William Kristol now supports the gold standard?

Is neoconservative icon Bill Kristol coming around on the idea of returning to the gold standard? In response to Chinese President Hu Jintao’s recent comment that “the current international currency system is the product of the past,” Kristol writes:

Isn’t Hu in this one respect right? And does the current international currency system of fiat money, with the U.S. as the reserve currency, serve U.S. or world interests?

And it’s worth further asking — as more and more people are beginning to ask — whether a modernized international gold standard, which anchors currencies to a standard outside government manipulation, wouldn’t better serve the interests of free and limited government both at home and abroad. After all, it’s the dollar’s status as a reserve currency that has allowed the U.S. government to amass huge debts, debts which the legislatively imposed debt ceiling has been unsuccessful in limiting. Fiat currency seems to be related to bloated and unlimited government, and to speculative bubbles, and to international instability. Do we just to have to live with this, or simply hope for better Fed chairmen?

Someone get Rep. Ron Paul some smelling salts.