Yesterday on Fox News Sunday, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol said that since wrapping up the Republican nomination for president last March, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has used his time only “moderately effectively.”
To beef up his candidacy, Kristol suggested that McCain model his domestic policy after “the surge” because, according to Kristol, the surge was about “changing the way the U.S. military works” and it “succeeded.” Speaking as a revolutionary, Kristol said McCain needs to advocate “a reformist surge” against “the whole U.S. government”:
KRISTOL: [McCain] could say, “Look, I was a great proponent of the surge. What was the surge about? It was Dave Petraeus changing the way the U.S. military works, and it worked. It succeeded. Why can’t we do this for the rest of the U.S. government? Lots of the U.S. government is broken. We need, in effect, a surge, a reformist surge, for the whole U.S. government.”
Watch it:
[flv http://video.thinkprogress.org/2008/05/kristolsurge4ever.320.240.flv]
It is entirely unclear what Kristol is talking about. But following his Iraq “surge” analogy to its logical conclusion, it seems Kristol is advocating for either 1) an escalation in domestic government staffers to “reform the U.S. government,” 2) more domestic agencies, or 3) a Petraeus-like czar to oversee a government surge.
But isn’t Bill Kristol — a staunch conservative — an advocate of “limited government?” It is odd then that he would suggest such a domestic “surge” for McCain, given that expanding government to change the government is the complete opposite of that philosophy.
All this proves is that Kristol just “really, really loves the surge.”