It would be difficult to imagine a more politically and intellectually stimulating environment for William Kristol to grow up in. William's father was Irving Kristol who from 1947 to 1952 was managing editor of Commentary magazine. Irving's political growth in many ways paralleled the political transformation of Commentary magazine from Leftist to Neo-Conservative. In many ways the ascendancy of the Neo-Conservative movement can be traced to Irving Kristol. Irving once whimsically remarked on his own political labeling:
"Ever since I can remember, I've been a neo-something: a neo-Marxist, a neo-Trotskyist, a neo-Liberal, a neo-Conservative; in religion a neo-orthodox even while I was a neo-Trotskyist and a neo-Marxist. I am going to end up a neo- that's all, a neo dash nothing." (See the PBS special on Arguing the World. )
William's maternal influences were just as compelling. Gertrude Himmelfarb, a former professor of History at University City College in New York, is William's mother. Ms. Himmelfarb's specialty is the Victorian era. A prominent neo-Conservative in her own right, Ms. Himmelfarb has written eloquently about the inadequacy of today's culture of values. The social conventions or "virtues" of the Victorian era guided, Himmelfarb argues, personal conduct more successfully than "values" have in our narcissistic age.
As if more political credentials were required than the one's he inherited, William earned a Ph.D. from Harvard in political science. Later, William served on Secretary of Education William Bennett's staff in the Bush Administration and went on to become Vice-President Dan Quayle's Chief of Staff.
After service in the Bush Administration, William led what Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post has characterized as a "partisan guerilla operation," the Project for a Republican Future. With an investment from publisher Rupert Murdoch and a little renovation, the offices of the project became the first offices of the Weekly Standard, a weekly political magazine.
The Weekly Standard is an exceptionally well-written Conservative magazine co-edited by William Kristol and Conservative analyst Fred Barnes. The magazine is popular reading among the political class and exerts an influence in disproportion to its modest circulation of 50,000.
I have arranged for a personal interview with William Kristol in his offices at the Weekly Standard and am eagerly soliciting questions people here would like to see addressed. At present, I plan to cover certain general areas.
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