything, by the way), and I will continue to read them because they will continue to write, though with some other journal. However, if you ever advocated for Clinton's election as a self-proclaimed conservative, I am done offering support of any kind at this point.
The key point about the Weekly Standard was made by Rod Dreher. It was a magazine started by $$$ from Murdoch and later purchased by another Billionaire.
It lost $millions every year for the last 23 years, and NEVER made a profit. And it never had more than 100,000 subscribers.
But the average conservative was NOT the target audience. The W/S was aimed at the DC elite, Congressmen, Staffers, etc. The Weekly Standard "Base" wasn't the Republican Base or the Conservative Base.
The magazine got shut down because in the age of Trump, it had no influence with the people in DC that matter.
Question to all:
What will men like Neil Tyson, Roland Fryer, Les Moonves, etc. etc. do in Nov. 2020? Will they vote for Beto/Sanders/Warren, etc. or not vote? Or, will they secretly vote for Trump?
The reason for the question is that I am asked by a pol who wanted my consulting.
Cheers!
Trumpetarian Creative Destruction
At the end the Weekly Standard was writing puff pieces on Senator Cory Booker and defending George Soros.
They were hoping some Left-wing Billionaire would save them.
Very Conservative, eh?
National Review is also likely to fail, or finish its transformation into a Democratic entity. Again, there are several writers there I read on a regular basis and respect, but the management of the enterprise is hardly different in kind to that of TWS.
Billy Kristol should try hosting the Oscars. He'd fit right in.
To be fair on the money question, those kinds of publications never really make money. They are invariably propped up by rich benefactors. The Weekly Standard's greatest sin was that it advocated a kind of neoliberal, new world order, Establishment-approved conservatism. It preached a more liberal attitude on social issues, "free" trade, and hawkish interventionism. Trumpism is a repudiation of all of these.
chickenlittle, you owe me a new keyboard.
You'd have to have a heart of stone not to laugh.
No, they don't operate profitably, but the publications still have to have subscribers and donors to carry part of the costs to make the enterprise something close to a wash financially because billionaires have other options if they don't- for example, see what TWS's present owners are going to do.
Yancey Ward: "National Review is also likely to fail, or finish its transformation into a Democratic entity. Again, there are several writers there I read on a regular basis and respect, but the management of the enterprise is hardly
different in kind to that of TWS."
Jonah Goldberg in particular has fully jumped the shark.
Some months he actually declared, on Brett Baier's show roundtable that NO ONE in DC was claiming that Trump was colluding with Russia, instead the only thing these wonderful level-headed DC establishment types were doing was expressing concern over Russian election interference.
Yes, Goldberg actually asserted that, openly.
An sstonishing display of mendacity to protect the left/dems.
But really no longer shocking at all, is it?
My favorite magazine in the aughts was The American Conservative. It was a fierce critic of the kind of Bush conservatism that Weekly Standard and National Review constantly defended.
Will TWS get into heaven?
You know, Trump’s election is the first I had heard that Kristol was a conservative. Was he a creature like David Brooks and Jen Rubin — a lefty’s idea of what a “proper” conservative ought to be?
The failing Weekly Standard.
How did Trump miss such an obvious tie-in?
Didn't Truman get good press for his frankness, aside from his famous response to Paul Hume's review of Margaret, which probably helped him in train-through country?
I kept my dad from renewing his subscription by pulling out the slips, though he stopped reading it a while ago. His last one arrived yesterday--the first one without the slips!
Most of it wasn't strongly anti-Trump because much of it avoided him altogether, or made just a swipe in passing, but the rare pro-Trump was grudging. I was slow to get on the Trump train partly because of reading it & NR, but Hillary was a hill too high.
YW: "The Weekly Standard's greatest sin was that it advocated a kind of neoliberal, new world order, Establishment-approved conservatism."
Often these publications, though not producing a positive cash flow on an on-going operational basis might have a decent balance sheet due to their assets. In the case of TWS, the only asset of value is the subscriber list which will now be monitized.
As for the LLR Chuck-approved hack fake-conservative writers, unfortunately there are only so many lefty-funded rags with the onesy-twosey democrat-house trained "conservative" writer positions.
Obviously, the competition for these captive "conservative" writer who will write in defense of Everything Dem/Left (like LLR Chuck on this blog) positions is quite fierce.
The Kristol times was merely a tool used to lie to one group of people.
Not any different than the Slate or politico or national review.
They all just have different people to lie to.
Will they give Chuck a refund?
The problem with all of these vanity projects is they are not motivated by profit.
Original Mike: "Will they give Chuck a refund?"
If they do it will be a happy day for the Soros groups and McCabes GoFundMe because LLR Chuck and the other Open Borders cucks no doubt relish kicking cash that way.
Bill Kristol can move back in with his Mom, Gertrude Himmelfarb, who is still drawing breath.
I think it’s only fair and right that Trump spikes this particular football. If and when Trump is indicted or reported out by the Justice Department as an unindicted co-conspirator, the Weekly Standard’s fans will be doing the same. And in the meantime, the cohort of lifelong Republicans who share the editorial leanings of TWS but who nonetheless gave their votes in the razor-thin states like Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, will just be even more alienated from Trump.
What a weird way for a self-proclaimed Republican president to run for re-election; spouting hatred toward a conservative/Republican magazine.
And just for my own benefit, I want to point out that the Weekly Standard, led by Steve Hayes, led the nation in talking about many of the worst Obama-era scandals including Benghazi and Lois Lerner. The Weekly Standard has never, ever been anti- conservative. It’s only purported sin has been to sometimes host anti-Trump commentary.
LLR Chuck: "What a weird way for a self-proclaimed Republican president to run for re-election; spouting hatred toward a conservative/Republican magazine."
TWS is a lefty-funded rag which worked directly with FusionGPS and other lefties to advance the den party line.
Just like you.
And TWS fired its own contributors who found about it and wanted to report on it.
It surprises me not in the least that our own #StrongCNN&DemDefender Chuck would continue to advance this lie that TWS is conservative in any way.
Vichy Chuck pushing Vichy "conservative" rag which only dems and lefties and he praises.
Unexpectedly.
The jig is up Open Borders/Permanent Dem Control boy!
The. Jig. Is. Up.
Not a moment too soon.
George Soros and Pierre Omidyar were literally funding TWS.
No wonder LLR Chuck loved it.
Almost as much as LLR Chuck loves the "brilliant" Maddow show.
At this point, it would be an easier exercise to identify the list of far left talking heads of whom LLR Chuck doesnt approve.
A very very short list indeed.
Very.
I have a question. I assume many here we passionate supporters of the Iraq war. With the death of the Weekly Standard that plank of conservatism has been thourgly abandoned. I’d love to hear folks explain why they were so wrong before and what caused themto see the light.
Blogger Drago said...
Just think, how ironic that, in the end, LLR Chuck's daily contributions to advancing the far left's electoral interests delivered precisely the same market value as Kristols Army of Fake Conservative Writers.
LOL
And as of yesterday, LLR Chuck is "earning" an equivalent return for his pro-dem efforts as these now fired hacks!
Double-LOL
Not to worry Chuck. You can get the same "quality writing and political analysis" at Media Matters or Vox.
So, stiff upper lip there laddie!
John: "I have a question. I assume many here we passionate supporters of the Iraq war. With the death of the Weekly Standard that plank of conservatism has been thourgly abandoned. I’d love to hear folks explain why they were so wrong before and what caused themto see the light."
Your question is not precise enough, which I say with no ill-intent.
There were different phases of operations and different missions that were undertaken and each should be addressed separately.
Really, we should start with Afghanistan but we wont.
Very quickly, support for the removal of Hussein (a rapidly achieved mission/objective and justified for several reasons) does not imply support for the second evolved nission: nation building.
This is where Bush is found wanting in the part of a large percentage of conservative/republican members of the military.
It should be noted that those conservative/republican members of the military are the ones LLR Chuck has a visceral dislike for, which explains his eagerness to passionately support DaNang Dick and Li'l Dickie "US Troops Are Gestapo" Durbin.
The trouble with the Weekly Standard was its embrace of "national greatness" as the redeeming virtue of big government. It wasn't WW2 or the Apollo program that made this a great country, it was millions of free people working out their destinies on their own. The liberals-turned-neocons at the Standard never understood this. They would much rather have wars than freedom, because wars are big collective enterprises.
I won't miss them at all.
Being Never Trump just isn't wise. Exposed.
John, like socialism, it wasn't implemented properly.
And we blame Obama for screwing it up after it was finally sorta won.
I wish we knew what Bush planned to do next if Iraq had been pacified quickly.
We still don't have any idea how many jihadi were killed, so it's difficult to judge objectively if it was worth any of the trouble and cost (including the opportunity cost of doing something else).
I do know that the massive defeatism eliminated the deterrence value of the preemptive strike. That'll never happen again against a state, so they can do whatever they want without a direct attack on us.
Jeff,
Have you always been a dove*? Or did your position evolve over the years?
* defined as opposing an interventionist foreign policy.
@Drago:
Very quickly, support for the removal of Hussein (a rapidly achieved mission/objective and justified for several reasons) does not imply support for the second evolved nission: nation building.
The second must inevitably follow from the first. Once you occupy a country and remove its government, something has to be put in its place. What the US really engaged in in post-Hussein Iraq was not nation-building but state-building.
Very quickly, support for the removal of Hussein (a rapidly achieved mission/objective and justified for several reasons) does not imply support for the second evolved nission: nation building.
Did you always oppose nation building?
Is there a reason we should care?
What possesses someone to believe that that twisted narcissist's purported reading habits (or vindictive spite-Tweets) matter to anyone, much less so more than what Mueller found out about his eight-count convicted lawyer/consigliere? Apparently FOX is actively burying that news. Sounds like their own version of free "catch-and-kill."
Talk about deranged. Your intense interest in the benign minutiae of Trump's Tweet-life over his legal catastrophes is like someone closely admiring the interior decorating details on a sinking Titanic. Just deranged.
TWS: No. 93 on Don Surber's Trump Schadenfreude List
John: "Did you always oppose nation building?"
In the Middle East, yes, without question.
And my view I would venture was quite widely held at varying degrees.
Look at those societies. There is not a single necessary condition in place to create a free society in that part of the world.
Note that I did not say that were not enough necessary conditions in place. I said there are none.
None.
Thats why it will never work, and also why Trumps America First (really, Americas National Interests First) approach resonates with so much of the military.
Also why the anti-military dem types that LLR Chuck passionately supports hate it.
J farmer: "The second must inevitably follow from the first."
Nope.
@Drago:
What was the alternative?
J farmwr: "What was the alternative?"
Several, obviously.
"Did you always oppose nation building?"
I do now. I foolishly thought people around the world desired to be free. Get rid of Hussein and the Iraqi people would do the right thing and vote in a legitimate government. ME cultures apparently accept dictators/tyrants/warlords as their natural from of government.
Nation building? A complete and utter waste of time.
@Drago:
Several, obviously.
For example?
Farmer: "For example?"
Yeah, lets spend the day elucidating the entire range of possibilities that fall short of full blown nation building and eternal commitment of troops and treasure in far away lands and all the historical precedents for eachband all the potential outcomes and why this or that scenario either does or does not fit a particular model based on perceived geo/political fundamentals and while we are at it drag in the deep thoughts of military and national statesmen who wrote in detail about their ideas and........zzzzzzzzzz...
...and all on a thread targeted at the inevitable and healthy demise of a hack faux-conservative webzine.
That sounds exciting!
W was famously against nation building in 2000. We should have known that wouldn't last.
Hitchens thought Kurdistan was going in the right direction before the war, and I believe that was a major reason he supported it--to strengthen and protect them. I'd like to know if that worked. The subsequent mess in Mosul says not now.
The Never Trumpers and Trumpists defenders who lash out any criticism of The Donald are two sides of the same coin. They both have allowed Trump to shape their beliefs as opposed to having their beliefs guide their view of Trump.
@John, Yes, I've always favored non-intervention unless we are attacked. So I was against both Iraq wars then and now, and in favor of only a punitive destruction of the Taliban government when it refused to cooperate in bringing Bin Laden to justice. I thought we should have helped the Northern Alliance overthrow the Taliban regime and then left. We could send money and weapons to the new government, but that would be it. If they couldn't maintain their hold on power without our troops, then they evidently didn't want it very much.
The reason we went to war to free Kuwait from Hussein was not that we cared about the Kuwaitis, but rather that the Bush Administration and others feared that Hussein would eventually take the Saudi oilfields too. But I remembered the Coase Theorem from economics, which basically says that it doesn't matter who owns a resource, it will still be put to it's most profitable use. If Saddam had the Saudi oil, he'd sell it just as readily as the Saudis would, maybe even more so because he needed the money more than they did. So I never understood the rationale for the first Gulf War.
As for the second Iraq War, the stated reasons for that were that Hussein supposedly had WMDs, aka "weapons of mass destruction", a phrase that was invented to justify the war. The phrase conflates very dangerous nuclear weapons with impractical biological weapons (agents that tend to kill the people employing them) and with chemical weapons that are not all that destructive nor useful in a military sense. But we had some evidence that Saddam had had chemical weapons, at least, so by lumping them all together as WMDs we could pretend Saddam was a dangerous threat, when in fact he was not.
Humperdink said what I was going to say. I thought Iraq, with their educated and middle class citizens, had the makings of a democratic state that would lead to a democratic ME.
Obviously we were wrong. They want to live in a shit hole let them.
We can send drones and B-52s as needed.
AMDG: "The Never Trumpers and Trumpists defenders who lash out any criticism of The Donald are two sides of the same coin. They both have allowed Trump to shape their beliefs as opposed to having their
beliefs guide their view of Trump."
Ah yes, the typically dumb "I see everything from above fray" self-satisfied "analysis" that pretends Trump is somehow a First Mover of sorts instead of what is actually occuring: one side supporting a flawed individual who nonetheless fights thgood fight (from their perspective) vs the flawed candidates of the other side, in the midst of a global phenomenon where the first side has decided to reject the Received Wisdom from their self-appointed "betters" whose failures are so massive and far-reaching they can no longer be covered up effectively.
But thats cool AMDG, you be you with your novel, unique and not-at-all cookie cutter "analysis"...
You will no doubt do quite well on the cocktail party circuit and always be invited to partake of the jumbo shrimp!
Was he a creature like David Brooks and Jen Rubin — a lefty’s idea of what a “proper” conservative ought to be?
It's notable that Kristol preceded Brooks in the NYT's token cuck conservative slot on the op-ed page. That seemed to be the rebirth, post-Reagan/Gingrich of that brand of "conservatism" acceptable to the Upper West Side cocktail crowd.
@ Chuck - Don't worry, there are Beto times ahead.
@Drago:
Yeah, lets spend the day elucidating the entire range of possibilities that fall short of full blown nation building...
I did not ask for the "entire range of possibilities." I have asked for a single alternative scenario.
...and all on a thread targeted at the inevitable and healthy demise of a hack faux-conservative webzine.
TWS' full throated support for the Iraq War went a long ways towards discrediting it. What lessons we learn from that failure are important. I don't think taking out Saddam but not nation building is one of them. That model was tried. It's called Libya. The lesson from the Iraq War is do not pursue regime change.
> They both have allowed Trump to shape their beliefs as opposed to having their beliefs guide their view of Trump.
What is your evidence for this hypothesis? Sounds like a dressed up version of "you're stupid" to me.
It’s really interesting to click on the link for Althouse’s “Weekly Standard” tag and read the old posts that bore that tag.
Blogger Oso Negro said...
@ Chuck - Don't worry, there are Beto times ahead.
If 2020 presents me with a choice between Beto and Trump, I will cast a write-in vote for Ted Cruz.
Oso Negro: "@ Chuck - Don't worry, there are Beto times ahead"
Well played, though I doubt Chuck has sufficient room to add in Beto's pic within Chucks In-Home Lefty Shrine.
Perhaps uf he adjusted the glossy of Maddow ever so slightly
LLR Chuck: "If 2020 presents me with a choice between Beto and Trump, I will cast a write-in vote for Ted Cruz."
LOL
Yeah, like, totally believable.....
One the things that Trump does that amuses me that he doesn't spike the football in these cases, he shovels more dirt on their grave. He could have skipped the tweets. Nope.
Kristol has earned it.
Hopefully Hoe and Moe are next (Mika and Morning Joe for the uninitiated).
Farmer: "That model was tried. It's called Libya. The lesson from the Iraq War is do not pursue regime change."
Uh, right. Thanks.
Sorry, but we've seen enough to know there is no one, single, iron-clad, "thats it and nothing more" lesson that applies everywhere at all times forever and ever amen.
Thats Foggy Bottom type thinking right there.
If 2020 presents me with a choice between Beto and Trump, I will cast a write-in vote for Ted Cruz.
Ted Cruz was my first choice in the primaries. However, to throw a toddler tantrum and toss your vote away because you don't get your first choice, is foolish.
I understand the concept of standing on principles. But, to vote for someone who has a snowball's chance is to allow a much worse choice by default in an election that affects not just you....but everyone.
If you don't want to vote....don't vote. That is your prerogative. Wasting your vote in some sort of sense of moral superiority that no one but you gives a rip about. ..../shrug
With the computerized voting system in California, we don't seem to have a write in option anyway.
The lesson regarding nation-building isn't "never," but "if necessary to counter a genuine threat, but go all-in." Like Japan in the 1940s. Halfway or on the cheap is worse than not at all.
Given that Bill Kristol was the Godfather of the Fusion GPS dirty dossier, I would have expected Trump's spite arrow to be far more deadly.
I am a Conservative. I am a pretty blatant Conservative. I have read the National Review for years.
I was never particularly impressed by the Weekly Standard and it was not in my usual 'go to' websites.
Unlike most billionaire owned Democratic media sites, who are happy to have a megaphone to scream the benefits of economic plans which were contrary to how they made their money, most Conservative sites are shoe string affairs.
So...it seems that 90% of the National Review is now 'Scream about Trump'. I do not hate them for it, but Trump seems to be effective so I read it 90% less because I disagree with them.
Weekly Standard was more along the lines of reading WaPo these days in their Trump hatred. So it is totally unsurprising that they may have turned off their audience. It wouldn't have taken them much to tip them over the edge.
This, as opposed to CNN, who schills to their (meager) audience by embracing total Trump hatred instead of objective journalism.
So...which is better? Tough call.
LOL - Trump makes me giggle.
It is impossible to distinguish the good guys and from the bad guys in the ME. The wars are never over.
That's why is such a grand idea to invite the Syrian refugees to the US (sarc alert).
@ Yancey
However, if you ever advocated for Clinton's election as a self-proclaimed conservative, I am done offering support of any kind at this point.
This is everything.
Chuck said 12/15/18, 11:37 AM
"...The Weekly Standard has never, ever been anti-conservative."
I'll agree it's never ever been anti-beltway conservative. But TWS consistently and blatantly made its distaste well known for any conservative ideas/policies or brand of 'conservativism' that didn't originate within the Acela Corridor.
"...The Weekly Standard has never, ever been anti-conservative."
Nothing screams "conservative" more than calling for Hillary's election and calling for massive defeats to republicans at all levels while being funded by Soros and Omidyar and coordinating stories with FusionGPS.
Gee, it doesnt get any more conservative than that now does it?
That is some serious LLR Chuck-level "strategery" right there...
J Farmer said...
“That model was tried. It's called Libya. The lesson from the Iraq War is do not pursue regime change.“
Except in Yemen.
That was totally ok.
BTW, Bill Kristol and Charles Sykes have a new non-profit that is partly funded by George Soros and other Leftists.
After all, attacking Trump from the "Right" helps the Democrats and liberals enormously.
And Kristol is trying to get a #fakecon to run against Trump not only in the Primaries but in the 2020 general election - siphoning off even 1% in key states may give the Democrat a victory.
Kristol and Nevertrumpers are doing everything they can to elect a Liberal POTUS.
Bill Kristol: The lazy white working class should be replaced with immigrants.
"I hope this thing isn’t being videotaped or ever shown anywhere. Whatever tiny, pathetic future I have is going to totally collapse."
(eaglebeak)
Irving Kristol had some good points.
Bill, far less so.
Not sure if he practiced his tiresome hauteur in front of a mirror (perhaps it came naturally), but nothing could have been more off-putting. The kid who worked as his assistant for the past year or two was also obnoxious (had some impossible email exchanges with him), but was not old enough to have perfected the lofty fake-academic veneer.
If Trump wants to beat him up all week on Twitter, it's fine with me. TWS always had a high degree of preciosity, but became just plain awful when it fixated on Trump.
The best thing Trump has done is forced Democrats and their cuck allies out into the open.
Democrats have to defend open borders without the cover of traitors in the Republican Party.
All of the videos of Democrats supporting border security in the past while Vichy traitors like McCain carried the open borders torch was what the uniparty was all about.
TWS was a front to give the globalists cover.
Next up is NR.
Bill Kristol: "I hope this thing isn’t being videotaped or ever shown anywhere. Whatever tiny, pathetic future I have is going to totally collapse."
Billy K had LLR Chuck at "hello, we think our Faux-Con Weekly Standard pub would be a great addition to the Make The Govt Permanently Democrat/Far Left Plan".
Achilles: "Democrats have to defend open borders without the cover of traitors in the Republican Party."
Take LLR Chuck as an instructive example: raging like antifa while backing every lefty policy and advancing every lefty narrative.
These were the same people undermining Reagan.
Kristol went to work in government in 1985, serving as chief of staff to United States Secretary of Education William Bennett during the Reagan administration, and then as Chief of Staff to the Vice President under Dan Quayle in the George H. W. Bush administration. The New Republic dubbed Kristol "Dan Quayle's brain" when he was appointed the Vice President's chief of staff.
Come to think of it, Trump has an opening!
@Drago:
Sorry, but we've seen enough to know there is no one, single, iron-clad, "thats it and nothing more" lesson that applies everywhere at all times forever and ever amen.
I have not made that claim. I asked what possible alternative to nation-building could have occurred once the US occupied Iraq and destroyed its government. The only option that the US could have taken that would not have been nation-building was to immediately withdrawal after the regime collapsed. That is a possibility, but I doubt your argument is that it would have led to a better outcome. So I asked what possible alternative the US had to avoid nation-building, and I have yet to hear one.
@James K:
The lesson regarding nation-building isn't "never," but "if necessary to counter a genuine threat, but go all-in." Like Japan in the 1940s. Halfway or on the cheap is worse than not at all.
Generally agree but also worthwhile remembering that Japan and Germany were both highly advanced and developed societies relatively speaking, and both had been defeated in wars they implemented.
@Achilles:
Except in Yemen.
That was totally ok.
There was no regime change by a foreign force in Yemen. The country came apart internally and has always had a history of challenges to central government forces. The Saudis and UAE initiated in the war on Yemen to return an ousted leader to party. That leader now has no legitimacy in Yemen and sits in Riyadh on house arrest.
Where will the Weekly Standard be buried? I want to piss on its grave. And when I find Chuck there weeping I will piss on him too.
So who does Mohammed al Houthi, favorite son of the Washington post.
And don't say not to choose, because the Iranians have already made a choice, like Nasser did 50 Years ago.
I’ll take J Farmer’s bait.
Keep replacing regimes and getting out until the people in those countries learn to vote in someone who isn’t going to go against our interests. If it doesn’t eventually sink in? Do it into perpetuity.
You can do the above without any attempt at nation building.
@I Callahan:
Keep replacing regimes and getting out until the people in those countries learn to vote in someone who isn’t going to go against our interests.
The problem with regime change in unstable societies is that it results in failed states. That is, there are not much regimes left to take their place. They are fractured, unstable countries. We can take out the regime in Afghanistan tomorrow, and it would have a negligible effect on the Taliban, other than strengthening them that is.
@narciso:
And don't say not to choose, because the Iranians have already made a choice, like Nasser did 50 Years ago.
Who cares if the Iranians support the Houthis. The Saudis and Emiratis are supporting groups like AQAP, who are now in possession of American-supplied arms. That's a better option?
J farmer: "The only option that the US could have taken that would not have been nation-building was to immediately withdrawal after the regime collapsed."
No, its not the only option.
Obviously.
@Drago:
No, its not the only option.
Obviously.
After the US destroys the state of a country, it can either leave something behind in its place or not. If it chooses the former, that is nation-building.
Bill Kristol is a putz. He needs to fade away from the political scene.
Drudge takes up the slack
UPDATE: Human Heart Left On Flight Miraculously Makes It To Donor...
California counts as another failure of nation building. The natives can't maintain the forests, dams, and industry the US left behind.
J Farmer: "After the US destroys the state of a country, it can either leave something behind in its place or not. If it chooses the former, that is nation-building."
Brilluant.
You are clearly ready for promotion now.
I guess there are absolutely no variations in degrees of pre-existing civil institutions, infrastructure, factional control, the amount of damage delivered to achieve leadership changeout, potential successors, their levels of support within the country, etc.
Farmer, you might be the most simplistic thinking armchair general I've come across..
Bill Kristol no doubt had a hardon for Hillary ever since her invasion of Libya and her injection of arms into the Syrian civil war.
appropriately, he got 'Kristol-Nocked'
"chuck said...
California counts as another failure of nation building. The natives can't maintain the forests, dams, and industry the US left behind."
Yikes, I agreed with chuck.
@Drago:
I guess there are absolutely no variations in degrees of pre-existing civil institutions, infrastructure, factional control, the amount of damage delivered to achieve leadership changeout, potential successors, their levels of support within the country, etc.
Those are all questions of how to do nation-building not whether to do it.
I looked at the Kristol video where he denounces the selfish lazy working class. He never meets the point that America's manufacturing was grabbed up by the Chinese. They were misusing TPP and NAFTA but when your trading partners are scamming, you don't ignore the bad behavior. Especially if the bad behavior means that THE JOBS AREN'T THERE for the American working class. It isn't that they are lazy. THE JOBS AREN'T THERE. For those with a high school degree THE JOBS AREN'T THERE. and Trump is trying to get the jobs back or create them with cheap energy. But Kristol just ignores the issue.
Barry Weingast on why nation building doesn't work
www.econtalk.org/weingast-on-violence-power-and-a-theory-of-nearly-everything
You've got to pay off all the people capable of violence who would lose their payoffs, given to prevent them from being violent in proportion to how much violence they can cause.
well why did we need to 'nationbuild' in Afghanistan, because the Saudi and Pakistani proxies, along with the soviets, blasted it to bits, Iraq was a little different because
it was a failed project from the folks that brought us Nasser, Eichelberger and Copeland, they cultivated the Baathists against the communists, ultimately saddam chose the path of least resistance and went with the soviets, followed the path of the golden square, immiserating the shia and kurd majority, he apparently didn't touch Khomeini though, the us govt sought to rehabilitate him as a pawn against iran, forgetting he had sponsored carlos and abu nidal, the eight year trench war, empoverished saddam, so he thought to extort his underwriters, we know what happened there, then we know how the sanctions regime was manipulated by many of his key suppliers, but the regime was rotten ultimately so this avowedly secular regime, began engaging with islamist elements from north Africa, to Lebanon,
Farmer: "Those are all questions of how to do nation-building not whether to do it."
I disagree.
Who gets the credit for "nation building" the US? Certainly not Liz Warren or her kin.
wildswan said...
Yikes, I agreed with chuck.
That's a chuck of a different color, not Chuck.
Minuscule chuck vs. His Majuscule, Chuck.
The Althouse commentariat has become quite the choir.
Name the chapter and verse that we should be singing, Phil.
And name the opinions that the Weakly Standard forwarded in pursuit of a conservative, small government agenda.
Leviathan State is hard at work attacking the Trump policy agenda; is that a reason (or not) to appreciate the Trump agenda?
Is *nation building* same as making the people of a country into *proud nationalists*
Is Trumpism a belated attempt at building a nation out of USA?
Is "the resistance" an insurgency?
Negotiating with the Democrats >>> COIN?
Meanwhile Doha had a big confab with officials from Brookings (well they paid 15 million in danegeld) Erdogans son in law and architect of the persecution of journolist, a jew baiting Iranian professor at ucla.
J. Farmer said...
@Achilles:
Except in Yemen.
That was totally ok.
“There was no regime change by a foreign force in Yemen. “
That is a lie and you know it.
You are not here in good faith.
@Achilles:
Blah blah blah. You’re a broken record. Here’s a novel idea. How about you make an actual argument for your position.
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