I'm going to take my life into my hands now and attempt to embed a video from last night's Daily Show With Jon Stewart. This is dangerous because the Comedy Central website was designed by someone who apparently thought it would be hilarious to configure the most confusingly-designed website on the 'net and to include all sorts of complex animations and scripts to muck up our browsers. I always have the feeling when I'm there that I could click on the wrong thing and take the entire network completely off the air.
But it's worth the gamble to make sure you've seen Jon Stewart's interview with William Kristol, perhaps the punditry's leading advocate of the following Foreign Policy: Whenever something's wrong somewhere in the world, we should go in, show everyone that we possess awesome power, reduce them to subservience, make them have free elections ("free" in the sense that they have to elect only the leaders we want them to elect) and then allow American business to go in and exploit the situation. This actually may not be a bad strategy for some nations but Kristol and his crew seem to think it's a universal solution for everything and everywhere…and the fact that it keeps failing and creating more problems for us is a minor quibble.
Somehow, he reminds me of a guy I encountered years ago who thought he was a doctor (the A.M.A. did not) and that there was no ailment in the world that couldn't be cured by eating fish. Some who heeded his advice got better but most got worse and some died. And of course, if they got worse or died, the explanation always was that they simply hadn't eaten enough fish.
You almost have to admire Bill Kristol. If I'd been as utterly wrong as he's been — if I had people on my own side saying we'd screwed up big time — I don't think I'd be rushing onto every TV show that would have me to try and shore up my position. I certainly wouldn't go on with Jon Stewart, in front of his studio audience. I mean, even if there is a defense possible of the Bush plan, that's not the place to make your argument. Still, Kristol shows up on programs like this, smiling the same frozen smile, no matter how he gets slapped around. As you'll see, Stewart slaps him pretty hard. Or at least, you'll see it if the video link works…
