Bill Kristol: Playa Hatin'

Wow. Could someone please explain to me how The Very Serious Opinion Leader Bill Kristol has a job writing a regular op-ed column in The Paper of Record? FFS, this has to be a joke, right? Please, tell me some intern is covering for Kristol, and seeing just how far he or she can push the envelope without The Times deciding not to run the column. I mean, something like this just has to be parody:

But Obama chose to present his flag-pin removal as a principled gesture. “You know, the truth is that right after 9/11, I had a pin. Shortly after 9/11, particularly because as we’re talking about the Iraq war, that became a substitute for I think true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security, I decided I won’t wear that pin on my chest.”

Leave aside the claim that “speaking out on issues” constitutes true patriotism. What’s striking is that Obama couldn’t resist a grandiose explanation. Obama’s unnecessary and imprudent statement impugns the sincerity or intelligence of those vulgar sorts who still choose to wear a flag pin. But moral vanity prevailed. He wanted to explain that he was too good — too patriotic! — to wear a flag pin on his chest.

So, uh, what exactly is an appropriate reason for not wearing a flag pin? Please, I'd love to know, since, you know, I've never worn one, and my reason has always been that I'm better than Bill Kristol, but since that's apparently the height of moral vanity, I guess I need a new, less "grandiose" explanation.

What kills me about Kristol's NYT columns is that he's clearly either not even trying (phoning it in like Jack Nicholson in whatever "poignant" romantic comedy he happens to be in this month), or he's even more dense than I thought. It's so paint-by-numbers. Personally, I figured it was just laziness, but then a little research turned up this column from Kristol's high school newspaper:

Last October, a reporter for the school paper asked Timmy Johnson why he had stopped wearing the varsity letter sweater that he, like many other football players, had been sporting on Fridays since the beginning of the football season. Johnson could have responded that his new-found fashion minimalism was no big deal. What matters, obviously, is what you believe and do, not what you wear.

But Johnson chose to present his letter sweater removal as a principled gesture. “You know, the truth is that right after the school year started, I had a letter sweater. Shortly after Homecoming, particularly because as we’re talking about the football season, that became a substitute for I think true school spirit, which is participating in the extracurricular activities that are of importance to our community, I decided I won’t wear that sweater.”

Leave aside the claim that “participating in extracurricular activities” constitutes true school spirit. What’s striking is that Johnson couldn’t resist a grandiose explanation. Johnson's unnecessary and imprudent statement impugns the sincerity or intelligence of those vulgar sorts who still choose to wear a letter sweater. But moral vanity prevailed. He wanted to explain that he was too good — too imbued with school spirit! — to wear a letter sweater.

Fast forward to last Monday's pep rally. Michelle Simmons, Johnson's steady girl, visiting from a local girls' school, in the course of the rally, remarked, “For the first time in my high school career, I’m really proud of the Collegiate School. And not just because Timmy has done well, but because I think people are hungry for a state championship.”

Michelle Simmons has been in high school for over three years. Can it really be the case that nothing the the Collegiate School achieved since then has made her proud? Apparently. For, as she said later in the same appearance: “Life for regular students has gotten worse over the course of my time in high school, through football, basketball, and baseball seasons. It hasn’t gotten much better.”

Now in almost every empirical respect, Collegiate students' lives have in fact gotten better over the last three years. And most students — and most of their steady girls — don’t think those years were one vast wasteland. So Timmy Johnson hastened to clarify his girlfriend's remarks. “What she meant was, this is the first time that she’s been proud of Collegiate's school spirit,” he said, “because she’s pretty cynical about pep rallies, and with good reason, and she’s not alone.” Later in the week, Michelle Simmons further explained, “What I was clearly talking about was that I’m proud of how Collegiate students are engaging in the pep rally process.”

But that clearly isn’t what she was talking about. For as she had argued in the pep rally speech, Collegiate's illness goes far beyond a flawed pep rally process: “Timmy knows that at some level there’s a hole in our trophy case.” This was a variation of language she had used earlier in the season: “Timmy Johnson is the only person on this football team who understands that, that before we can win states, we have to fix our school spirit. Our school spirit is broken in this school.”

But they can be repaired. Indeed, she had said a couple of weeks before, at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance: “Timmy Johnson ... is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your chocolate malted. That you come out on Friday nights, that you go to a football game. That you push yourselves to cheer louder. And that you engage. Timmy will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, not going to games.”

So we don’t have to work to improve our school spirit. Our broken school spirit can be fixed — by our cheering for Timmy Johnson. We don’t have to play football or put up decorations for the sock hop to help our school. Our uninvolved and uninformed lives can be changed — by our cheering for Timmy Johnson. Collegiate can become a school to be proud of — by letting ourselves be led by Timmy Johnson.

Bobby "Shooter" McGavin, to whom Johnson is sometimes compared, challenged Collegiate students to acts of school spirit and athleticism. Timmy Johnson allows us to feel better about ourselves.

Johnson likes to say, “we are the team that can win states” and “we are the ones we’ve been waiting for.” Johnson's athletic ability makes his skill on the field appear almost collective rather than individual. That’s a democratic courtesy on his part, and one flattering to his teammates. But the effectual truth of what Johnson is saying is that he is the one we’ve been waiting for.

Timmy Johnson is an awfully talented quarterback. But could Collegiate students, by November, decide that for all his impressive abilities, Johnson tends too much toward the preening self-regard of [homecoming king] Darren Thompson, the patronizing jockism of [star basketball player] Thomas Astor and the haughty bookishness of [class president] John Higgenbotham?