Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol says he'd be happy to debate Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on CNN rather than by Twitter after Reid tweeted a message Thursday calling Kristol one of the architects of the Iraq war.
The tweet featured photos of Kristol along with George W. Bush administration Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and former Vice President Dick Cheney.
"Well, Harry Reid's not going to get an insincere apology from me," Kristol responded on
CNN's "Erin Burnett Out Front." "I'm not a politician. I'm not apologizing for something that I think was not wrong. I think the war to remove Saddam [Hussein] was the right thing to do and necessary."
Kristol said he isn't interested in "re-litigating the past," but prefers looking for solutions to the current crisis of the terror group Islamic State in Syria and Iraq threatening to take over Iraq with a religious caliphate.
"I'm happy to re-litigate it," Burnett responded, "because I love having this conversation."
Kristol responded he'd love to meet on Burnett's show for an on-air debate with Reid, who, Kristol pointed out, voted for the war in 2003.
"Let's debate whether it was right or wrong. I will sit here with you and Harry Reid and have a half-hour-long debate," Kristol said. "But for him to tweet out, 'The only thing I want to hear from them is an apology' – is that really an appropriate way to conduct yourself as a serious leader of a democracy?"
Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein was on set with Burnett, and told Kristol, "Apologies would be in order at this point from the neo-conservatives who banged the war drums so disastrously, Bill."
"Oh, hogwash," Kristol responded.
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