The Third Generation: Thank you for your service

From the New York Times:

WEDDINGS/CELEBRATIONS

Delia Pais and Joseph Kristol

Delia Ann Pais, a daughter of Mara D. Pais and Richard A. Pais of Bel Air, Md., is to be married Sunday evening to Joseph Max Kristol, the son of Susan S. Kristol and William Kristol of McLean, Va. Rabbi David Kalender is to officiate at the Columbus Club, an event space at Union Station in Washington.

The couple met at Harvard, from which they graduated.

The bride, 25, is a clinical research assistant in the sports medicine and shoulder service department at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York.

Her father owns Atlantic Services, a firm in Bel Air that specializes in the engineering and inspection of boiler systems.

The groom, 26, is a consultant at McKinsey & Company, the management consultancy in New York. From 2009-13, he served in the Marine Corps as an infantry officer with the Third Battalion, Fifth Marines, based in Camp Pendleton, Calif. He served in Afghanistan from September 2010 to April 2011. From September 2012 to May 2013, he was a part of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which toured the Middle East and parts of Africa. He was last stationed at Camp Pendleton, having achieved the rank of captain.

His father is the editor of The Weekly Standard in Washington.

OYE Comment:  We thank Joseph Kristol, grandson of Irving Kristol, for his service to our country and wish the couple all the best for a wonderful and happy life together.
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et tu [et tui], William Kristol?

Neocon Weekly Standard Editor William Kristol, in "Beyond Afghanistan" in the Washington Post, notes that, "We are at war with Political Islamism."  While the article is essentially off-topic for this blog, we do have one question for Mr. Kristol:

Has The Weekly Standard ever encouraged its eligible* readers at least to consider volunteering for military service, and its not eligible* readers to encourage their eligible* relatives and friends, their circles of influence, to consider serving?  Link(s), please.

More importantly, have you encouraged your new son-in-law to consider volunteering for military service?

We welcome any explanation you may wish to provide for publication on our blog.  Send to OperationYellowElephant - at --- gmail // dot \ com.

*Healthy Americans, mostly men, 18-34 are eligible to apply.

From Honorable Service to Yellow Elephant Dynasty

The late Irving Kristol, a famous neocon, must be turning over in his grave.

During the Reagan Administration [and pre-Internet], the Village Voice published the seminal article on chickenhawks, "America's War Wimps," by Jack Newfield [as we recall].  Yes, the Voice got fabulous quotes from everyone, including Dick Cheney saying, "other priorities."  Virtually every neocon and prominent Republican in the mid-1980s was shamelessly exposed, including Irving Kristol, then Editor of The New Republic.  'Too bad the article is not easily findable online; this is the best we could do.

Standard Village Voice journalistic practices always include, in the article, that the subject "failed to respond to numerous Voice messages left at his office," and the like.  So, we were quite amused to see, in the following week's Voice, an irate letter from Irving Kristol.  He noted that his biography in "Who's Who" indicated two years in the AUS [Army of the United States]; had the Voice bothered to contact him, he could have told them that.  Mr. Kristol's righteous anger was fully justified.  The Village Voice should have just apologized for their error, stating that, whatever their differences on the issues of the day, Mr. Kristol deserved respect for his service to our country, and moved on.

Typical for the Voice, however, even when they acknowledged their screwup, they still criticized neoconservatism in general and Irving Kristol in particular.  Oh, well.

So what does this have to do with Operation Yellow Elephant?  The Yellow Elephant Dynasty:  From honorable veteran Irving Kristol to non-veteran son William Kristol to the next generation, marrying Yellow Elephant Matthew Continetti as reported in The New York Times Sunday, February 19, 2012:

Anne Kristol, Matthew Continetti

Anne Elizabeth Kristol, a daughter of Susan S. Kristol and William Kristol of McLean, Va., is to be married Sunday evening to Matthew Joseph Continetti, a son of Cathy Continetti and Joseph F. Continetti of Springfield, Va.  Rabbi David Kalender is to officiate at the Ritz-Carlton in Washington.

The bride, who is taking her husband's name, is studying for a master's in secondary education at George Washington University.  She graduated from Washington University in St. Louis. 

Her father is the editor of The Weekly Standard, the political journal, in Washington.  The bride is the granddaughter of Gertrude Himmelfarb, the late historian and author, and the late Irving Kristol, the political commentator and author. 

The bridegroom, 30, is the editor of The Washington Free Beacon, a political website, and works in Washington.  He is also a contributing editor for The Weekly Standard.  He is the author of "The K Street Gang:  The Rise and Fall of the Republican Machine" and "The Persecution of Sarah Palin:  How the Elite Media Tried to Bring Down a Rising Star."  He graduated from Columbia.

His mother is a reading specialist for Fairfax County Public Schools in Fairfax, Va.  His father is a contract specialist at the General Services Administration in Washington.

OYE Comment:
We wish the happy couple well.  Let's just say that we're not worried about a next generation, and leave it at that.