Kristol’s Third Strike: Weekly Standard Editor Gets The Facts Wrong In His New York Times Column
Kristol’s Third Strike: Weekly Standard Editor Gets The Facts Wrong In His New York Times Column
In his New York Times column today, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol tried to find reasons for conservatives to be optimistic about 2008 elections, despite the claims of some Republicans that “the Republican brand is in the trash can.” To support his argument, Kristol pointed to Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-IL) 41-point loss in the West Virginia primary:
On Tuesday night, while the G.O.P. Congressional candidate was losing in a Mississippi district George Bush carried in 2004 by 25 points, Barack Obama was being trounced in the West Virginia Democratic primary — by 41 points. I can’t find a single recent instance of a candidate who ultimately became his party’s nominee losing a primary by this kind of margin.
Apparently Kristol didn’t look hard enough. Writing at Room Eight, New York political consultant Jerry Skurnik says it took him “all of 2 minutes to find what Kristol couldn’t find.” On Feb. 5, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney beat presumptive GOP nominee Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) by 85 points in the Utah primary:
In fact, on the same day, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee beat McCain by the same margin Kristol touted as unprecedented — 41 points — in the Arkansas primary. As did Mitt Romney in the Colorado caucus.
This is at least the third time that Kristol has gotten the facts wrong in his Times column. In his debut column, Kristol misattributed a quote by Michael Medved to Michelle Malkin. Later, Kristol falsely claimed Obama was in church on a day that he was not.
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How many times does one has to f**k up before getting fired?
In these times, here on Bizarro world, failure is an achievment to strive for and is rewarded with even more and higher promotions.
Stop the world! I want to get off!
May 19th, 2008 at 1:03 pmThree Strikes and Your Out!!
How many retractions is the Times going to make for Kristol before he gets fired???
May 19th, 2008 at 1:04 pmUncle Ho we are are the same wavelength..
May 19th, 2008 at 1:05 pmKristol’s daddie founded the neoconservative movement and Billy Boy his own self was one of the original founders of PNAC. So he will not go quietly into that good night.
He has to be one of the worst commentators on Faux No Nooz and always has a smirk that says “Look at me, I am a NeoCon and just took a firehose enema of BushCo BS”.
May 19th, 2008 at 1:08 pmKristol and “facts” exist in two separate universes.
May 19th, 2008 at 1:11 pmcaption:
May 19th, 2008 at 1:12 pmProducer: “Try again, Mr. Kristol, take 39 everyone…”
Kristol: “What? I got it wrong? Again?”
Facts…facts? We don’t need no stinking facts!
May 19th, 2008 at 1:12 pmWhat Think Progress kleaves out is that Utah is heavily Mormon and Arkansas is Huckabee’s home state. Kristol was reffering to battlegroud primary states.
May 19th, 2008 at 1:14 pmI found this even more interesting:
Utah Democratic Primary
Barak Obama- 74,538
Utah Republican Primary
John McCain- 15,264
http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P08/UT-D.phtml
May 19th, 2008 at 1:17 pmGive William the Bloody a break. It didn’t have to do with AIPAC or PNAC, so he really wasn’t paying attention.
May 19th, 2008 at 1:17 pmThe errors on Kristol’s part are not the least bit surprising. Progressives already know he’s incompetent. However, the errors do raise the question… Does the NYT editorial department even read his columns before they are printed? I mean, the real issue here is that a supposedly reputable publication has now, on three occasions in less than five months, allowed Kristol to print patently false claims. Perhaps the NYT needs to be reminded that giving conservatives a platform to voice their opinion and promote debate is quite different from giving Kristol a platform from which to dispense lies.
May 19th, 2008 at 1:18 pmI misrepresented a quote by Douglas Adams and gave credit to Kurt Vonnegut. I apologize for my unforgivable behavior. I should have just fact checked it before hand. It was easy to find out that I had made an error. I realized my error in less than one minute when I checked the tubes.
May 19th, 2008 at 1:20 pmI wonder why a supposed, “editor” doesn’t know how to use “facts” Doesn’t this disqualify anyone from professional work as a “writer of non fiction”?
Al Da God Says:
——————————————————————————–
What Think Progress kleaves out is that Utah is heavily Mormon and Arkansas is Huckabee’s home state. Kristol was reffering to battlegroud primary states.
May 19th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Thanks for your remarkable ability at being able to translate/understand Stupidese for us ; is that what you’re a “God” of , btw ?
May 19th, 2008 at 1:20 pmBut that isn’t what he said, IS IT? Trolls!
May 19th, 2008 at 1:21 pmIt’s hard to fact check when you’re just making crap up.
May 19th, 2008 at 1:22 pmWhile we are at it, let’s look at the Arkansas primary results:
Arkansas Democratic Primary
Barak Obama- 82,476
Arkansas Republican Primary
John McCain- 46,343
http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P08/AR-R.phtml
May 19th, 2008 at 1:22 pmFreedom Rebel; thanks, I appreciate the company.
May 19th, 2008 at 1:27 pmHow about those West Virginia primarys? Surely McCain garnered more votes than did Barak Obama in West Virginia, for crying out loud!
West Virginia Democratic Primary
Barak Obama- 91,663
West Virginia Republican Primary
John McCain- 89,654
http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P08/WV-R.phtml
May 19th, 2008 at 1:28 pmAl Da God Says:
What Think Progress kleaves out is that Utah is heavily Mormon and Arkansas is Huckabee’s home state. Kristol was reffering to battlegroud primary states.
Dude, please. Spelchek iz good 4 u.
But if I must respond…. I would say that if your logik were beter than your speling, you mihgt considder that Barry HUSSEIN (Lollers!!!!) Obambi (Bwahahahaha!!!!) barely kampained in Wes Vaginia so it waznt akchully a battlegroud state.
May 19th, 2008 at 1:29 pmIn the NeoCon world, the more wrong you are about more things, the more you get promoted. I’m surprised Kristol doesn’t have is own show on Fox “News”.
May 19th, 2008 at 1:30 pmI’m sure that Kristol was trying to say that all those “hard working White Americans” in WV would never vote for Barack Obama. Want to tell that to the 75,000 hard working white Americans who came out to support Obama yesterday in Portland. Or are the hard working white Americans in Oregon different than the hard working white Americans in WV?
May 19th, 2008 at 1:30 pmShayne Says:
DUDE! – Too true and too funny!
May 19th, 2008 at 1:31 pmPretty Funny – Utah Results:
http://politics.nytimes.com/election-guide/2008/results/states/UT.html
Total Votes:
Barack Obama 74,538
Hillary Rodham Clinton 51,333
John McCain 15,931
Strange how Kristol ignored that.
May 19th, 2008 at 1:33 pmMein Gott, Has no one read about Vincent Bugliosi’s latest book ‘The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder’? WTF are we doing jacking around with a discredited neo-con who ‘happens’ to have an op-ed place on the NYT.
May 19th, 2008 at 1:34 pmWe, who wanted to impeach a sitting president for having consexual sex outside marriage, now will listen to some hack who should also, later, be on trial.
For God’s sake you people, wake up and know what’s coming down!!
He printts falsehoods and:
Does it even matter? Do they even care?
May 19th, 2008 at 1:34 pmJebus. He’s not only intellectually lazy, but an idiot as well. They might as well hire an elementary school student to write their columns.
May 19th, 2008 at 1:36 pmBarak Obama also got lots more primary votes than McCain did in Colorado, but there must be some state where McCain did better than Obama.
It took some searching but I did find one:
Arizona Democratic Primary
Barak Obama- 193,126
Arizona Republican Primary
John McCain- 255,197
http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P08/AZ-R.phtml
May 19th, 2008 at 1:37 pmShoeless,
Obviously there has to be more there than it being McCain’s home. Could it be because all the retirees there think McCain is young meat?
May 19th, 2008 at 1:42 pmMistakes are expected from VP Dan Quayle’s former chief of staff.
May 19th, 2008 at 1:47 pmObama wasn’t on the ballot in Michigan. So, who knows who would have received the most votes in their respective primarys there. But, McCain did slightly better than some Democrat named Uncommitted.
Michigan Democratic Primary
Uncommitted- 238,168
Michigan Republican Primary
John McCain- 257,985
http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P08/MI-D.phtml
May 19th, 2008 at 1:49 pmKristol:
“Don’t let the facts get in the way of the next round of bumpersticker mantras.”
May 19th, 2008 at 1:50 pmMr. Kristol is just a pathetic babbling old fool.
O/T: Believe it or Not. How Nancy Pelosi may yet become the first woman President: Republican Congressmen and Republican Senators are getting into a full-scale panic mode about the coming Obama/Democratic landslide in the November Election. However, the GOP can still make amends with the American people by Impeaching, Trying, Convicting and Removing from Office VP Cheney and P Bush. The Democrats will surely not stand in the way of a GOP revolt against Cheney and Bush, and thus Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi would become the first woman President of the United States, if only for a few months… Believe it or Not.
May 19th, 2008 at 1:51 pmKristol = complete idiot.
May 19th, 2008 at 1:54 pmIn the first of what would become legendary strategy memos circulated among Republican policymakers, Kristol said the party should “kill”, not amend or compromise on, the Clinton health care plan. The success of the Clinton proposal, he warned, would “re-legitimize middle-class dependence for ‘security’ on government spending and regulation”, and “revive … the Democrats, as the generous protector of middle-class interests.” Kristol’s memo immediately became important in uniting Republicans behind total opposition to Clinton’s reform plan.
Nothing like working together for the best interests of the country and all Americans ……….And the Chimpy/GOP leg humpers who infest this place continue to laughably insist that Republicans are somehow miss-labeled or misread ………
This d-bag has been wrong on every side of every issue for almost a decade-and-a-half ; why does he still have multiple platforms to continue spewing his erroneous stupid shit ?
May 19th, 2008 at 1:56 pmY’know what i find funny about this thread?
No, not that Bill Kristolmeth made another embarrassingly stupid error of fact in his column, (that is commonplace by now) nor that the NYT is getting mebarrassed by their hiring choice (that was predicted the moment it was announced).
It’s that the only troll who showed up to defend William the Bloody (by use of the all-powerful “troll clairvoyance”) was dismantled even more quickly and thoroughly by TPers than Kristol was.
Ah well, one gets the troll apologists he deserves, I suppose.
May 19th, 2008 at 1:58 pmBill Krystal is an idiot who thinks Republicans have all of the answers. If a person thinks he is always right and others are always wrong, that’s the definition of insanity. This man is clearly insane and the NY Times needs to fire him immediately. If they want someone who just spreads party propaganda, they could hire me to do that. I would do it for a lot less money too. Why do they feel the need to have a Republicans idealog on the payroll? He isn’t fair and objective in his accessments of this race or anything else political.
Anyone who takes Bill Krystal seriously must remember he was chief of staff of Dan Quale. That tells you all you need to know about him. Anytime Tom Davis calls the Republican brand “Dog Food” and President Bush/Cheney “Radioactive”, that tells you something. This man is honest about what he sees going on and isn’t trying to spin it. Mr. Krystal is one of the chicken hawks who got us into the war in Iraq and now has no ideas about getting out. So he along with McCain keep saying we need to stay there until we win. The problem with that is what happened at the end of the Viet Nam war. If we had stayed there until we won, we’d still be there.
How do McCain and Krystal think is going to meet us on the deck of one of our ships to surrender? This isn’t a country we are fighting, it is a bunch of idiots and terrorists. They have no real organized chain of command or General to surrender. If they haven’t stopped fighting us after this long, why would they stop now. The Republicans just don’t want to say they lost a war. So the smart thing to do is declare victory and go home. That’s exactly why you don’t start stupid wars without a clear defintion of what victory looks like.
May 19th, 2008 at 2:00 pmKristol’s column included this little nugget of wisdom:
Republican hopes of denying Democrats complete control of the federal government for the next couple of years may rest on the promise of “McCain exceptionalism.”
Good luck with that, guys.
May 19th, 2008 at 2:04 pm“A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right”, Thomas Paine.
May 19th, 2008 at 2:05 pmDum de dum…
Democratic primary results – Obama over Clinton in Kansas by 48%, in Alaska by 50%, in DC by 51%, in Hawaii by 52% and in Idaho he topped Clinton by a whopping 63%! By Kristol’s logic, NEITHER Democrat can win the nomination, since each has been beaten by the other by 41% or more.
May 19th, 2008 at 2:05 pmOval12345678 aka James K. Sayre Says:
The Democrats will surely not stand in the way of a GOP revolt against Cheney and Bush, and thus Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi would become the first woman President of the United States, if only for a few months… Believe it or Not.
May 19th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
______
It might also rain fish up and down the Eastern Seaboard. It is entirely possible that a freak weather system will suck up massive amounts of sea creatures and deposit them from Charleston to Boston in a perfect storm of seafood. It’s happened before and it COULD happen again!
Not betting money on it, though. Just sayin.
May 19th, 2008 at 2:07 pmoldtree Says:
I misrepresented a quote by Douglas Adams and gave credit to Kurt Vonnegut. I apologize for my unforgivable behavior.
May 19th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
_____
Although this is indeed a heinous crime, it is mitigated by the fact that you are obviously influenced by two of the most gifted writers of the 20th century. All is forgiven.
May 19th, 2008 at 2:10 pmIn fairness to Kristol, his statement was not necessarily factually wrong.
Consider his phrasing:
I can’t find a single recent instance of a candidate who ultimately became his party’s nominee losing a primary by this kind of margin.
See, Kristol does not state that it never happened, only that he couldn’t find it.
Admittedly, he probably didn’t look very hard, but if he says he couldn’t find it, then he couldn’t find it.
Why the NYT would want to continue employing as an opinion columnist someone with such sucky research skills is another question.
May 19th, 2008 at 2:13 pmThe Times no longer looks for in depth reporting but to the bottom line for ratings.
May 19th, 2008 at 2:25 pmWilliam Kristol’s Balls (from his latest regular Monday NYTimes Op-ed)[re-edited for brevity]
“Last week’s developments — in West Virginia, [Obama trounced by Clinton] Sacramento [Supreme Court overturn of the originally popular prop 22 marriage definition] and Jerusalem [Bush paints Obama and Democrats as ‘appeasers’]—have increased the odds” of “a strong-on-national-security and supporter-of-middle-American-values Republican presidential candidate prevailing, while at the same time voters choose a Democratic Congress”
In his bloviating he falsely claimed that
“Obama took Bush to be alluding to Obama’s willingness to meet, without preconditions, with Iran and North Korea, and attacked Bush.”
Relevant opinions by definition and at a minumum must be supported by facts. An argument based on falsehood is a false argument and the opinion expressed as a result also false and thus irrelevant. Kristol has been afforded relevance by this right-wing administration and its proxies for many years now because falsehoods are all that support their arguments and inform their and having seixed significant control of information, they have long shaped public opinion to conform to their own through repeated misinformation to justify their own opinions.
However public opinion has recently been shaped by all too evident and actual facts (rather than invented ‘facts’)which have forced a great many to reject the self serving and unsubstantiated opinions, advice and ‘authority’ of Kritsol and his ilk.
AND YET, Kristol is still accorded relevance and respect by the New York Times.
Note to NYTimes, and to quote from a famously photographed hick rightwinger–Get Brain,Morans!
May 19th, 2008 at 2:28 pmralph the wonder llama Says:
In fairness to Kristol, his statement was not necessarily factually wrong.
Consider his phrasing:
I can’t find…
As with most wingnuts, it is often very difficult to determine whether they are lying or merely incompetent and ignorant.
May 19th, 2008 at 2:29 pmDamnit! “Get A Brain, Morans!”
May 19th, 2008 at 2:29 pmDr. Hussein Matt Says:
Chasm Says:
May 19th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
It’s called plagiarism when you do not cite the original source.
May 19th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
– But it’s NOT plagiarism when the same person wrote both comments.
May 19th, 2008 at 2:32 pmTo quote Pennywise the Clown from It:
“Billy boy” don’t worry – “you’ll all float”!
May 19th, 2008 at 2:32 pmralph..
in fairness you are being ultra-super-fair to Kristol, in that Kristol’s enormous head doesn’t mean that he has an enormous brain occupying his cranium.
And of course it;s not fari to expect subject-matter expertise to be actually proven by a recognized subject matter expert, but simply accepted.
May 19th, 2008 at 2:38 pmThere was one other obvious factual error in this column. In conclusion, speaking of the same-sex marriage decision by the California Supreme Court, Kristol refers to “Last week’s developments — in… Sacramento…”
The California Supreme Court is based in San Francisco, which is where the case in questions was venued.
May 19th, 2008 at 2:48 pmi think getting the facts wrong is in his job description.
May 19th, 2008 at 2:55 pmBilly Krisco steps in shit yet again.
Boy, Billy, for a smart guy, you’re sure not very smart.
May 19th, 2008 at 2:58 pmZimzone Says:
——————————————————————————–
Billy Krisco steps in shit yet again.
May 19th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
His skull sure must have a lot of footprints on it …………….
May 19th, 2008 at 3:15 pmThis man has no love for Senator Obama so everything he does or says is INTENTIONAL! I watch him on Chris Wallace’s show on Fox and it pains him greatly to say anything positive about Senator Obama. So sad!
May 19th, 2008 at 3:27 pm#24 Bilbo Hussein Baggins Says:
I’m sure that Kristol was trying to say that all those “hard working White Americans” in WV would never vote for Barack Obama. Want to tell that to the 75,000 hard working white Americans who came out to support Obama yesterday in Portland. Or are the hard working white Americans in Oregon different than the hard working white Americans in WV?
That brings to mind the Jon Stewart show. They interviewed people in WV after the election, and Jon Stewart showed clips of what these voters had to say about Barack Obama. The first woman on the clip didn’t vote Obama because he is Muslim. The second woman didn’t vote for him because of his middle name “Hussein”,” you can’t trust anyone with a middle name Hussein”. The third woman on the clip said she didn’t vote for him because he is black and they can’t be trusted.
Jon Stewart had a huge bottle of Jack Daniels out and brinking it after each clip. He made fun of them of course. But in all three cases, I found it extremely tragic how misinformed and prejudice these voters are. They all three voted for Hillary Clinton.
May 19th, 2008 at 3:38 pmralph, are you channeling Rumsfeld? You have to do battle with the trolls you have not the ones you want?
May 19th, 2008 at 3:44 pm“Reports that say that trolls haven’t showed up are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known trolls; there are trolls we know we know. We also know there are unknown trolls; that is to say we know there are some trolls we do not know. But there are also unknown unknown trolls — the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”
May 19th, 2008 at 3:58 pmSo Kristol is in error three times and Dan Rather was canned for one error for which he made a retraction. But who said the Times is interested in honest, balanced journalism. They endorsed Clinton for the Dmeocratic nomination only to follow their endorsement with a steady incessant drumbeat of negative coverage of her. The NYT is the master of modern propaganda.
May 19th, 2008 at 4:03 pmThat’s why Bill Kristol gets and retains a paid columnist’s spot in that rag.
According to the New York Times Election 2008 tally:
Sen. McCain lost Arkansas by 40, Colorado by 42, Utah by 84, Nevada by 38, WEST VIRGINIA BY 51 and Wyoming by 67…
The NY Times street cred is running thin…
May 19th, 2008 at 4:06 pm“They all three [clearly bigoted ignoramuses] voted for Hillary Clinton.”
Whilst these particular West Virginians voted out of ignorance, the implication of your conclusion is that all Clinton supporters are or probably are, bigots and ignorant.
Nicely done.
May 19th, 2008 at 4:20 pmI can’t find a single recent instance of a candidate who ultimately became his party’s nominee losing a primary by this kind of margin.
“Of course, I really didn’t look for one, I just love to hear myself make such important sounding shit up!”
May 19th, 2008 at 4:34 pmHe continued…
Leftside Annie Says:
Jebus. He’s not only intellectually lazy, but an idiot as well. They might as well hire an elementary school student to write their columns.
That’s it, Annie. Now you apologize to all those elementary school children RIGHT NOW!
/snarkley snarkish.
May 19th, 2008 at 4:39 pmthe new york times joins fox, where credibility goes to die.
May 19th, 2008 at 4:49 pmthe NYT knows Kristol is a FoxNews bobblehead.
thats why they hired him.
NYT thinks if they concede their OpEd space to
the conservatives, theyll stop being attacked by
the far right lunatic fringe that charges NYT is
“liberal”.
now thats appeasement.
May 19th, 2008 at 5:06 pmThe Times should start a new weekly column to correct Kristol’s columns.
May 19th, 2008 at 5:16 pmWilliam “Blair” Kristol?
May 19th, 2008 at 5:20 pmI’m not sure that it’s in his job description, but it should certainly be in his MySpace profile.
May 19th, 2008 at 7:11 pmWilliam The Bloody is at the NYT for one reason — Israel, Israel, Israel!
The NYT puts up with William The Bloody for one reason — Israel, Israel, Israel!
It’s that phucking simple!!!!
May 19th, 2008 at 7:29 pmWhy did the NYT help the run up to the war hand in hand with GW Botch and Dick(head) Chainsaw(teeth)?
Simple!!! Israel, Israel, Israel!!!!
May 19th, 2008 at 7:35 pm#69 5th Estate Says:
“They all three [clearly bigoted ignoramuses] voted for Hillary Clinton.”
Whilst these particular West Virginians voted out of ignorance, the implication of your conclusion is that all Clinton supporters are or probably are, bigots and ignorant.
Nicely done.
That wasn’t the point, that was what Jon Stewart said. Watch the clip on YouTube if they have it.
I don’t know how he picked these particular three clips but those were the ones on his show. He was making fun of the reasons they didn’t vote for Obama. That is why he was drinking a large bottle of Jack Daniels inbetween each of the clips because it kept getting worse with each clip. I was just paraphrasing what the show was about not making a judgement call, that you did on your own. That is not what my post said in any way. I would never call someone who votes for Hillary a bigot or a ignorant. I don’t call people names for one and if someone votes for her great at least they are voting for a democrat.
May 19th, 2008 at 9:02 pmWilliam Kristol has a job with the NYTIMES and FOXNEWS because he is a RACIST. THAT IS ALL the qualifications he needs. He HATES Barack Obama and he LIES about him ALL the time. He is inaccurate, smug and arrogant.
May 19th, 2008 at 10:15 pmIf Bill Kristol were named “Ricardo Cabaza” writing for the Oxnard Press Courier, his “expert opinion and excellent assessment of the geo-political situation”, he would quickly find himself writing Handyman Reviews for the PennySaver – he best thank GOD for family name, connections, “fame” and STUPID Editors . . . a prime example of the Republican fascination with promoting failures to positions of influence . . .
May 19th, 2008 at 10:36 pmShayne-
“You have to do battle with the trolls you have not the ones you want”
Great line !
May 19th, 2008 at 10:55 pm(And the toll pickin’s are getting pretty slim . . . )
Kristol is the world’s worst “pundit”. He is the kid of an old line upper west side “pundit” family. I guess the ghost of the old NYT felt that Irving Kristol’s kid was worth a cynical denial of journalistic standards in a peon to those ‘good old days’(?). That NYT with the same stupid liberal vapidity that forced them to demean their editorial pages with their other inept conservative, David Brooks, did it again and got what it deserved. Crap. They forgot that old upper west side NYC intellectual mantra: “Feh!in…Feh!out”.
May 20th, 2008 at 2:57 amone can hardly improve on the shadow:
Who do McCain and Krystal think is going to meet us on the deck of one of our ships to surrender? This isn’t a country we are fighting, it is a bunch of idiots and terrorists. They have no real organized chain of command or General to surrender. If they haven’t stopped fighting us after this long, why would they stop now. The Republicans just don’t want to say they lost a war. So the smart thing to do is declare victory and go home. That’s exactly why you don’t start stupid wars without a clear defintion of what victory looks like.
Have we “won” any wars that the Congress has not declared?
May 20th, 2008 at 8:03 am