I haven’t been exactly circumspect in my criticisms of Charles Krauthammer. But I’ve always given the man his due — or what I thought was his due. I thought he was at least fairly intelligent. But he isn’t. He’s an idiot. But before I discuss that, I want to talk about his well documented hypocrisy. A bit over a year ago, I wrote, A Tale of Two Krauthammers. It was about the filibuster. In 2005, when the Republicans controlled the Senate, Krauthammer wrote, Nuclear? No, Restoration. The Democrats were supposedly so out of control on the filibuster that “going nuclear” was just restoring normalcy in the Senate. The Republicans were right to go nuclear!
Even at the time, his argument was ridiculous. Check out my article, Republicans Caused All Filibuster Abuse. It shows quite clearly that it has always been the Republicans who pushed the use of the filibuster to higher levels. Whatever that level was, the Democrats stuck with it when they were in the minority. So Kruathammer’s anger in 2005 was just the usual complaint from Republicans that when they are in power, they don’t get everything they want. Later, I discussed the issue of the changing situation in, Filibuster Hypocrisy Is One Sided. As I noted, one could reasonably be for filibuster reform in 2013 and have been against it in 2005. But there is no way it works the other way around. If the filibuster needed to be destroyed in 2005, then it needed to be even more so 2013.
Of course Krauthammer didn’t agree. In 2013, I explained:
Well, Krauthammer was back last week with another gem, Time for the GOP to Go Nuclear. He provided his reasons. He claimed, “I’ve been radicalized. By Harry Reid and Barack Obama.” But how can that be? He was similarly “radicalized” in 2005 when Reid had just taken control of the Senate Democrats and Obama had just made it into the Senate. No, I think we all know the truth: Charles Krauthammer is against the filibuster when the Republicans are in the majority and for it when they are in the minority. There is nothing more to his arguments. He’s a pathetic hack who can’t even be bothered to look back on what he’s written before.
His stated reason for thinking that the filibuster must be killed is so that the Senate will get a chance to vote to defund the immigration services of the Department of Homeland Security. As it is, it is looking like the Republican controlled Congress will manage to just shut down the the whole department. And get ready for a great big conservative Krauthammer whine, “Republicans, not the filibustering Democrats, will be blamed for shutting down DHS and jeopardizing the nation’s safety at a time of heightened international terrorism.”
There is something else that the Congressional Republicans could do: they could just pass a clean funding bill and not hold national security hostage to their their little slap fight with the president. But that’s Krauthammer’s argument. The Republicans should get rid of the filibuster altogether for just this one fight because it will make the Republicans look bad for one news cycle.
But that just makes Krauthammer (as usual) pathetic. What makes this so stupid is that he’s wrong that if the Republican Senate got to vote on the bill and it got vetoed by the president that the American people would blame Obama and not the Republicans. The American people are not fair. If they were, the Republican Party would have long ago became a group with power only in Alabama, Mississippi, and parts of Louisiana. So Krauthammer ought to be damned glad that the American people unfair, because it usually works to the Republicans’ advantage. But when it comes to government shutdowns, the American people do know which party it is that wants to shut down the government. So they are going to blame the Republicans regardless.
If Krauthammer were a liberal, he might be a middle manager at a small corporation. It is only because he’s a conservative that he has any audience. The man is a total joke — a party hack who never has anything interesting to say. About the only thing he’s good for is laughing at — which does provide me with content for a couple of articles per year. But if you ever wonder what Krauthammer thinks about the filibuster, just look and see who which party controls the Senate. You don’t have to read any of his pathetic apologias.
Afterword
For the record, I’m still for getting rid of the filibuster. I just don’t see the point of it. If the parties had the level of control they had in the 1960s, it might be fine. But it is long past its due date. Regardless, it is undemocratic, just like the Senate. I’d like to get rid of both
Clearly Charles Krauthammer is an idiot. I totally agree. But I have been wondering at times if cognitive impairment is really what I mean to identify in such instances. Is it that the English language, or merely contemporary usage that is impoverished for ways to describe the combination of folly, dishonesty, motivated reasoning, compartmentalization, and outright mercenary disregard for the truth that we observe in Mr. Krauthammer? Was George W Bush an idiot? I have read people who claim otherwise, though I question their motives. But perhaps I am merely biased against people who speak with that accent, who get the words wrong so often, and who know so little about the world despite having been exposed to so much more of it than I. Sarah Palin, yes, obviously. Herman Cain would get flummoxed in debates and start to bleat “9-9-9!” and seemed to be unaware that China has been a nuclear power since 1972. Too busy running his pizza chain into the ground to the ground. If these guys are all so stupid, how come I still have to work for a living?
I think Bush is smart. I think it is largely an act. As for Krauthammer, I’m not sure what’s going on there. Not all his positions are conservative. Yet he is a Republican hack — very much like Sean Hannity. Frankly, I think being a Republican at this time is all tribal. It was different in the 1960s when the Democratic Party was actually liberal. But now, all the Republican Party offers are the same policies that have funneled more money to the rich over the last four decades. I have no idea why anyone other than the rich would vote for that, other than the idea that Republicans are the true Americans and the Democrats are the “blame America first” crowd. Tribalism based on myth.
Agreed – even for a GOP propagandist like Krauthammer this hypocrisy is stunning.
A great post – it would be perfect for the Daily News comment section (where a few folks have commented on Krauhammer’s idiocy)…and perhaps drive eyeballs to your fine blog.
Steve
Thanks. I do comment places, but those big sites are overwhelming. And then I end up getting annoyed by many of the comments…