William Kristol

William (Bill) Kristol is the neo-conservative editor and publisher of the political magazine The Weekly Standard. He is the chairman and co-founder of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). He is a board member of the Emergency Committee for Israel.

Kristol is the son of Irving Kristol, who is "often called the 'godfather' of the neoconservative movement", and Gertrude Himmelfarb.

David Corn calls Kristol "the No. 1 cheerleader for the Iraq war."

Kristol was one of the signatories to the January 26, 1998, PNAC letter sent to President Bill Clinton urging him "to seize that opportunity" in his upcoming State of the Union "to enunciate a new strategy that would secure the interests of the U.S. and our friends and allies around the world. That strategy should aim, above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime from power."

He was "one of the architects of the blueprint for regime change found in the [September 2000] document 'Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategies, Forces and Resources for a New Century'"

Kristol also signed the September 20, 2001, PNAC letter endorsing President George W. Bush's "admirable commitment to 'lead the world to victory' in the war against terrorism."

Kristol said in a January 14, 2003, PBS Frontline interview "that the significance of President George W. Bush's State of the Union address in 2002 (the 'axis of evil' speech) is too easily forgotten -- that it was a rare moment, 'the creation of a new American foreign policy' -- and that Bush deserves credit for realizing very quickly after Sept. 11 that his presidency would be judged by how he handled the post-9/11 threat of weapons of mass destruction."

Kristol is co-author with Lawrence F. Kaplan of The War Over Iraq: Saddam’s Tyranny and America’s Mission.

---

Profiles

Kristol was the former Chief of Staff to Vice President Dan Quayle (1989-1993) and to Secretary of Education William Bennett during the Ronald Reagan administration. Kristol formerly led the Project for the Republican Future. He is on the board of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, and his name is associated with the Middle East Forum.

In November 2002, Kristol, as Chairman of the Bioethics Project of the New Citizenship Project, attended the Third Annual Siebel Scholars Conference which addressed stem cell research at Stanford University/Stanford Engineering at Palo Alto, CA.

Kristol is a "political contributor for the FOX News Channel (FNC) and serves as a regular contributor to Special Report with Brit Hume.

Resources and articles

Related SourceWatch articles

• Henry Jackson Society
• Howard Jonas
• Project for the New American Century, PNAC
• Vets for Freedom

External articles / interviews by Bill Kristol

• Articles on Iraq/Middle East, Project for the New American Century.
• With Robert Kagan, "Toward a Neo-Reaganite Foreign Policy," Foreign Affairs/Council on Foreign Relations, July/August 1996; Reprint by Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
• Transcript: "Paradigm Shift," PBS Online NewsHour, August 1, 1996. re welfare entitlements
• With Robert Kagan, "Bombing Iraq Isn't Enough," New York Times (GulfInvestigations.net), January 30, 1998.
• With Robert Kagan, "A 'Great Victory' For Iraq," Washington Post (GulfInvestigations.net), February 26, 1998.
• Major Issues Lecture: William Kristol, Editor and Publisher, The Weekly Standard, Topic: "The Conservative Future," November 10, 1998.
• Transcript: "William Kristol Discusses Missile Defense, Potential VPs and the Turning Tide of the New York Senate Race," CNN's Capitol Gang, July 8, 2000.
• Book Review: "In His Heart, He Knew He Was Right. Barry Goldwater's overwhelming defeat set the stage for the rise of conservatism," New York Times, April 1, 2001.
• "Closing In. A conversation with Lawrence Kaplan and Bill Kristol on Iraq," National Review Online, February 24, 2003. Interview with Kathryn Jean Lopez.
• "William Kristol's Crystal Ball: Smooth, Transparent and Distorting. Terry Gross Interviews William Kristol," StalkingElk.com, April 1, 2003.
• With Robert Kagan, "Do What It Takes in Iraq. The United States must be serious about its 'generational commitment'," The Weekly Standard, September 1, 2003.
• With Robert Kagan, "Iraq One Year Later," The Weekly Standard (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace), March 22, 2004.
• "Democracy Now! Interviews Right-Wing Journalists Bill Kristol and John McLaughlin at the DNC," Democracy Now!, July 27, 2004.
• "Kerry vs. Kerry. What does 'the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time' mean?" The Weekly Standard, September 2, 2004.
• With Eric Cohen, Editorial: "Frist's Stem Cell Capitulation," The Weekly Standard, August 8, 2005.
• "Why Bush should go to Tel Aviv - and confront Iran," Financial Times, July 16, 2006.
• "Anti-war, Anti-Israel, Anti-Joe. The New Democrats," The Weekly Standard, August 14, 2006.
• With Rich Lowry, "Reinforce Baghdad," Washington Post, September 12, 2006.
• "Who's Really in Denial? It's not President Bush," The Weekly Standard, October 9, 2006.
• With Robert Kagan, "Bush must call for reinforcements in Iraq," Financial Times, November 12, 2006.
• With Robert Kagan, "A Perfect Failure," The Weekly Standard (FrontPageMag.com), December 4, 2006. re Iraq Study Group
• "There Is a Way Forward in Iraq," TIME Magazine, January 4, 2007.
• "Why Republicans Are Smiling," TIME Magazine, March 2, 2007.
• "Wrong on Timetables. The Democratic Congress doesn't understand what is going on in Iraq," The Weekly Standard, April 2, 2007.
• "The 2008 Formula," TIME Magazine, May 3, 2007.
• "Why Americans Should Feel Happy," TIME Magazine, July 6, 2007.
• "Why Bush Will Be A Winner," Washington Post, July 15, 2007.
• Opinion: "Bush knows his presidency is likely to be a success," Dallas Morning News, July 18, 2007.
• "Keep on Surgin'. Bush is beating them back," The Weekly Standard, July 23, 2007.
• "Bush the Winner," New York Post (FrontPageMag.com), July 26, 2007.

External resources

Profiles

• William Kristol NeoCon Europe
• Know Your Right-Wing Speakers: "William Kristol," CampusProgress.org, January 4, 2007.
• Profile: Bill Kristol, NNDB.com.
• Filmography: William Kristol, IMDb.com.
• Profile: William Kristol and Project for the New American Century, RightWeb.
• Profile: William Kristol, Media Transparency.
• William Kristol, Political Friendster.
• William Kristol in the dKosopedia.
• "William Kristol," BBC News (UK).
• About Us: William Kristol, Editor, The Weekly Standard.
• Profile: William Kristol, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.
• Board of Visitors: William Kristol, George Washington University.
• Bio: William Kristol, Goethe-Institut Boston.
• "2007 Fall Briefing with William Kristol," Center of the American Experiment, October 23, 2007.
• William Kristol in the Wikipedia.

Letters by Bill Kristol

• "Letters: William Kristol on Bush's legacy," Dallas Morning News, July 22, 2007.

Statements and testimony by Bill Kristol

• Statement of William Kristol, Chairman, The Bioethics Project of The New Citizenship Project, Washington, D.C., To the Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, May 2, 2001.
• Testimony of William Kristol Chairman, Project for the New American Century, on "September 11, 2001 : Attack on America," To the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, February 7, 2002.
• Testimony of William Kristol, Chairman, Project for the New American Century, Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, April 8, 2003.
• Testimony of William Kristol, Chairman, Project for the New American Century on "The Taiwan Relations Act: The Next Twenty-Five Years," Before the House Committee on International Relations, April 21, 2004.

Video clips

• "PNAC ring leader William Kristol confronted on 9/11" at University of Texas in Austin "about the current political climate and the 'new order' or 'new world' that emerged after 9/11," YouTube, October 4, 2006.
• "Kristol: Obama Would Have Opposed Lincoln" (on Fox News Sunday), YouTube, July 11, 2007.
• Muriel Kane, YouTube video: 'Bill Kristol: Pundit. Chickenhawk. Nose-picker', The Raw Story, 2 August 2007.