Very interesting. Kristol was on Newshour this evening as well regurgitating the same get-ever-tougher flotsom Juan Williams slapped him for on Fox.

I'm curious to see if we can stay out of the neocon's WWIII long enough for a real force to oppose them and I'm sad to think it may have to come from genuinely conservative Republicans.

South by Southwest
The current Middle East tragedy we see unfolding before our eyes is, obviously, one that ever more journalists will not be able to cover with cool dispatch, thank goodness. Also, it is unsettling to learn of the neocons' view of how the current out-of-control events in the region could be advantageous to their cause.
War is so easy. And there is plenty of blame to go around: Is the infrastructure of struggling Lebanon so meaningless that it needs to be destroyed? Are the lives of innocent civilians in Israel and Lebanon just "collateral damage?" If Israel has miscalculated by over-reacting, will they be drawn into something from which it will be difficult to extricate themselves? Will Hezbollah so discredited themselves that they will forever leave their experiment with community services and politics? Will the U.S. again be as late and ineffectual at rescue as with Hurricane Katrina? Another chartered cruise ship?!

Israel Lobby Watch

Excellent! I am feeling better already having just endured Kristol's Israel Lobby rant on the NewsHour.  Thank God for David Ignatius.

What's happening in Israel is in no small measure a product of desperate people in very desperate straits.

 Yes we're talking IraQ, IraN, the TaepOdong nonsense and the 2006 elections. The War Party is desperate. This is their October surprise, this the time for fighting words if ever there was one.

Too "Inside the Beltway" for me to be interested.

I stopped reading the Weekly Standard after it kept putting up progressively more farfetched and more ridiculous "Able Danger" stories on its website.

The "Able Danger" nonsense was proof enough for me that the folks at the Weekly Standard will go along with even the cheesiest and dumbest low-rent propaganda stunts just to get a bad word in about the Clinton administration.

I don't "get" George Will. His columns are a big yawn and he comes across as a pompous jerk with an undeserved elitist attitude on television.

Israel Lobby Watch
Awesome...but reflecting on Joe Biden's performance yesterday on, back to the dumps...

Listening to Newt Gingrich bloviate on Meet the Press, advocating U.S. intervention on Israel's behalf against Syria and Iran – and the pathetic Joe "Me Too" Biden effectively agreeing with him – one can only wonder how or why anybody listens to these crazies. As Newt, the megalomaniacal has-been, gleefully declares that "World War III" is in progress, and weaves a conspiracy theory linking Iran, Syria, North Korea, Hezbollah, and – believe it or not! – Venezuela, old Joe just sits there nodding out. Given a chance to reply, his only objection to Gingrich's vision of war on all fronts is that, yes, we need to go to war, but we have to do it with the support of our allies. "Fighting Joe" Biden is no weenie: his voice hardens as he avers we should tell the North Koreans that we have the capacity to "annihilate" them. Gingrich smiles.

He has good reason to smile. Aside from his fondness for the concept of annihilation, he knows that the War Party's "liberal" Democratic wing is falling into line. The Israeli invasion of Lebanon – which many predict will include the de facto annexation of a southern "buffer zone" – has the fulsome support of both parties. When the Israelis tell the Americans to jump, the only question Biden and the Democratic party leadership have is: How high?

Will We Go to War for Israel?:

 

 

Then there's John McCain whose never met a war he didn't like (compensating for sitting his out???)...our National Leadership is in the grips of a dying but desperate War Party..

The very worst of all possible worlds

What part of Will's statement here:

"And perhaps because containment, although of uncertain success, did work against Stalin and his successors, and might be preferable to a war against a nation much larger and more formidable than Iraq."

didn't you grasp?

Not that I'm speaking for Will, since I don't read his stuff. But this statement does not indicate that Will is in any way in favor of the neocon plan for Iran.

Perhaps he believes Iran does have a nuclear weapons program, but he doesn't seem to be supporting the neocon concept.

More importantly, the article's attacks on the neocons seems to come at a time when the neocon and Israeli agenda CLEARLY is to stimulate a war on Syria and Iran. That was precisely the neocon blather Will was quoting.

I have no idea what Will might want to do but before posting I went back to some of Wills columns and read them. He is clearly more concerned about Iran and North Korea than he was ever about Iraq. Will is also more like Fukyama is now skeptical about the ability to transform societies, at least on the cheap. Whereas the neo-Cons clearly believe their rhetoric about societal transformation. It is one of the biggest differences between the neo-Cons and the actual leaders of this country Bush Cheney and Rumsfeld. It would not surprise me if Will is mor a supporter of Cheney and Rumsfeld.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

I don't "get" George Will. His columns are a big yawn and he comes across as a pompous jerk with an undeserved elitist attitude on television.

Then what does that say about Kristol? Now there's a real whack-job "fancy-pants" if one ever walked the face of God's green earth. They oughta require that wag and his pillow-biting buddy Doug Feith to suit up, move 'em out and place them at the tip of the spear of this here "WAR PARTY" if he wishes the US to take out Iran. Those two have been near the top of the Admiral's list for round-up by the Shore Patrol for a trip to the brig aboard the USS Lolliepop for the last four years.

Come on Kristol, how 'bout you and Dougie dearest lead us all to salvation and the promise land. But as usual I have digressed.

Now ... about George Will, he IS a self-proclaimed expert on baseball... So he must know a little about something on everything that works out to be about nothing.

~OGD~

You may well be right about that last. But the point of the post is that Will is down on the neocons.

While Will may be skeptical about the ability to transform societies, and neocons aren't - and that isn't certain, since neocons like to lie about their motivations and real justifications for their actions - clearly Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld seem to still go along with the neocons, even if they personally may not be neocons. I find it hard to distinguish between Cheney, who appears to be just a crook and a power seeker, and the neocons, who appear to be ideologically motivated crooks and power seekers. Since they all seem to be on the same road together, distinguishing the two isn't useful unless there is some sort of leverage to be gained.

Justin Raimondo quotes Dan Rather saying something to the effect that the road is littered with the corpses of people who underestimated Dick Cheney's influence on Bush and points out that if Condi Rice was involved in Bush's "diplomacy" effort on Iran - if there ever truly was one - Cheney and the neocons are back in the saddle now.

This also contradicts Ivo Daalder's recent assertions to me about that as well. Raimondo points out that Israel has cut that stuff off at the knees by unilaterally widening the ME war.

I'm with you. One thinks that bowtie will eventually cut off the remaining oxygen to his brain as it's evident it has already done significant damage.

And to think George Will is one of the more moderate members of the beltway Kool Kids Klub!

Regardless of what George Will now says we need to keep in mind he's been much more than an "enabler" for these nuts now running our country and dominating our beltway media discourse.

When Juan Williams becomes the voice of reason you know we're in some deep s**t in DC.

I am really surprised that none of the posters have noted perhaps the greatest significance of the Will attack. Now, maybe, with this type of "cover" some of our courageous Democrats may be willing to speak out more forcefully. Maybe....nah.

It says they are Presidential material.

____________________________________________________________

“I, ..., do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic..."

the greatest significance of the Will attack. Now, maybe, with this type of "cover" some of our courageous Democrats may be willing to speak out more forcefully. Maybe....nah.

I really see this differently in terms of 'greatest significance'.  I do not beleive it is a democratic vs. GOP issue in terms of Will speaking out. Rather, this is a inter-party fight over listening to the neo-cons in terms how our foreign policy will be driven.

But as Transhuman noted, it matters not the difference between neo-cons vs. oil backers driving the ME war unless there is something to leverage.  This war in the ME, is two pronged, there is the allies of Israel and the bigger 'geopolitical oil control' dominant thinking on USA policy.

Israel is a tactic and support of them is a by product of the much larger goal and strategy to control oil so that we can have some leverage with our bankers, China and Japan.

That's the issue which  Clinton told us about during his 2004 DNC speech.

Yes, but if it is not lack of cover that prevents "our" Democrats from speaking out forcefully on Iraq, what is it? Is it diffidence, modesty, decorum, or do they feel like Lieberman that the war is just and proper and going swimmingly?

Yes, but if it is not lack of cover that prevents "our" Democrats from speaking out forcefully on Iraq, what is it? Is it diffidence, modesty, decorum, or do they feel like Lieberman that the war is just and proper and going swimmingly?

I am not certain. But I would tend to think they have nothing to gain politically by doing so. AIPAC is too powerful.

Israel Lobby Watch

US/Israelite Destruction of Lebanon Continues [Juan Cole's Informed Comment

These attrocities are the work of desperate criminals whose time is running out. Unfortunately, the wounded tiger is the most deadly ..Israel is running out of time both for its 60 year ethnic cleansing campaign and most critically on its blank check from its puppet Bush...

Billy Kristol at the Weekly Standard is now certifiable calling for another two wars - Iran and Syria and for this, receives a righteous shellacking from George Will in the WaPo today.Transformations Toll

7For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind. The standing grain has no heads, it shall yield no meal; if it were to yield, foreigners would devour it. 8Israel is swallowed up; now they are among the nations as a useless vessel 

Hosea 8

 

What I am watching in Lebanon each day is an outrage By Robert Fisk in Mdeirej, Central Lebanon

Will’s goal, as always, is to defend the Coalition of the George F. Willing. By this, I mean Will is engaged in a pursuit that has become very obvious since practically no sane, remotely honest person can plausibly claim W and his gang of neocompoops hasn’t run the US train off the tracks. Will’s tack is a diversion designed to defend “conservatism” against “fake” (neo) conservatives. Things fall apart, goes this worldview, because we wander from the true path of genuine conservatism. The grandiose failures of Bush, the neo-cons, etc. are not failures of conservatism, they argue. Doom is visited upon our nation as a punishment for straying from the true path.

It’s all obviously a set-up for the November mid-terms: Vote Republican and give the party a chance to implement true conservatism. The party (meaning Will) has learned the error of its ways fiscally and abroad. Neocons and liberals, with their interventionism and pie-in-the-sky visions of largescale transformation, are really the same thing and lead us toward the same problems. Forget the fact that so many liberals opposed the Iraq War. Will has to denounce the neocons in order to create the logic of his final push for the GOP, and “true” conservatism, going into November.

Pay no attention to the man behind that curtain! He’s a desperate fraud, made even more pathetic by his growing irrelevence as a commentator. Oh. did someone mention Will checking into the ER? It was for the war wound he got when Toto bit him on the ass.
Pantheon

OGD,

My eyes glazed over just reading the table of contents and the first couple of pages of George Will's s book about