Bill Kristol: Can't We All Just Get Along?
I interpret this as a sign that Kristol recognizes the danger in potentially rending the Republican Party apart:
On the one hand, Newt Gingrich’s attacks (and the follow-on assaults by Jon Huntsman and Rick Perry) on Mitt Romney’s career at Bain Capital have been unfair, over the top, and, for that matter, all over the place. Gingrich, Perry, and Huntsman deserve much of the criticism they’ve received from conservative commentators.
On the other, Mitt Romney’s claim throughout his campaign that his private sector experience almost uniquely qualifies him to be president is also silly. Does he really think that having done well in private equity, venture capital, and business consulting—or even in the private sector more broadly—is a self-evident qualification for public office? One assumes Mitt Romney would agree that Chris Christie is a better chief executive of New Jersey than Jon Corzine, and that Rudy Giuliani was a better mayor of New York than Mike Bloomberg. But Romney’s biography looks a lot more like Bloomberg's or Corzine's (leaving aside Corzine's recent misadventures) than like that of Giuliani (pre-mayoralty) or Christie. Past business success does not guarantee performance in public office. Indeed, Romney sometimes seems to go so far as to suggest that succeeding in the private sector is intrinsically more admirable than, e.g., serving as a teacher or a soldier or even in Congress. This is not a sensible proposition, or a defensible one.
And the unqualified defense of the virtues of Bain Capital by some on the right is also silly. Criticism of any behavior by a private firm? Outrage! An Assault on Capitalism! Haven't they read Schumpeter? Don't they know the glories of Creative Destruction? And, of course, all such destruction must be assumed to be creative!
Read the rest, and Jonathan Last, too.
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Apr '11
Re: Bill Kristol: Can't We All Just Get Along?
I'm shocked, shocked, that you would recommend to us two articles by the only conservative organ (out of Hot Air, American Spectator, National Review, Commentary, and the Weekly Standard) not to have come out in full throated support of Romney. It's almost as if, while free markets mean something to you, any weapon to hand attacks in the primary are more important.
Dec '10
Re: Bill Kristol: Can't We All Just Get Along?
This is the pull quote from Jonathan Last's post:
Romney set this trap for himself by claiming to be a job creator. Once he made that claim, it was fair to point out that he was also a job destroyer -- that his business purpose was to create value, which sometimes created and sometimes destroyed jobs.
Jun '10
Re: Bill Kristol: Can't We All Just Get Along?
Perry has proved, in the last couple days, you can have significant success in promoting business within your state without understanding how it works. Obviously he doesn't. If you understand how it works, you don't go after the people that reorganize failing companies. Without them, failing companies don't just shrink--they disappear completely. So Perry's recent stupidity has actually proved that you don't need an MBA to help business grow. You just have to stand back and get out of the way.
Dec '11
Re: Bill Kristol: Can't We All Just Get Along?
The Republican candidates have foolishly allowed themselves to be seduced by the MSM into an endless series of "gotcha" debates and sensational internecine squabbles.
They should all have stayed above this sort of gutter politics and, instead, run positive campaigns, outlining their policies and principles and contrasting them with those of Barack Obama.
There has only been one "debate" that took the high road: the "Lincoln-Douglas" colloquy between Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain.
For a group of people who reference Ronald Reagan with every other breath, these candidates have forgotten his 11th Commandment. Reagan was the big, dignified dog; these guys are looking more and more like yapping chihuahua's.
Re: Bill Kristol: Can't We All Just Get Along?
Stuart Creque:
Romney set this trap for himself by claiming to be a job creator. Once he made that claim, it was fair to point out that he was also a job destroyer -- that his business purpose was to create value, which sometimes created and sometimes destroyed jobs. · Jan 10 at 1:19pm
This is dead-on accurate, Stuart, as I argued in my prior post today.
Sep '10
Re: Bill Kristol: Can't We All Just Get Along?
This whole race is deteriorating into a process in which we nominate someone we find the least detestable. None of these clowns are proving their worthiness for a vote. The attacks against Romney are embarrassing and there is no excuse for the attacks that have been made against him by Republicans for "firing" or "killing jobs". What a loathsome bunch. I've had to hold my nose in past elections when voting for someone with the "R" next to their name because they were less troublesome than the one with the "D". I'm anticipating the need for an airsickness bag this November.
As for Kristol's criticism of Romney's touting his private sector experience, he is correct. The ability to run a business successfully has nothing to do with being a successful President. And as Ben Domenech (or someone else) pointed out yesterday on the Coffee and Markets podcast, the success rate for former businessmen in the White House has historically been pretty disastrous.
Re: Bill Kristol: Can't We All Just Get Along?
Amen.
Dec '10
Re: Bill Kristol: Can't We All Just Get Along?
Ben Domenech
Stuart Creque:
Romney set this trap for himself by claiming to be a job creator. Once he made that claim, it was fair to point out that he was also a job destroyer -- that his business purpose was to create value, which sometimes created and sometimes destroyed jobs. · Jan 10 at 1:19pm
This is dead-on accurate, Stuart, as I argued in my prior post today. · Jan 10 at 1:45pm
My favorite part of your prior post was how you encapsulated that Romney has an unfortunate tendency to say the right thing the wrong way.
By the way, I have been enjoying The Transom and especially like the closing quotation in each edition.
Jan '11
Re: Bill Kristol: Can't We All Just Get Along?
"On the one hand, Newt Gingrich’s attacks (and the follow-on assaults by Jon Huntsman and Rick Perry) on Mitt Romney’s career at Bain Capital have been unfair, over the top, and, for that matter, all over the place. Gingrich, Perry, and Huntsman deserve much of the criticism they’ve received from conservative commentators."
I'd have read your post with greater attention had you prefixed with: "In my opinion..." or something of that sort. As you phrase it, it seems unambiguous - which, in my opinion, it isn't.
Just my opinion.
Dec '11
Re: Bill Kristol: Can't We All Just Get Along?
From the Washington Post:
Leaving the frozen event, Santorum also declined to take a shot at Romney over a remark earlier from the front-runner that he “likes to fire” workers who are not doing a good job.
“We try to hire good people, we try to keep them employed. If someone if obviously not performing their duty and their mission, obviously a business has a responsibility for the greater good of the business and the other employees to make sure that everybody there is pulling their weight,” Santorum said.
Asked whether Romney’s corporate takeover experience at Bain Capital would be a liability, Santorum said: “I’m not making it a liability. I believe in the private sector.”
Perhaps Romney can learn from Santorum how to defend the "industrious and rational."
Jan '11
Re: Bill Kristol: Can't We All Just Get Along?
Ben Domenech
Amen.
Perhaps - but when has that not been the case? I mean, it ain't like we all swooned over John McCain or Bob Dole.
Dec '10
Re: Bill Kristol: Can't We All Just Get Along?
KC Mulville
Ben Domenech
Amen.
Perhaps - but when has that not been the case? I mean, it ain't like we all swooned over John McCain or Bob Dole.
And historians are still divided over who was a better President: President McCain or President Dole.
Jan '11
Re: Bill Kristol: Can't We All Just Get Along?
Stuart Creque And historians are still divided over who was a better President: President McCain or President Dole.
Infighting wasn't exactly the problem with either one.
Jul '10
Re: Bill Kristol: Can't We All Just Get Along?
This is politics, fair doesn't enter into it. I have not seen a smoking gun from the Bain critics yet, but Creative Destruction notwithstanding, not all destruction is creative and in capitalism it often means you've missed unrecognized opportunities. It never mattered what Romney said, Bain was going to become a topic. If Romney doesn't have a story that will stand up for any Bain action that might be thrown at him, then he is not electable for more reasons than a 1 for 3 election record and ObomneyCare. Never re-elected to anything, came in second place behind John McCain.
If Romney can't take the questions now, head on among those who appreciate the Creative Destruction concept, how on Earth is he going to survive a general election when the only issue on the planet the Obama can win on in the general election is probably Bain.
Definitely the inevitable nominee of the stupid party.
Sep '10
Re: Bill Kristol: Can't We All Just Get Along?
One more piece of evidence that the Republican party mouthpieces are weasels. He acts like Romney has been the pious innocent this whole time, declining to descend to dirty ads. Pathetic.
Oct '10
Re: Bill Kristol: Can't We All Just Get Along?
We're not talking about legitimate, measured criticism from Gingrich and, alas, Perry, who was once my own preference. We're talking about Republican contenders writing the worst kind of opposition script and virtually auditioning for starring roles in Obama's attack ads -- which they will certainly secure. That's not even in the same universe as Romney exaggerating the value of his own experience (when did that become a political sin?), and now, it seems, his failure to tout a mixed record on job creation. Sheesh.
Sep '10
Re: Bill Kristol: Can't We All Just Get Along?
Are you kidding me? After Romney's ads against Perry about Social Security and the scurrilous rubbish he threw on the airwaves about Gingrich? He set the tone of the debate in seven figure sums. If I recall, at the time the reply about his lies was, "This ain't beanbag."
Well, all is forgiven so long as you win, I guess.
I've been voting since 1980 and I've never seen anyone as polarizing as Romney on the Republican side.
Re: Bill Kristol: Can't We All Just Get Along?
Bill Kristol and Jonathan Last both make reasoned arguments. Replying by suggesting that they, or Ben Domenech, harbors some sort of animus toward Romney? That's pure ad hominem.
National Review and "full-throated support for Romney?" Hardly. Just go take a look at NRO at this very hour. Rich Lowry has a piece up attacking Romney for overcaution. Mona Charen calls Romney robotic. Jonah Goldberg writes that Romney's "inability to connect with voters has me really worried." William Walsh writes that "When Romney says that his goal at Bain was to 'create jobs,' that's not entirely true."
The Romney-has-already-won-so-sit-down-and-be-quiet line does no one any credit, least of all Romney.
Edited on Jan 10 at 9:27pmApr '11
Re: Bill Kristol: Can't We All Just Get Along?
Peter Robinson
[snipped]
NationalReview and "full-throated support for Romney?" Hardly. Just go take a look at NRO at this very hour. Rich Lowry has a piece up attacking Romney for overcaution. Mona Charen calls Romney robotic. Jonah Goldberg writes that Romney's "inability to connect with voters has me really worried." William Walsh writes that "When Romney says that his goal at Bain was to 'create jobs,' that's not entirely true."
The Romney-has-already-won-so-sit-down-and-be-quiet does no one any credit, least of all Romney.
On this issue, NRO was strong in its support, although it is true that Walsh blog post was an exception. There are a lot of issues with Romney on which he faces criticism from conservatives. With the regrettable exception of the Weekly Standard, this issue is not one of them. The Club for Growth, Limbaugh, and AEI join my earlier list.
I don't think that people objecting to Romney should be quiet; I've opposed that claim and, separately, voiced on other threads the thought that a Santorum, or an ethical Newt win in SC and maybe Florida would be healthy a development for the party.
Edited on Jan 10 at 9:00pmDec '10
Re: Bill Kristol: Can't We All Just Get Along?
K T Cat
Are you kidding me? After Romney's ads against Perry about Social Security and the scurrilous rubbish he threw on the airwaves about Gingrich? He set the tone of the debate in seven figure sums. If I recall, at the time the reply about his lies was, "This ain't beanbag."
I am reminded of the scene in Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid in which Harv objects to Butch trying to set rules for their knife fight. "No rules in a knife fight!" he shouts, and Butch delivers a swift kick to Harv's groin.
When Romney said Gingrich "ought to have broad shoulders" and "this ain't beanbag," he was essentially saying, "No rules in a knife fight!"