Bill Kristol types do not help those of us trying to distinguish conservatism from Trumpism

There are gradations of the swath of conservatives - or ostensible conservatives, or erstwhile conservatives - who insist on the importance of publicly proclaiming that which is objectionable about Donald Trump. "Never Trumpers," if you will. There are the ones who keep front and center the importance of stating their uncorrupted conservatism, who make it clear that they have not moved leftward one micro-inch. The folks launching the Dispatch project, such as Steven Hayes, Jonah Goldberg and David French, Resurgent folks such as Erick Erickson, Steve Berman and Peter Heck, National Review writers such as Kevin Williamson, and a few of the folks at The Bulwark fall into this classification. There are others working at various outlets, but this serves to map the terrain.

At the other end of the spectrum are those, such as Max Boot and Jennifer Rubin,  who have completely jettisoned any self-identification as conservatives. and while not publicly repositioning themselves on the Left, might as well, given that they now denounce principles they used to - or at least presumably used to - hold dear, as well as denouncing Trump.

Bill Kristol, son of the neoconservatism pioneer Irving Kristol and the historian Gertrude Himmelfarb, chief of staff to Vice President Dan Quayle, founder of The Weekly Standard, has apparently decided there's some kind of virtue in going that latter bunch one step further, sending out a tweet this morning that is astounding in its lack of seriousness:

Bill Kristol‏Verified account @BillKristol

I very much prefer Biden or Buttigieg or Bloomberg or Klobuchar to Warren. But the idea that one term of Warren would pose anything like the threat of a second term for Trump to the basic norms and institutions of our liberal democracy, including to free markets, is laughable.

What? 

Elizabeth Warren wants to pack the Supreme Court, snatch drug companies' patents (when asked if that was doable, she responded, "Yes! We can do that! We just need the will to do that!"), impose a wealth tax and abolish the Electoral College. She has the most egregious truth-telling problem of any current aspirant to the presidency, having lied not only about her ethnic makeup and her children going to public school, but about the Ferguson, Missouri death of Michael Brown, saying that he was murdered by officer Daren Wilson, years after a grand jury and the Obama Justice Department found Wilson innocent.

And Mr. Kristol needs to be reminded that all the Democrats he names in his tweet are cool with the extermination of fetal Americans.

It's this kind of recklessness that makes it possible for the likes of Victor Davis Hanson - who has done his own moving along the spectrum, from serious, erudite conservative to Trump shill - to pen a piece like he has today at American Greatness that takes the by-now-familiar tack of putting Trump's undeniably good moves - judicial appointments, reaffirming US support for Israel, pulling out of the Paris climate accord, deregulation - so front and center as to, in the eyes of the type of reader he is addressing, render Trump's pettiness, vindictiveness, insistence on having his ring kissed, bizarre foreign policy moves such as driving South Korea into China's arms, or saying he has to balance support for Hong Kong protestors with his keenness to cut a trade deal with Xi, whom he calls a "good friend," or abandoning the Kurds to the Turks, not to mention the fact that his "faith advisor" is a prosperity-gospel charlatan, and not to mention his sybaritic past, about which he bragged in several radio conversations with Howard Stern, inconsequential.

Hanson does point out that John F. Kennedy's frolics probably outdid Trump's, but, and I've made this point before, the adage that hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue applies here. Kennedy had the good sense to promote a public image of a dignified and devoted husband. He did not publicly brag about his misadventures.

But what a tweet like Kristol's does is lend credence to a statement like Hanson's that "Never Trumpers"

are often played as useful idiots by progressives who otherwise want nothing to do with them, and will not wish to have anything to do with them, even as apostates, in the post-Trump era.

There  are only two explanations for an utterance such as Kristol's that I can see. He's either become just plain intellectually sloppy, or he is indeed veering leftward.

It may be time for Kristol to take an extended hiatus from opining.

One thing's for sure: he's of no use to those of us trying to rescue actual conservatism from the snatches of Trumpism.