Kristol's In

I've heard some complaints about it, but I actually think The New York Times's coverage of The New York Times's crazy decision to add Bill Kristol to their stable of op-ed columnists is pretty good:

Mr. Kristol, 55, has been a fierce critic of The Times. In 2006, he said that the government should consider prosecuting The Times for disclosing a secret government program to track international banking transactions.

In a 2003 column on the turmoil within The Times that led to the downfall of the top two editors, he wrote that it was not “a first-rate newspaper of record,” adding, “The Times is irredeemable.”

I wonder what I need to say in order to get a column: Maybe the Times's editors should be detained without trial in Gitmo and tortured until they confess to deliberately running a second-rate newspaper in order to undermine American resolve. Does that work?

Comments

I wonder what I need to say in order to get a column: Maybe the Times's editors should be detained without trial in Gitmo and tortured until they confess to deliberately running a second-rate newspaper in order to undermine American resolve.

Didn't that strategy work for you and the Atlantic? I remember something like "not a very good magazine."

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | December 31, 2007 11:33 AM

Heh. That's good, SCMT.

Posted by Al | December 31, 2007 11:35 AM

Heh. Now the second-rate Times has hire a third-rate columnist.

Posted by Joel | December 31, 2007 11:36 AM

I think the easiest thing to do would be to get Irving Kristol to adopt you. Between Ben Stein and Bill Kristol getting weekly columns based upon nothing they themselves did, I think the path is fairly clear.

It really is funny though. Kristol was hired because he's a "star" pundit. Which ignores that Times biggest hit this decade was hiring Krugman which was basically going outside the world of punditry.

Posted by Rob | December 31, 2007 11:37 AM

"I wonder what I need to say in order to get a column"

You should've gotten on the Edwards bandwagon early.

The NYTimes is going to need someone younger to represent the new Democratic Party along with Paul Krugman.

Instead, Ezra's going to take your slot.

Posted by Petey | December 31, 2007 11:39 AM

I wonder if this was somehow orchestrated by Murdoch...

After all, Kristol works for Murdoch at the Weekly Standard, and Murdoch has publicly announced that he's going to go after the NYT franchise with his new WSJ, so sabotaging the NYT by getting angry non-neocons to dump their subscriptions in protest weakens his target considerably.

Wonder if Murdoch has some juicy blackmail on a top Times editor or two...

Posted by RKU | December 31, 2007 11:42 AM

You could say the Times is to journalism as Bush is to governance.

Posted by steve duncan | December 31, 2007 11:44 AM

Matt, perhaps your best bet is to advocate a failed strategy of geo-political US dominance. Once you are thoroughly discredited as intellectually bankrupt, then the NYTimes will pick you up. Make sense?

Posted by freddiemac | December 31, 2007 11:47 AM

The funny thing about the Kristol hiring is that their first choice was not available - Ann Coulter.

Posted by calipygian | December 31, 2007 11:51 AM

The reality-based side of life has been flagrantly biased against Mr. Kristol, and he needs all the support we can give.

Posted by abb1 | December 31, 2007 11:53 AM

Instead, Ezra's going to take your slot.

Now this is certainly true, although I wouldn't put it down to Edwards - Ezra remains fastidiously noncommittal on the primaries, like any good, upwardly-aspiring professional Dem pundit, as his recent "I like them all, really" post demonstrated. Ezra has youth and looks on his side, whereas Yglesias looks old and paunchy, and is less transparently careerist (How many times have you "joked" about your schemes for landing a Times op-ed slot, Matt? Desperation is never attractive). The Hardball appearances are a good start, but I imagine Klein will land an ongoing gig in the "respectable" MSM in the not-too-distant future, maybe in the LA Times or some comparable platform looking for a fresh face. Yglesias will have to keep working the "I'm a liberal who hates liberals!" angle, which got him this far, but won't get him on TV - or at least, any farther than C-SPAN.

Posted by Christmas | December 31, 2007 11:58 AM

The establishment is wheeling its guns into place to pulverize the presidential campaign into another triumphant referendum on what a great job they've been doing the last seven years. Giving Kristol the op ed position works well for them. He can float Swift Boat type crapola, and guarantee its coverage in the Times, which then the Times, with such stellar journalist sleuths as Elizabeth Bumiller, can gravely follow.

The NYT should be looking for an environmentalist as an op ed columnist. Plainly, environmental politics is going to be the hot button of the future. But they were already burned by picking Krugman, who knows what he is talking about and doesn't want to play nice with the Broder boys. So they are certainly not going to be bringing some bomb throwing radical - like, say, Rebecca Solnit - on board. That would be too scary!

Posted by roger | December 31, 2007 11:58 AM

Does Kristol have some claim to fame of which I am not aware? Many pundits who seem like fools in general have some specific expertise that they parley into various jobs, but Kristol seems like he's just an idiot. He doesn't even impress me as a propagandist. He is usually so spectacularly and laughably wrong that he does his side more harm than good.

Posted by Njorl | December 31, 2007 11:58 AM

Njorl:

Absolutely! As Editor of the Weekly Standard and a leading organizer of PNAC, Kristol can probably be described as the topmost media father of America's Iraq War.

And if that's not "some claim to fame"---and total lock for the history books---I don't know what is...

Posted by RKU | December 31, 2007 12:04 PM

Does Kristol have some claim to fame of which I am not aware?

Well, you know who his father is, right? As the NYT pointed out there is "an abiding dynastic streak" in the punditocracy (actually they were talking about something else, but it fits).

Posted by peep | December 31, 2007 12:07 PM

I found this part of the Times piece interesting"

"A native of New York City, he holds a bachelor’s degree and a doctorate from Harvard."

Posted by Njorl | December 31, 2007 12:27 PM

I'm not sure I see the problem here. Kristol said that the times was not a first-rate paper and was irredeemable, and as it turns out, he has been proven correct.

Posted by Slippery Pete | December 31, 2007 12:50 PM

This sounds more like an April Fool's announcement than a New Year's Eve one.

Thanks, New York Times.

Posted by SoCalJustice | December 31, 2007 1:17 PM

So, "Pinch" Sulzberger and "Pinch" Rosenthal have hired "Pinch" Kristol, presumably before "Pinch" Graham could spirit him away. It's a lot of "Pinches" trying to better (paradoxically by crapping all over) the achievements of their much more judicious and accomplished forebears, in my view.

Posted by dougR | December 31, 2007 1:37 PM

I notice they buried it in the business section.

Posted by SqueakyRat | December 31, 2007 6:13 PM

"Once you are thoroughly discredited as intellectually bankrupt, then the NYTimes will pick you up"

Matt's already done that - but all he got was this lousy Atlantic job.

I wouldn't say Matt looks "old and paunchy" - paunchy, maybe, but not old. He looks like a college kid without a clue is his main problem - probably because he is. Kristol at least looks and talks like an adult - if an idiotic one. I can't see Matt going on Colbert and surviving, for instance.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | December 31, 2007 9:02 PM

"Does Kristol have some claim to fame of which I am not aware?"

Let's see:

Ph.D. in government from Harvard.

Professor of politics at U Penn and Harvard.

Chief of Staff to a Vice President of the United States.

Co-founder and editor of arguably the most influential conservative magazine in America (The Weekly Standard).

Regular commentator on Special Report w/ Brit Hume, on the most-watched cable channel (Fox News).

Columnist for Time Magazine.



Not exactly the C.V. of Bob Herbert, but nothing to sneeze at.

Posted by Fred | December 31, 2007 9:16 PM

matt-

I wonder what I need to say in order to get a column

Be a "dissenter"!

Denounce our current tax laws as "an invasion of privacy" which is much more severe than any of our "anti-terrorist" policies...

After all, I personally have never made an "overseas" 'phone call'- but I have been forced to file 27 Federal tax returns.

Why should I care more about FISA than the IRS?

Posted by Better than Ezra | January 1, 2008 12:54 AM

Words and deeds

Saying that the editorial staff and publishers of the NYT should be Gitmoed into oblivion is the obviously correct thing to say about the folks whose propaganda so prominently enabled the creation of the American Gulag.

But for Congress, the folks who actually made Gitmo and the suspension of habeas corpus as legal as church on Sunday, deeds, and not mere words, are in order. If I were the next President (and thank God that is distinctly unlikely), I would give Congress 48 hours to repeal the laws that legitimized the American Gulag. Failing that, I would declare every Congresscritter who had voted for these laws in the first place an enemy combatant and have them shipped off to Guantanamo. Perhaps we'ld see more devotion to the institutions of a free society from their hastily elected successors, and I'ld have to board a plane for Rio just ahead of the new Congress's first quorum call. It would be a fitting end to the gtomkins presidency, and, with any luck, the whole institution of the presidency.

Posted by Glen Tomkins | January 1, 2008 1:14 AM

A message for New York Times publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr.: Yes, many, if not most, of your subscribers are truly mystified and highly disturbed over your hiring of Bill Kristol as a weekly columnist.

Permit me to suggest that you should climb down from that lofty ivory tower of yours--just for a few minutes--and dictate your explanation to Andrew Rosenthal for publication on your editorial page. Was it because you are in desperation attempting to shore up your failing stock by increasing your plummeting subscriptions with the extreme-right readers of Bill Kristol? Was it because you want to experiment in publishing the likes of Bill Kristol and his nonsensical and ludicrous positons on just about everything imaginable? Or was it because you just don't give a damn about your readers and you want to show the world that Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr., is in a position to do whatever he pleases?

And what does your new-hire, Bill Kristol, say about Times subscribers like me who find your move incomprehensible? According to Politico.com, he said it gave him some pleasure to see "[our] heads explode."

I would urge you to pay close attention to your subscription rate in the coming weeks. I predict that your Bill Kristol will help further reduce the numbers. I intend to cancel my subscription immediately.

Sincerely,

Jim Michie
5407 Glenwood Road
Bethesda, MD 20817
Liberal bloggers had been up in arms over the move. Kristol said, in an interview with Politico.com, it gave him some pleasure to see their "heads explode." Kristol was perhaps the most influential pundit of all in promoting the U.S. invasion of Iraq and has strongly defended the move ever since.

Posted by Jim Michie | January 1, 2008 10:38 AM

A message for New York Times publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr.: Yes, many, if not most, of your subscribers are truly mystified and highly disturbed over your hiring of Bill Kristol as a weekly columnist.

Permit me to suggest that you should climb down from that lofty ivory tower of yours--just for a few minutes--and dictate your explanation to Andrew Rosenthal for publication on your editorial page. Was it because you are in desperation attempting to shore up your failing stock by increasing your plummeting subscriptions with the extreme-right readers of Bill Kristol? Was it because you want to experiment in publishing the likes of Bill Kristol and his nonsensical and ludicrous positons on just about everything imaginable? Or was it because you just don't give a damn about your readers and you want to show the world that Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr., is in a position to do whatever he pleases?

And what does your new-hire, Bill Kristol, say about Times subscribers like me who find your move incomprehensible? According to Politico.com, he said it gave him some pleasure to see "[our] heads explode."

I would urge you to pay close attention to your subscription rate in the coming weeks. I predict that your Bill Kristol will help further reduce the numbers. I intend to cancel my subscription immediately.

Sincerely,

Jim Michie
5407 Glenwood Road
Bethesda, MD 20817

Posted by Jim Michie | January 1, 2008 10:41 AM

Instead, Ezra's going to take your slot.

Petey -- you are getting ratty. Your usual charm will return in a few weeks, I'm sure, when the dust settles.

FWIW, Ezra has never blogged a word which was less than predictable, even when he's right. I don't see a bigtime slot for that.

You should've gotten on the Edwards bandwagon early.

It's Petey who has got on the Yglesias bandwagon early.

Posted by otto | January 1, 2008 11:05 AM

Fred,
Anyone can be assigned jobs. Has he done anything in them?

Posted by Njorl | January 2, 2008 11:12 AM

FWIW, Ezra has never blogged a word which was less than predictable, even when he's right.

And neither has Matt Yglesias. If you read any blogger for a period of time - two weeks, say - you quickly get used to where they stand politically, what kind of arguments they tend to make, what areas of policy interest them and what areas they stay away from, etc. Any regular reader of this blog can predict what Yglesias is going to say on Iraq, Iran, or foreign policy in general - where he'll go left, but where he'll also be careful to not go too far left - as well as his usual suite of hobbyhorses (IP issues, gun control, etc.). Yglesias is also fairly predictable in the areas where he's strikingly ignorant and isn't terribly interested in the issues - energy and environmental policy, economics, worker's rights, etc. - and tends to take the rightist tack to shore up his "unpredictable, independent thinker" bona fides.

Posted by Christmas | January 2, 2008 1:32 PM