All's Well

When I heard that Bill Kristol was leaving Time I got seriously worried about the state of the world. After all, everyone knows that conservative pundits don't get held accountable for saying tons and tons of wrong stuff -- that's not how it works. Instead, you march through the institutions of conservatism by being loyal to the Cause, and then eventually mainstream organizations decide they need to contain representatives of the Cause and there you are on your perch. So it is in the newsweeklies, so it is on the op-ed pages, and so it is on the Sunday shows. So how could Kristol be fired?

Thus I think we have to consider it good news that he's apparently been hired by The New York Times.

Comments

Noooooo!!!!!

Say it ain't so!

Posted by Dirk | December 29, 2007 9:10 AM

Did you ever see that Harvard Pol-Sci spoof on
The Office ? It features a really creepy Kristol acolyte.

http://www.danieldrezner.com/archives/003646.html

Posted by Dan | December 29, 2007 9:31 AM

Well, Kristol's good with Obama, so what's not to like?

Don't worry.

Everything's going to be fine.

Posted by lambert strether | December 29, 2007 9:34 AM

Please, let this not be so. The rottenest of the rotten.

Posted by Jennifer | December 29, 2007 9:39 AM

Why is it that the stupider the conservative, the more influential their perch is? Bill Maher made a decent point that when Republicans run a "Are you fucking kidding me?" candidate known for being a bit crazy or stupid (Nixon, Reagan, Bush II), they tend to win but their more sensible candidates (Bush I's re-election, Dole) tend to lose. Someone like Dan Drezner has a decent amount of charisma to be on TV and is one of the most honest conservatives writing today, yet he isn't exactly a staple of FoxNews and isn't being hired by the New York Times. Is it because he was honest enough to note that Bhagwati's "In Defense of Globalization" had no real empirical argument and evidence in it? Why are the career-advancing incentives facing conservatives outside of academia all directed towards being stupid, bloodthirsty and childish?

Posted by Reality Man | December 29, 2007 9:50 AM

I agree about Drezner; also Ed Morrissey on his good days. But these commentators lie outside the rigid Washington-New York media axis so don't look for their bylines any time soon.

Posted by BryklynLibrul | December 29, 2007 9:54 AM

blogtopia (y!sctp!) needs to organize a kristolwatch and move fact checking from blog to blog for each column. you could take turns substituting a kristolwatch thread for an open thread every time he publishes a column. call upon your loyal readers to find the cites that prove he's being a mendacious bag of excrement again. then write the post that organizes the info. then call a blogswarm down on the times. we could all cite the post and the info in it; demand the ombudsman respond; etc.

it could be fun for a couple of weeks.

Posted by Pudentilla | December 29, 2007 9:59 AM

Actually, this makes a lot of sense.

After all, The Times really does need someone to balance out that fanatic left-winger Tom Friedman on the op-ed page...

Posted by RKU | December 29, 2007 10:00 AM

From the NYT's perspective, it's about filling the Safire slot: Tierney was a bust, and so you go back to the Neocon Standard for Smirking Billy.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | December 29, 2007 11:24 AM

pseudonymous in nc, you may be onto something. At least Safire could be interesting and sometimes pleasantly surprise you. Before the Iraq War when he started hyping his super-duper secret e-mails that proved Saddam was going to nuclear blackmail us before he conquered the moon or something, I at least enjoyed reading him. Tierney was just sad. When I agreed with him (libertarian freedoms are good, like not having your property confiscated by eminent domain or legalized abortion being good), reading him put me to sleep. When I disagreed with him, he could be kinda interesting, but no more so than some kinda bright kid in a college seminar. Why is it so hard for the most sought-after op-ed page to find smart people besides Krugman and Kristof? Dowd reads like the pseudo-feminist version of Homer Simpson's and Carrie Bradshaw's love child. Friedman hasn't said anything smart since "From Beirut to Jerusalem." Cohen is trapped in a bubble of his own making. Brooks is the biggest neo-con stereotype, a rather effete intellectual teaching at Harvard Law School who thinks writing about "national greatness" (as Fukuyama pointed out, was simply a gambit to ensure Republican electoral success) will make him tough. We're not so intellectually dead as a country that we can't do better than this. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of very smart people in the US of every ideological shade that could do a better job than their current lineup. It's like if the current Chicago Bulls thought that they were just as good as during the Jordan-Pippen days.

Posted by Reality Man | December 29, 2007 11:45 AM

Safire's slot? No. David Brooks was tabbed to fill Safire's slot. The trend was to have ONE winger on the Times op-ed page. The Brooks/Tierney tag team was a break with precedent. When Tierney left, I thought they were going back to the old template. But apparently, I was wrong.

Posted by Mike | December 29, 2007 12:00 PM

Reality Man -- you forgot Herbert. Who I guess is on vacation, looking at his "recent comments" page, but whose 'say something pretty obvious most of the time, and occasionally go on a crusade like Tulia" schtick is miles better than Friedman, Dowd, Kristol, or what I've seen of Cohen. (And, I think, Brooks, though I'd listen to arguments to the contrary.)

Posted by Matt Weiner | December 29, 2007 12:06 PM

Or see this and the next few comments for the defense of Herbert. (I assume he is still regularly writing for the Times Op-Ed page -- if not, that makes Kristol an even bigger scandal.)

Posted by Matt Weiner | December 29, 2007 12:10 PM

Thanks Matt. I forgot about Herbert. He does get a lot of unfair criticism. He may not be the most exciting writer and he may be predictable at times, but when you write about urban poverty and say uncomfortable things you don't get read much. However, when (like Friedman and recently Brooks) you get to go abroad and say basic boilerplate (China is growing! Woohoo!) while showing that you lack the local knowledge that any expert with the necessary language skills can see right through, you seem more relevant. At least Kristof actually speaks Mandarin Chinese and Arabic and meets with people who aren't CEO's, world leaders or cab drivers. Predictable and right is better than exciting and stupid. It reminds me of that Chris Rock joke that the only exciting relationships are bad ones. Only in a bad relationship do you ever say things like, "hey! You gave me crabs!" Kristol would give us all crabs if vampires could get STD's. Seriously, he looks like he could be an extra in a low-budget horror movie, especially with his shit-eating grin when he talks about the joys of killing innocent people.

Posted by Reality Man | December 29, 2007 12:31 PM

I'll second Mike's thesis above: I think the NYT wanted to have a "house conservative" on th Op-Ed page to fill Bill Safire's role; and David Brooks just wasn't cutting it. For one thing, Brooks never quite fit the mold of Movement Conservative; for another, the inane maunderings which were most of his NYT columns quickly made him a laughingstock.

Safire, as has been noted, could at least crank out an interesting column every so often (usually about a third of the time: by the end, though, he was down to about one in five or six, tops) - and they were always well-written. Hopefully Kristol can maintain a similar ratio: if not: well, no matter: wingnuts love them their martyrdoms at the hands of the "liberal media" - especially when they get a column in said media to whine about it...

Posted by Jay C | December 29, 2007 1:41 PM

Krugman and Rich infest the Op-Ed with looney-tune leftism, so Kristol and Brooks make a good Dodgeball opposition. Andrew Sullivan whines about it, but I think Robert Kagan would have been a better choice---less polemic and deeper. As of now, there are no "deep" thinkers on the Op-Ed page and Kristol won't break its shallow mold.

Posted by daveinboca | December 29, 2007 2:15 PM

daveinboca -- I'm always curious when someone accuses a mainstream centrist like Paul Krugman of "loony-tune leftism" or some such thing. Could you give me an example of a loony left-wing position Krugman has taken? Just one? Thanks.

Posted by Alan in SF | December 29, 2007 3:14 PM

Alan in SF: Presumably you want some proof of the anti-Krystol slurs in this thread as well, right? Or would that mess up the echo in here?

Posted by Jim in YMA | December 29, 2007 3:37 PM

Or Kristol, either one...

Posted by Jim in YMA | December 29, 2007 3:40 PM

The thing with Safire is that he had 'good' connections: Maureen Dowd said once that he had a private phone line to his desk that didn't go through the Times switchboard. (Of course, 'good' meant 'Cheney'.) With BoBo, you get a sense that he's receiving the general conservatarian memo, but Smirking Billy offers that mainline to the power base.

Presumably you want some proof of the anti-Krystol slurs in this thread as well, right?

Gosh, set us a harder challenge. As someone with no accountability, he's to be counted among the worst people in American politics today. I wouldn't piss on him if he were on fire.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | December 29, 2007 3:59 PM

Jim -- I've seen many, many factual refutations of things Kristol has said, sure sure, go ahead and tell me more.

I'm guessing you can name ONE loony left position Paul Krugman has taken? Fire away!

Posted by Alan in SF | December 29, 2007 4:20 PM

Jim -- I've seen many, many factual refutations of things Kristol has said, but thanks for asking.

I'm guessing you can name ONE loony left position Paul Krugman has taken? Fire away!

Posted by Alan in SF | December 29, 2007 4:22 PM

It's funny how conservatives 'define deviancy down' with regard to leftism. Now, there are, by my own center-left liberal reckoning, lots of _actual_ loony lefties out there, like the people behind those Maoist newspapers you sometimes find on the T. Or the radicalism of the anti-globalization anarcho-left. One could go on.

Paul Krugman, though, is a widely-respected, prize-winning economist who teaches at a major, establishment American university. If he is a "loony" leftist, then this country really is somewhere to the right of Francisco Franco.

Posted by Ben Cronin | December 29, 2007 5:12 PM

Okay, just got back from the bathroom where I upchucked on hearing that news. Think I'll be all right.

But I'm sick of everyone ranking on Bob Herbert, especially after that Washington Monthly article. If you read him regularly, like I have since he was in the New York Daily News, you realized he's like a breath of fresh air and cuts right through to the heart of the matter.

Also, for what it's worth, possibly because of the Washington Monthly article, his introductory paragraphs have grown more hookier.

Bob Herbert is a national resource. He's done more for this country in any one column of his than Kristol has done in his entire career.

Posted by Russ Wellen | December 29, 2007 6:09 PM

Why is it that the stupider the conservative, the more influential their perch is?

First, it's because liberals don't condemn their hiring. The New York Times' hiring of William Kristol is a bad thing. William Kristol is more wrong, more reality-defying more consistently than Charles Krauthammer or Pat Robertson.

Second, Kristol isn't stupid. He's manipulative, blood-thirsty and relentlessly partisan. There is nothing wrong with his intelligence. There is something wrong with his heart and his judgement.

Posted by Bengt Larsson | December 29, 2007 8:18 PM

From Andrew Rosenthal of the NYT:

"The idea that The New York Times is giving voice to a guy who is a serious, respected conservative intellectual — and somehow that’s a bad thing,” Rosenthal added. “How intolerant is that?”

Except that the NYT hired Smirkin' Bill Kristol.

Great way, though, to show why 'Very Serious Person' is now a blog insult.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | December 29, 2007 8:56 PM

"I've seen many, many factual refutations of things Kristol has said, sure sure, go ahead and tell me more. I'm guessing you can name ONE loony left position Paul Krugman has taken?"

Oh, I've seen many, many factual refutations of Krugman. That's all I'm required to say, apparently.

(Glenn Greenwald, pseudonymous? You are a funny guy!)

Posted by Jim in YMA | December 29, 2007 9:14 PM

Since I don't read neocon crap, my limited experience with Kristol is the stupid shit of his that's quoted by others - and a couple appearances on the Colbert Show, where Stephen broke his ass regularly.

So I say he's a moron (albeit quick with a quip - he almost matched Colbert once or twice, which is good for not being a professional comic.)

But his being hired by the NYT clearly shows how ridiculous the national media has become. It's completely worthless now. Web sites and Google are the only rational source of news and background these days. TV and newspapers and to a lesser degree the national magazines are utterly worthless. Your average Web site has far more pages of useful info than any newspaper or magazine - and traceable links to much more. And there's a lot of vetted, academic stuff available that you'll never see on any TV news show, as well as access to extended commentaries by experts on whatever topic whereas on TV you get "sound bites" from these experts - or from people who aren't experts at all.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | December 29, 2007 10:37 PM

Jim in YMA:

"I believe we invaded a neighboring country in 2003 and removed their dictator and that sent shock waves through the region and at the time people were quite worried. Qaddafi gave up his program, he dismantled his. We took it out. Iran didn’t dismantle anything. That’s why they remain a threat. They halted it, maybe they’ve restarted it, maybe not. This is yet another feather in the cap for the invasion of Iraq." Kristol, Dec. 3.

"A new assessment by American intelligence agencies concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains on hold, contradicting an assessment two years ago that Tehran was working inexorably toward building a bomb." NYT, Nov. 27

One of a plethora, Jim. Suck it up.

Posted by Guy in Jersey | December 29, 2007 10:43 PM

"I think the good news on Pakistan is that the President has pushed Musharraf hard. He seems to have had some success in getting him to agree to the January elections. I think Musharraf is going to be finished. " Kristol, Nov. 5

Posted by Guy in Jersey | December 29, 2007 10:46 PM

Jim, how's it going?

"On Sept. 18, 2002, he [Kristol] declared that a war in Iraq "could have terrifically good effects throughout the Middle East." A day later, he said Saddam Hussein was "past the finish line" in developing nuclear weapons. On Feb. 20, 2003, he said of Saddam: "He's got weapons of mass destruction.... Look, if we free the people of Iraq we will be respected in the Arab world." On March 1, 2003 -- 18 days before the invasion of Iraq -- Kristol dismissed the possibility of sectarian conflict afterward. He also said, "Very few wars in American history were prepared better or more thoroughly than this one by this president." He maintained that the war would cost $100 billion to $200 billion. (The running tab is now about half a trillion dollars.) On March 5, 2003, Kristol said, "We'll be vindicated when we discover the weapons of mass destruction." Source: David Corn, http://www.davidcorn.com/archives/2007/07/bll_kristol_wro.php

Posted by Guy in Jersey | December 29, 2007 10:50 PM

Jim, still there?

"On the July 8 edition of Fox Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday, Weekly Standard editor and Fox News contributor William Kristol falsely claimed that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) "hasn't passed any legislation" and added that Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) "hasn't either." In fact, Clinton and Obama have both been instrumental in the passage of legislation during the time they have served in the Senate, including legislation on which they were the lead sponsors.

For example, on his presidential campaign website, Obama describes the legislation he "wrote and passed".... Source: http://mediamatters.org/items/200707120006

Posted by Guy in Jersey | December 29, 2007 10:52 PM

Jimbo, comin' at ya:

"In April of 2003, he went on NPR’s "Fresh Air" to say:

'On this issue of the Shia in Iraq, I think there’s been a certain amount of, frankly, Terry, a kind of pop sociology in America that, you know, somehow the Shia can’t get along with the Sunni and the Shia in Iraq just want to establish some kind of Islamic fundamentalist regime. There’s almost no evidence of that at all. Iraq’s always been very secular.'" Source: http://www.voxmia.com/2006/08/14/bill-kristol-completely-and-tragically-wrong

Posted by Guy in Jersey | December 29, 2007 10:55 PM

This one's for you, Jimster:

"In February of 2003, he and Lawrence Kaplan told the National Review’s Kathryn Jean Lopez that "having defeated and then occupied Iraq, democratizing the country should not be too tall an order for the world’s sole superpower." Source: http://www.voxmia.com/2006/08/14/bill-kristol-completely-and-tragically-wrong

Posted by Guy in Jersey | December 29, 2007 10:57 PM

I gotta say that that comment from realityman from this morning about Maureen Dowd writing like she was the love child of Homer Simpson and Carrie Bradshaw is not only remarkabley accurate in its description, it is one of the funniest things I've read in quite some time.

Posted by Mike Shannon | December 29, 2007 11:55 PM

Alan, Krugman is about as centrist as Joe Stalin was back in the bad old days---Krugman has been shouting fire in the crowded theater over the economy and so-called other political disasters that he is a laughing-stock to all but inhabitants of echo chambers like this one.

Just dropping in to give you a hint that there's a big world of reality outside that little cocoon you inhabit.

Posted by daveinboca | December 30, 2007 12:58 AM

"Just dropping in to give you a hint that there's a big world of reality outside that little cocoon you inhabit."

From somebody with the handle "daveinboca", that's fairly funny.

Would that be Boca Raton, Florida?

Wikipedia: "As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 74764".

I live in San Francisco, population estimate from the census bureau 744,041. That's ten times your city's size, homes.

Be interesting to compare the relative educational levels of the populations of both cities as well...

"In Boca Raton, 27.1 percent of residents had a bachelor's degree, the highest level in the state.

The average score for the 14 cities studied in South Florida was 44.1, which was more than 10 percentage points above the U.S. median of 33.84.

Nationally Seattle, San Francisco and Austin rank first, second and third among large communities because they're the only ones where more than 40 percent of adults have bachelor's degrees."

Have a nice day.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | December 30, 2007 2:45 AM

Kristol smirks because he help start a war he doesn't have to fight in.

By why would the NYT hire him since he hasn't been right (NPI) about anything in that war: No WMD, No ties to al-Quaeda, nothing to do with 9/11.

So maybe he'll be writing a fiction column?

Posted by Tom Paine | December 30, 2007 9:42 AM

Am I A Karma Karma Karma Karma Karma Chameleon?

Yeah, Kristol is really gonna drag the NYT quality down...

Posted by David | December 30, 2007 1:59 PM

In my opinion, the New York Times did more to lie us into Iraq --with stories from its Judith Miller-Scooter Libby axis of evil -- than either George W Bush or William Kristol.

So I don't see why the left is so astonished that the Times would hire Kristol.

It is not filling the "conservative" slot -- it's filling the "Kiss the ass of the Israel Lobby " slot. Previously filled by Abe Rosenthal and Bill Safire.

Posted by Don Williams | December 30, 2007 3:29 PM