So Bill Kristol's deluded triumphalist drivel about the ultimate success of George Bush's presidency lives on. According to Howard Kurtz, the president read the article and -- here's a shock -- thought so much of it, he recommended it to his staff ("Who cares if 71 percent of the public think I suck, Bill Kristol says I'm a winner."). Returning the favor, White House aide Pete Wehner told Kurtz that Kristol is "intellectually independent and intellectually courageous." Hmm, could it have been Wehner on the other end of the line during that gloating phone call I overheard? Kurtz also mentions that Kristol was at the White House, offering advice to the president, on July 13 -- which was the day after our close encounter on Amtrak.
Elsewhere on the Kristol front, I find it more than a little curious that Sunday's Opinion page of the New York Post featured Kristol's "Why Bush Will Be a Winner" piece a full week after it originally appeared on the front page of the Washington Post's Outlook section. The only tweak: the tabloid changed the title to the punchier "Bush the Winner." And there was no mention that this was a week-old column, just a vague "From the Washington Post" at the end of Kristol's bio.
Maybe the Post's online motto -- "24 Hours a Day" -- needs a rewrite: "24 Hours a Day, Seven Days Later."