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Biography: Politics and Government B‑class

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NeoCon

Bill Kristol is a neoconservative, not a conservative.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by HowardJ87 (talk • contribs) 12:03, 23 April 2007 (UTC).

Neoconservative is a flavor of conservative, thus Kristol is both a conservative and a neoconservative. FONToKNOW 19:07, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Not true. Nonconservative ideals are hardly conservative.

Well, yes, it's true that .. nonconservative ideals are not conservative, but Neoconservative ideology is typically considered a branch of American conservatism, as much as paleoconservatism or any other string that could be affiliated. 68.116.186.63 23:43, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Who founded PNAC ?

uhhh it says he's a maniac....that's not very academic.

The entry for William Kristol: http://en.wikipedia.org/William_Kristol says "In 1997 he founded, with Robert Kagan, the Project for the New American Century (PNAC)..." BUT the entry for PNAC: http://en.wikipedia.org/PNAC says "Founded by Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, the Project for the New American Century, or PNAC, is a Washington, DC based think tank."

I don't know the correct answer.

"He is one of the leading architects of the most futile and horrendous foreign policy blunder in United States history: the Iraq War."

How is this neutral?

Both of these cases, the "futile blunder" and "PNAC Founded by Dick Chaney and Donald Rumsfeld," are examples of wiki-sabotage that more often goes completely ignored. 68.116.186.63 23:45, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

William Kristol's religion

I have nothing against saying Kristol is Jewish. It seems strange however, to refer to him as Jewish-American. For all I know he is also an atheist-American. It is certainly fair game to bring up his support of Israel, but assciating this support to being Jewish is not NPOV.CSTAR 17:24, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

You really think so? I don't see the problem. Is it controversial that Americans will sometimes favor foreign countries that they have ethnic ties to? Haven't you ever met a Serbian-American who argued in favor of Serbia, or a Croatian-American arguing in favor of Croatia, a Thai-American arguing in favor of Thailand, etc., etc.? - Nat Krause 02:21, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I think what you say say is entirely plausible, e.g. that Thai-Americans may try to promote policies favoring Thailand. But an assertion of this kind for Thai-Americans or Israeli-Americans or African-Americans is almost impossible to prove, short of a direct personal admission (which in fact does occur) or the uncovering of some document with an impicit admission. But has Kristol ever made such an assertion?

If Kristol had been born in Israel (not true of course) or had clear ongoing family ties to Israel, aside from being Jewish (don't know) then the term Israeli-American would seem less objectionable, to me at least.CSTAR 03:03, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Well, the article didn't assert that his being Jewish caused his support for Israel, it just pointed out that both are facts. I agree that the wording you changed was less than ideal, in that it made his jewishness a little too prominent. - Nat Krause 03:40, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Hilary Putnam for instance is Jewish, and isn't mentioned in that article. Should it be? In his case it may possibly have more relevance than for Kristol since after he left PLP, he apparently did take great interest in Jewish traditions. Note that I am not saying that (1) the fact that Kristol is Jewish shouldn't be mentioned or even (2) the stronger assertion that his being Jewish affects his support of Israel and other American policies in the Middle East. However, the term "Jewish -American" seems odd (Jewish-American scholar?) and the truth or falsehood of assertion (2) is not clear.CSTAR 13:00, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I noticed this discussion prior to reverting an edit that placed his alleged religion front-and-center. To begin with, the addition was unsourced; beyond that, I am not at all certain that the alleged affiliation is notable enough to appear in the first line. Other thoughts? DagnyB 17:07, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Kristol likely supports Israel because of both his Jewish heritage/religion and that he is of the general mindset that Israel is not the egregious fascistic entity that some of his political opposites in journalism occassionally suggest. I think that his religious identity is noteable enough to put it into the first paragraph, because Israeli-politics and Judeo-Christian values are a significant theme in his articles. 68.116.186.63 23:49, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Has Kristol said the Iraq War has been lost?

Kristol, a strong supporter of the Iraq War, is rumored to have stated on Fox News Sunday (Feb. 27, 2006) that he considers the war to be a lost cause. Is this true? Shouldn't this be added to the article, if it is true?

Adam Holland 17:44, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Apparently what he said was that "we have not had a serious three-year effort to fight a war in Iraq."

Kyle Cronan 06:48, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Fresh Air

As I stated in my summary, I don't think the Fresh Air quote is very intersting and/or encyclopedic. As a political commentator, Kristol says all sorts of things, many of which turn out to be wrong. In this regard, he is certainly not different from any other commentator. If we listed every thing that he said that turned out wrong and every time a blog posted something snide about him, the article would be 100 pages long. Lets stick to genuine controversies that can be supported by real evidence, not ones cooked up in blogs. --Beaker342 23:16, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I'll add that said quote and the supporting evidence for the "controversy" it stirred up appears to have been placed here by a blogger interested primarily in spamming links to his own blog, as evidenced by his other Misplaced Pages activity.--Beaker342 04:14, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

In need of Change

There is a mentions in the first line of this entry that Kristol is ¨a warmongering kike bastard¨ when I tried to edit this out however, it does not appear in the text, will someone with more computer saavy than I will address this calumnous entry ASAP!!! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 200.47.191.5 (talk) 17:09, 12 January 2007 (UTC).

It was probably changed in the time you tried to change it yourself. A lot of blatant vandalism is caught within minutes by various bots and users on the lookout. --Beaker342 06:11, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Removed Strauss reference from lead

This comment was removed from the lead:

inspired in part by the ideas of Leo Strauss.

This is a biography of a living person, and with all due respect to left wing conspiracy theories about a right wing Straussian cabal bent on American empire, any discussion about Leo Strauss needs to be put into proper context, and it certainly doesn't belong in the lead. I took the time last night to translate some of WK's comments from the NPR link provided. Let's see what he actually said:

NC: "When did you first become acquained with the teachings of Leo Struass?"

WK: "I never actually met Leo Strauss. He died in 1973, I believe, and I was just beginning graduate school then, but I studied political philosophy as an undergraduate and a graduate student at Harvard, and Strauss was a well known interpreter of text, and one became famililar with him just in the course of one's studies. In particular, also I had Harvey Mansfield of Harvard, who still teaches there, a very fine scholar in his own right, maybe the most preeminent interpreter of Machiavelli, I would say, alive today, and he was or had been a student of Strauss, or had met Strauss, and been so convinced by Strauss' writings that he became a quote <sic> Straussian, even though he actually hadn't gone to Chicago, and never actually I guess taken courses with Strauss, so Mansfield was considered a Straussian, therefore I'm considered a Straussian, and we're all a cheerful parts of the Straussian cabal now, I suppose."

NC: "I suppose. As I understand it there are East Coast Straussians and West Coast Straussians."

WK: "Right, and Northern and Southern Straussians, it's become a little bit much, I mean look, Strauss was a very serious thinker, and one of the good thing about this whole controversy, which has many silly and some distasteful aspects, I would say, is that if it leads more people to read Strauss and make up their own mind about whether he is or isn't a compelling and convincing interpreter of Plato and Aristotle and Aristophanes, Maimonides, and Machiavelli, and Hobbes, I mean the range of his work was amazing, all the way up through Nietzsche, and very modern thinkers -- people should make up their own minds about him, we shouldn't take it on authority that he was a great thinker or that he was wrong about things. The other point I would make, just in an introductory way, is that I've never said that my own political beliefs derive from Strauss, and there are Straussians who are liberals and conservatives, Straussians who opposed the intervention in Iraq, and Straussians who favored it, I mean Strauss operated at a very high level of theory, really, and he wrote very little about American politics, and almost nothing about American foreign policy, certainly, and those of us who happened to be hawks in the 90s and were for intervening in Bosnia, and intervening in Kosovo, and intervening in Iraq, never said that's because we studied with a student of Strauss, and I don't think it is, in fact. I think there's a sort of weird, and I think Professor Xenos suggested this too, there's a weird jump from Strauss' great influence as a thinker and teacher to the notion that a small group of us somehow have ever claimed that we were applying Strauss, when we happened to, several of us happened to be, have fairly normal, if somewhat controversial, political views."

I'm not opposed to an appropriate discussion of Leo Strauss in the body of the article, but a casual reference in the lead is inappropriate. MoodyGroove 12:30, 4 May 2007 (UTC)MoodyGroove

PNAC and the war in Iraq

I removed this comment from the main article:

"a movement credited in part for some of the foreign policy decisions of the Bush administration as evidenced by their 1998 letter to US President Bill Clinton advocating military action in Iraq, to "protect our vital interests in the Gulf".

A letter sent to Bill Clinton is evidence that the PNAC directly influenced the foreign policy decisions of the Bush administration? I'd like to see a reliable source that makes this explicit connection. MoodyGroove 22:11, 17 May 2007 (UTC)MoodyGroove

References

1. "Leo Strauss' Lasting Influence on U.S. Policy". National Public Radio. October 25, 2004. Retrieved 2006-12-14. William Kristol is interviewed about Strauss' impact on US policy.

weekly standard & pnac

should the part about pnac be under the 'weekly standard' heading? maybe just the heading needs to be changed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.121.194.115 (talk) 10:08, 5 September 2007 (UTC) i came to this page with the question "bill kristol - is that the pnac guy?" and was slowed up a bit when the only sections under "political career" were "project for the republican future", "weekly standard", "george w. bush", and "2006" (which is also questionable as a heading?). 64.121.194.115 10:18, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

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