"They were careless people, Tom and Daisy–they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money of their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made." – The Great Gatsby

The Economist points out the poison pill that is Bill Kristol:

Bill Kristol, as the editor of the Weekly Standard, did more than almost any magazine editor in 1999 and 2000 to build up John McCain as a serious politician, not just a military hero (those guys often falter in presidential bids), but an innovative foreign-policy thinker who could shape the future of the Republican Party. He carried water for the 2008 campaign like a sherpa, even defending Mr McCain’s disastrous decision to "suspend his campaign" during the financial crisis: "If the race is between an energetic executive and an indecisive talker, the energetic executive should win."

So Mr Kristol was the perfect press ally for Mr McCain. He’s also somewhat dangerous for Republicans. The vanquished 2008 candidate had a fly-by-night attitude that led to all kinds of bad decisions—the campaign suspension, the pick of Mrs Palin, the idiotic month of campaigning with Joe the Plumber. He’s irrelevent(sic) to the next Republican renaissance, but Mr Kristol is very relevant, and everything he says about Republicans—on strategy, foreign policy, health care, and probably the best way to pick a cantelope(sic)—is taken seriously. If Mr Schmidt is trying to warn Republicans, good luck with that: Mr Kristol has the stage.

It’s probably a good time to remember this:

Though McCain didn’t bring it up in the debate, since then, the campaign has followed Kristol’s advice, talking about Ayers more than any other single topic. But now that it is conclusively clear that these attacks are failing — that they are actually backfiring and making Obama more popular and McCain and Palin more unpopular — Kristol went on Fox News this morning and attacked the McCain campaign for running what he called a "stupid campaign" and "a pathetic campaign" because the attacks "haven’t worked" and they’re "doing things that don’t work and they keep doing them" — without ever bothering to mention that he, Kristol, just last week, was one of the loudest and most vocal advocates for relying on these character attacks against Obama

That’s typical Bill Kristol — not only chronically wrong about everything, but far worse, completely incapable of acknowledging mistakes.  He just suppresses them, pretends they don’t exist, and in that regard is the perfect face for the right-wing movement that is dying a painful, harsh and profoundly well-deserved death in front of everyone’s eyes.

Bill Kristol is Tom and Daisy Buchanan rolled up into one smug and repellent package.

And Republicans continue to listen to him.

Awesome.