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Via Publius, Anonymous Liberal has a great reminder of just how little Bill Kristol knows:

April 4, 2003: "There's been a certain amount of pop sociology in America ... that the Shia can't get along with the Sunni and the Shia in Iraq just want to establish some kind of Islamic fundamentalist regime. There's almost no evidence of that at all. Iraq's always been very secular."

Why does anyone continue to take this man seriously? That statement wasn't just wrong, it was spectacularly wrong. Wrong on a world-historical level. Wrong in a way that should demonstrate to everyone for all time that he simply doesn't know anything about the Middle East.

Which is funny, given that he wrote this on the eve of the war:

We are tempted to comment, in these last days before the war, on the U.N., and the French, and the Democrats. But the war itself will clarify who was right and who was wrong about weapons of mass destruction. It will reveal the aspirations of the people of Iraq, and expose the truth about Saddam's regime. It will produce whatever effects it will produce on neighboring countries and on the broader war on terror. We would note now that even the threat of war against Saddam seems to be encouraging stirrings toward political reform in Iran and Saudi Arabia, and a measure of cooperation in the war against al Qaeda from other governments in the region. It turns out it really is better to be respected and feared than to be thought to share, with exquisite sensitivity, other people's pain. History and reality are about to weigh in, and we are inclined simply to let them render their verdicts.

History's verdict indeed. I'd love to see someone ask him if he still stands by that statement. Paging Jon Stewart....

I realize that there is no accountability for pundits, no matter how influential, no matter how wrong. But still... Make this man go away. Please?