Bill Kristol Recommends State Lotteries as Your Safe Investment Harbor
For Thoreau, via Balloon Juice, Bill Kristol as minor Daredevil villain:
KRISTOL: [Obama’s] riding a wave of euphoria. She [Clinton] needs to puncture it. The way you puncture euphoria is reality, or to be more blunt, fear. I recommend to Senator Clinton the politics of fear.
That’s from the ThinkProgress video clip. And you thought villains never really soliloquized on their master plans.
Leaving aside the actual merits of Obama’s “hope” theme, the thing to note here is that Kristol identifies fear and violence (he goes on to tie the fear theme to attacking Iran) with “reality.” Fear is reality in his equation. The national greatness conservatives spent the 1990s arguing that national life without a higher purpose lacked meaning. They’ve spent the Naughts settling for a low one.
I note that Mister Fear was part of one of the classic comic-book gaffes of the Silver Age of comics, during his first-ever storyline in Daredevil. Mister Fear had a “fear gun” that had already reduced Daredevil to a quivering blob of uselessness once. During a later encounter, DD crashes in on Fear and the Enforcers, his gang of the time, and starts kicking butt. At that point, one of the villains announces that Mister Fear has forgotten his fear gun. Don’t you hate it when that happens?
Comment by Barry —
February 25, 2008 @ 9:21 am
” The national greatness conservatives spent the 1990s arguing that national life without a higher purpose lacked meaning. They’ve spent the Naughts settling for a low one.”
I’d put it that they wanted war (or the moral equivalent if they absolutely had to settle). In the 1990’s, they were reaching for the ‘moral equivalent of’, because that’s all that they reasonably had. Note that they liked to hype China as the New Russia. Now, they have real war, and they like it.
Comment by Thoreau —
February 25, 2008 @ 9:50 am
The dumbest people are the ones most likely to accidentally tell the truth.
Comment by Thoreau —
February 25, 2008 @ 9:51 am
EDIT: “…accidentally admit to their own games.”
I don’t think there’s anything truthful about the politics of fear, but it is a revealing comment from him.
Comment by Ian —
February 25, 2008 @ 11:18 am
“Mister Fear has forgotten his fear gun. Don’t you hate it when that happens?”
That’s just sad. If Captain Boomerang leaves his boomerangs at home, what is he? Just a guy with an Australian accent and a bad hat.
Comment by Derek Copold —
February 25, 2008 @ 11:27 am
He’s pushing it on Hillary, but Kristol’s stumbled on McCain’s campaign strategy. McCain was hitting this theme in his Wisconsin acceptance speech.
Comment by Flippanter —
February 25, 2008 @ 11:53 am
Isn’t every gun a fear gun?
Comment by Jim Kakalios —
February 25, 2008 @ 11:57 am
Hey – Mister Fear is kicking all sorts of Matt Murdock @$$ in the latest issues of DD. Not so minor right now – and he’s living like a playa using his fear gas.
And by the way…. Captain Boomerang?
Not really a Captain!
Can we get Michele Malkin to investigate the counter-tops at Stately Boomerang Manor?
Comment by Hesiod —
February 25, 2008 @ 12:34 pm
And you thought villains never really soliloquized on their master plans.
Clearly, Obama got Kristol “monologuing.”
Comment by ajay —
February 25, 2008 @ 12:41 pm
Isn’t every gun a fear gun?
Well, not to Daredevil. He’s blind. He couldn’t see the gun. Hence, no fear. It’s like the Peril Sensitive Sunglasses in “The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” which turn opaque when danger threatens, thus preventing stress and nervousness.
Trackback by Unpartisan.com Political News and Blog Aggregator —
February 25, 2008 @ 12:48 pm
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Comment by Hesiod —
February 25, 2008 @ 12:49 pm
Today, FDR would be labelled a dangerous lightweight, and a surrender monkey for saying “The only thing we have to fear…is fear itself.”
Hopefully Obama “plagiarizes” that nice rehtorical flourish in the general election.
Comment by Hesiod —
February 25, 2008 @ 1:22 pm
P.S.
Where’s Ozymandias when the Neocons need him.
Comment by Jim Kakalios —
February 25, 2008 @ 2:58 pm
Hesiod said:
Where’s Ozymandias when the Neocons need him.
******
Working on it. Those giant teleportin’ Cthulhu rip-offs don’t build themselves, you know. Perhaps having KBR build it on a no-bid contract wasn’t such a great idea.
(Ozy, you’re doing a heck of a job!)
Comment by Avram —
February 25, 2008 @ 6:32 pm
Why, Hesiod, Jim Kakalios, do you take Ozymandias for some Republic serial villain? He did it thirty-eight days ago.
Comment by Darth Maul —
February 25, 2008 @ 10:49 pm
Kristol totally stole that from me. Check my “tone poem” advertisement for Star Wars Episode I (it’s under the title “One Truth” in the “TV Spots” section on the second disc of the DVD release):
Comment by Mona —
February 25, 2008 @ 11:17 pm
I would expect all UO readers to know the source.