Kristol's balls

It's hard to pick out which is the more outrageous assertion in Kristol's column in yesterday's Times. His target is a MoveOn.org ad that plays off McCain's stated willingness to be in Iraq for 100 years if necessary. His assertion is that the ad expresses "contempt for all who might choose to serve their country in uniform." It reads as follows:

“Hi, John McCain. This is Alex. And he’s my first. So far his talents include trying any new food and chasing after our dog. That, and making my heart pound every time I look at him. And so, John McCain, when you say you would stay in Iraq for 100 years, were you counting on Alex? Because if you were, you can’t have him.”

Now, Kristol has a rare moment of lucidity when he points out that McCain's statement was in a context of a prolonged peacetime presence such as we have in Germany and Japan and that the implication of the ad is that he envisions a prolonged war. One might point out in response that does, however, speak volumes about his desire to have permanent bases in Iraq, exactly the sort of thing the Bush administration is claiming that it doesn't want.

However, as if he were unaccustomed to accuracy, he then quotes the mother of a soldier who said--

“Does that mean that she wants other people’s sons to keep the wolves at bay so that her son can live a life of complete narcissism? What is it she thinks happens in the world? ... Someone has to stand between our society and danger. If not my son, then who? If not little Alex then someone else will have to stand and deliver. Someone’s son, somewhere.”

This presupposes that what McCain wants is to only use our soldiers when our society is in danger. The problem with that is that such a danger didn't exist either in Iraq, and still doesn't, or in Iran, about which he likes to sing songs about bombing. There is also nothing in the ad that could reasonably support the implication that the mother wants her son to live a life of complete narcissism. Perhaps she envisions her son being a teacher rather than putting his life on the line for the type of neo-con pipe dream that Messrs. McCain and Kristol like to play around with.

Kristol caps off his delusional interpretation of the ad with

The MoveOn ad is unapologetic in its selfishness, and barely disguised in its disdain for those who have chosen to serve — and its contempt for those parents who might be proud of sons and daughters who are serving. The ad boldly embraces a vision of a selfish and infantilized America, suggesting that military service and sacrifice are unnecessary and deplorable relics of the past.

And the sole responsibility of others.

He has tremendous balls to try to pass that off as the thrust of the ad when the language clearly is aimed at McCain's Iraq policy.

What really calls for the extra helping of chutzpah is when he presumes to accuse other people of considering that military sacrifice is the responsibility of others when many of his neo-con fellow travelers actually acted on exactly that consideration.

People like the President, who pulled strings to get into a National Guard unit that, as such, wouldn't face being deployed to Vietnam, and then failed to put in his time.

People like the Vice President who took five draft deferments because he had "other priorities".

People like Newt Gingrich, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle who spent some or all of the second half of the 60s in grad school.