It's on: Bill Kristol challenges Matt Damon to debate

A honey of a stunt by Breitbart to build buzz for Big Hollywood. $100,000 to make it happen, though?

Must be nice to have Drudge money.

On Sunday afternoon Weekly Standard editor and New York Times columnist Bill Kristol — in an email exchange with Big Hollywood — agreed to debate Matt Damon on his Hollywood home turf after being informed the 38-year old actor ridiculed Kristol in an interview in the Miami Herald.

“He’s an idiot — he wrote that we should be grateful to George Bush because he won the Iraq war. We! Won! The! War!”

As the sponsor of the event, Big Hollywood is offering $100,000 to Damon (or to the charity or carbon credit of his choice) to publicly debate Kristol at a mutually agreed upon time, date and venue.

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Who has more to lose? It’s received wisdom on the left that Kristol’s the ne plus ultra of conservative idiocy, as today’s theatrical nutroots overreaction to his leaving the NYT demonstrates. If Damon — whose every interview on politics mentions his Harvard pedigree for extra gravitas — goes toe to toe with him and loses, his lefty intellectual cred will be smashed. If Kristol loses, at the very least he should be forced to give up his chair on “Special Report.” Or maybe have it lowered by a foot or so, that his shame might be forever preserved with a sight gag.

Note to Breitbart: If you really want to kick up a fuss online, change the topic from Iraq to Sarah Palin. Exit question one: Did I misread Damon’s quote there or is he actually acknowledging that the war is won? He’s being sarcastic, right? Exit question two: If he isn’t being sarcastic, which is more surprising? That quote, or this one:

”Look, the best line about torture I’ve heard came from [retired CIA officer turned war-on-terrorism critic] Milt Beardon,” Damon says. “He said, ‘If a guy knows where a dirty bomb is hidden that’s going to go off in a Marriott, put me in a room with him and I’ll find out. But don’t codify that. Just let me break the law.’

“Which I think is right. You can’t legalize torture. But anybody would do it in that situation. You’d do it to me in that situation; you’d pull out my fingernails if you thought I knew something like that.”

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