The Video Graphics Adorning the Weekly Standard’s Website this Week

Are more compelling than usual and serve as a reminder that Bill Kristol’s notions of “national greatness” and a “New American Century” are funded and promoted by more than Rupert Murdoch and pro-Likud activists and their Christian Zionist fellow-travellers. Presumably in honor of this week’s Paris Air Show, Pratt & Whitney are zooming jet fighters, powered by its F-135 engine, thrusters ablaze, all over the site. The effect, particularly that of the top banner where a jet periodically blasts across the screen from left to right (bound for Iran perhaps?), distracts the viewer from concentrating on the actual text of the articles. The impression made by videos is particularly disconcerting when you try to focus on the remarkably boring “Standard at Sea” series about the magazine’s ongoing Alaska cruise aboard the ms Oosterdam – featuring Kristol, Fred Barnes, and Michael Gerson, among others — although the jets did seem somehow appropriate (in a 19th century imperialist sense) for Thursday’s “cigar and cognac” night off Ketchikan.

Armchair generals indeed.

Jim Lobe

Jim Lobe served for some 30 years as the Washington DC bureau chief for Inter Press Service and is best known for his coverage of U.S. foreign policy and the influence of the neoconservative movement.

SHOW 0 COMMENTS