Haley Barbour’s son doesn’t like how Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol talked about his dad in a blog post entitled “T. Paw vs. Hee-Haw.”
“It just makes no sense to me that a conservative man, such as yourself, would have such a blatantly obvious disdain towards my father,” Barbour said in a e-mail he sent to Kristol that the Associated Press obtained. “Despite your best efforts, if he decides to run, he will likely win the nomination.”
Kristol wrote that Barbour’s comments about Afghanistan “didn’t constitute any kind of serious presentation of a foreign policy agenda” and said Barbour’s “case for cutting defense spending was more political than substantive . . . and not very smart politics, either.” He accused the Mississippi governor of being “irresponsible” in “pandering” to those against the Afghanistan War and in favor of slashing military spending.
“In these most desperate of times, you go around assassinating the character of a great conservative,” Barbour wrote to Kristol.
Barbour also said that he didn’t want his father to run, but will be his “biggest supporter” if he chooses to.
UPDATE: The Weekly Standard has posted the full e-mail, along with Kristol’s response.