Specter wants her law school grades. Doesn't think you have to go to Yale or Harvard, but academic standing is important.
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Bill Kristol has been busy around DC sabotaging Republicans since 1988. By writing this report, you are going to receive my full anti-Kristol rant. Back when Kristol wrote his snarky column about the China Plane Incident, in early 2001, I decided to find out more about him. Here is what I learned.
When the first Bush Administration was being formed in early 1989, Kristol could not get hired by the White House. He managed to get a position as a domestic policy advisor in Dan Quayle's office. For mysterious reasons (which I believe but cannot prove were due to Kristol's machinations) Quayle's chief of staff resigned. Kristol got the job.
It was Kristol who insisted that Quayle put the "Murphy Brown" reference in that speech (making Quayle look like a moron). It was Kristol who urged Quauyle to make a speech attacking then-President Bush about some foreign policy elements. Quayle was encouraged by Kristol to "be his own man" at the exact time that the 1992 campaign was gearing up.
James Baker would not allow Kristol in on campaign strategy meetings, because of Kristol's propensity to leak to the press. In his biography, "Standing Firm," Quayle says that Kristol was disliked by Baker because Kristol intimidated him with his intellect.
(At this point I must interject that the first time I read Quayle's book, I didn't know all of the players. Anyone who thinks Kristol intimidated Baker should not ever consider running for public office again. I also think, reading about the wonderfulness of Bill Kristol in Quayle's book, that Kristol ghost-wrote it.)
Anyway, Kristol's weaseling and general incompetence contributed to disarray in the first Bush Administration.
Now, let's move forward to more recent history. Remember back when the current President Bush was considering running? Guess who was opposed? That's right...Bill Kristol. He was so adamant that Bush couldn't win that he urged Republicans to unite behind someone who could win easily.....Colin Powell!
Powell, the very same person that Kristol excoriated as Secretary of State for four years? Why, yes indeed, the very same! It was only after Powell made it very plain that he wouldn't run that Kristol got on the McCain bandwagon.
Kristol spent most of the 2000 campaign (after McCain was defeated) trashing the Bush campaign. The President's speeches weren't good enough, he wasn't tough enough, etc. etc. During the Florida recount, he was pretty much consistently pessimistic.
There was a small window during the transition when Kristol was fairly positive. That would be the time when he thought he might get hired by the White House, I guess.
By early spring, it was obvious he wasn't going to get a job, so when the China Plane Incident happened and Powell (remember, Kristol thought he was a good choice for president) negotiated the release of the crew, which 90% of the country thought a good thing, Kristol wrote a column called "Our Profound National Humiliation." That column caused a nine-days wonder here on FR, in which many McCainiacs attacked the President because he didn't nuke China or something equally bizarre.
After things calmed down, Jeffords defected. Who was the person who had the scoop that Jeffords defected? Kristol!
I heard his interview with Brit Hume. He was absolutely gleeful that he had this news. He said he had been learning from sources that the defection was imminent.
Well, who were his sources? Only Daschle and Jeffords knew, plus one senator who was an intermediary. I therefore concluded the source was Jeffords. So Kristol knew Jeffords was going to defect, and made no effort to warn the White House.
In addition, after Jeffords jumped ship, it turned out that Jeffords was convinced that the White House was going to kill the dairy subsidy. Who told Jeffords that, because the White House said they had had no such intention, and couldn't figure out where he got the idea.
Well, when I remembered the evil grin Kristol had when he told Brit about his "scoop," I decided that the source had been Kristol, who could easily convince a dim bulb like Jeffords that he was an "insider." I think Kristol engineered that defection by telling Jeffords Bush was going to take away the dairy subsidy, and I will remain convinced of it until my dying day.
Now, here we are again with Kristol. It's not enough to disagree with the President. He has to go on NBC and ask for the nominee to withdraw her name. This doesn't have anything to do with principle; it has to do with sticking it to the President one more time.
Grampa Dave and I have been mistrustful of Kristol for years. He is the possum-person, as Grampa Dave says, and this confirms me in my utter contempt for him.