Chris Wallace Calls The Perpetually Wrong Bill Kristol An ?Expert? On Iraq
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on March 8th, 2010 5:38 am by HL
Chris Wallace Calls The Perpetually Wrong Bill Kristol An ?Expert? On Iraq
Demonstrating again Fox News’ hilariously low standards, this morning Fox News’ Chris Wallace referred to Bill Kristol as an “expert in [the] area” of Iraq’s elections: WALLACE: Bill, you certainly are an expert in this area. The two leading candidates seem to be the current prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, and the original prime minister [Ayad] Allawi. […]
Demonstrating again Fox News’ hilariously low standards, this morning Fox News’ Chris Wallace referred to Bill Kristol as an “expert in [the] area” of Iraq’s elections:
WALLACE: Bill, you certainly are an expert in this area. The two leading candidates seem to be the current prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, and the original prime minister [Ayad] Allawi. From the U.S. point of view, who would we rather see?
KRISTOL: I honestly don’t know. I think — the good news has been the degree of reformist parties and the new leaders who have begun to emerge in the Iraqi political system.
Watch it:
Kristol has spent the last decade proving that he doesn’t know. Here’s a classic example of Kristol’s Iraq “expertise” from 2003:
On this issue of the Shia in Iraq, I think there’s been a certain amount of, frankly, a kind of pop sociology in America that, you know, somehow the Shia can’t get along with the Sunni and the Shia in Iraq just want to establish some kind of Islamic fundamentalist regime. There’s almost no evidence of that at all. Iraq’s always been very secular.
Months later, Iraq would explode into a civil war driven by competing radical Sunni and Shia militias trying to establish some kind of Islamic fundamentalist regime.
Kristol’s propensity for error is so serious that, according to Newsweek’s Eric Margolis, Bill’s late father Irving Kristol sometimes lamented to an old family friend, “My poor son has got it wrong again.” Journalist Eric Alterman wrote in the Nation, “if one looks for a consistent pattern to Kristol’s perpetual wrongness, it’s not hard to discern. For Kristol is less interested in being correct than in advancing his side’s interests. He’s not a journalist; he’s an apparatchik working undercover as a man of the press.”
In other words, the perfect Fox News journalist.
Mitt Romney Claims That President Obama?s Words ?Support? 911 Truthers Abroad
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s foreign policy mythology book tour continued on Fox News Sunday this morning. Romney started his interview saying that President Obama had engaged in an “apology tour.” This has been a standard conservative talking point in response to the massive positive shift in global attitudes toward America, as a result of […]
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s foreign policy mythology book tour continued on Fox News Sunday this morning. Romney started his interview saying that President Obama had engaged in an “apology tour.” This has been a standard conservative talking point in response to the massive positive shift in global attitudes toward America, as a result of President Obama’s diplomatic outreach.
However, Romney went further asserting that Obama’s words gave “support” to those saying the 9/11 attacks were a fabrication:
ROMNEY: It also adds fuel to the fire of those who are apart of the blame America crowd. I saw even Ahmadinejad is even saying 911 is a fabrication. These sorts of voices should not receive any kind of support from the words of the President of United States.
But I can tell you, that I am glad the the President reversed course in Iraq – he didn’t pull our troops out as he said during the campaign. He likewise supported our surge efforts in Afghanistan, having voted against the surge in Iraq… He has done some things right, but his apology tour was one of the things he did very very badly.
Watch it:
Romney’s outrageous claim that Obama’s words “support” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also belies the reality that the President’s outreach to the Iranian people helped bolster the movement for change within Iran that is intensely opposed to Ahmadinejad.
In his short answer to Chris Wallace, Romney was able to forward two more factually false statements. Romney seems to have no idea that US troops in Iraq are being pulled out at a fairly rapid rate that fits with the timeline outlined by candidate-Obama. There are now fewer than 100,000 troops in Iraq for the first time since the invasion.
Romney also claimed that the surge in Afghanistan was a GOP idea. This is completely wrong. During the 2006 and 2008 elections Democrats campaigned aggressively on shifting the focus from Iraq to Afghanistan. Upon taking office Obama immediately authorized an increase in troop levels – something that President Bush refused to do – bringing US troop levels in Afghanistan to the highest they had ever been. He then authorized a further increase and a timeline for withdrawal with his West Point speech last fall.
