Rave On, Sirota! Dump that Dumbass, Kristol!

Sirotablog

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2.9.07


The Jimmy the Greek Standard: What does a pundit have to say to have his microphone cut?
I was listening to Al Franken's show just now, and he replayed this clip from NPR from April, 1, 2003:

BILL KRISTOL: On this issue of the Shia in Iraq, I think there's been a certain amount of, frankly, Terry, a kind of pop sociology in America that, you know, somehow the Shia can't get along with the Sunni and the Shia in Iraq just want to establish some kind of Islamic fundamentalist regime. There's almost no evidence of that at all. Iraq's always been very secular.

I'm having trouble getting beyond the simple lie of claiming there's "no evidence at all" that the Shia in the region had any desire to create an Islamic fundamentalist regime. Apparently, the Shi'ite revolution that took place next door in Iran doesn't qualify as "evidence."

But what I really can't get beyond is that after making declarations like this in an effort to push the Iarq War, Bill Kristol is still billed in the media as an "expert." - and not just any expert, but a MIDDLE EAST EXPERT. He still is given a platform on major cable shows, such as Fox News Sunday where this week he claimed Sen. Barack Obama (D) would have supported pro-slavery lawmakers in the 1850s. And, of course, Time Magazine just hired Kristol as a front page writer, even though his statements like this weren't just inaccurate - they were the exact opposite of what has happened.

This begs the question: What would an Establishment-ordained pundit have to say to lose their Establishment billing as "credible?" Is the only standard the Jimmy the Greek standard? That is, are we to assume that the only thing that can get you thrown off the air is you saying something about an ethnicity being genetically better at sports, while everything else - lies about war, wildly inaccurate predictions that result in massive casualties - is AOK?

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