Say, How Come Bill Kristol Was Very Noticeably Absent from the AEI Awards Dinner Held In His Own Father's Name?

From insiders, here is the sequence leading up to Bill Kristol's very visible non-appearance at the Irving Kristol Award dinner.

For weeks, it had been rumored that, owing to donor discomfort with Bill Kristol's past speeches at the Irving Kristol dinner -- which were unrestrained in mockery of Trump supporters, many of whom were actually donors to AEI and the dinner -- that Bill Kristol had not been invited this year, and in fact was specifically asked not to come.

Kristol usually gives the introductory speech, as you would expect.

But Kristol was causing controversy among the people paying the bills.

As he does. Being a spiteful little donation-parasite that can't keep a civil tongue even with the people paying his big-time mortgage.

So rumor had it that he wasn't invited -- or was specifically disinvited -- from the dinner this year.

Many rejected this rumor as too incredible to be believed.

And yet, as the dinner took place a couple of days ago, rising to the podium to give the introductory speech hitherto always given by Bill Kristol was... not Bill Kristol.

Good evening everyone. I'm Robert Doar, president of AEI, and, on behalf of our chairman Dan D'Aniello and the entire AEI community, I welcome you to our Annual Dinner. We’re so glad you could join us this evening, when we have the privilege of celebrating two great Americans: Irving Kristol and Ambassador Nikki Haley.

...

Those of you who have been with us before know that it has been our practice in the past at this point in the program to invite Bill Kristol up to say a few words about the Irving Kristol Award and to extend greetings from his mother, Bea Himmelfarb, and their family. But Bea and Bill could not be here tonight, though they still send warm greetings and good wishes to all of us and to Ambassador Haley. And I know we send the same to them.

I'm told by a party attending the event that there was confusion and surprise that the not-at-all-august presence of Bill Kristol was not at all present, augustly or otherwise, and people went to their phones to text "What's going on?" or the like to others.

I'm further told that a donor explained that he believed, based on statements from AEI officials, that Bill Kristol was not merely absent, but that his radiant feminence was asked to not be present. Owing to prior discourtesies rendered at the stage in the several years past.

Is this merely chatter? Does this donor know this for a fact?

The AEI officials were not explicit on this point -- they just implied that Bill Kristol had been politely suggested to grace the event with his absence.

Or so I hear.

But consider the sequence of events here: It had been rumored for a time before the event that Bill Kristol had been disinvited. People showed up not believing this rumor, and expecting Kristol to show up and insult swathes of the gathering, as he had done before, and just be an absolute glutton with the hors d'ouvures, because, I mean: Just look at him.

This is not a man who turns away a stuffed mushroom or nine lightly.

This is not a sentimentalist fool who believes in the outdated chestnut of "Women and children first" at the shrimp-bar.

This is a man who knows one must post-up just outside the gates leading from the kitchen to the dining hall, and work to box-out and muscle-out any encroaching competitors.

But then he didn't show up. For a dinner given in his father's honor.

No bacon wrapped scallops for Bill this night.

I guess he had a more important and more prestigious event scheduled for the night of October 29.

Or spending some quality time with people he loves.

Or pursuing further groundbreaking philosophical inquiries into bold new areas of inquiry hitherto undreamt of.

Either that or he was jerking off with Twitter, as usual.

posted by Ace of Spades at 05:25 PM

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