When I heard the outrage about William Kristol’s selection for the New York Times op/ed section, I didn’t get it. So what if Kristol was wrong about the war in Iraq and a lot of other things? So what if he’s a conservative ideologue? How is he any worse than other pundits?
I’m a busy man and I don’t have time to think the issue through.
I’m no fan nor a critic of Bill Kristol.
I read Charles Kaiser‘s outrage (in Radar) over Kristol but it made no sense to me.
Luckily for the clarity of my thought, Jack Shafer wrote about the brouhaha for Slate. Jack often solves problems for me that I don’t have the time or ability to understand:
Last week’s appointment of Weekly Standard Editor William Kristol to a once-a-week slot on the New York Times op-ed page induced grand mal seizures among the Huffington Post left and their political bedfellows.
A "supercilious man," wrote Nora Ephron, who called for Kristol’s dismissal before he filed his first column. A "confirmed propagandist," added Erica Jong. An "ideological bully and thug," wrote Katha Pollitt. Jane Smiley upped the ante to "a war-monger and a hate-monger" while Charles Kaiser wrote, with apparent endorsement, that many "Times readers consider Kristol a third-rate neocon apparatchik."
Speaking for the multitudes, David Corn writes that it’s "bizarre" that after editorializing against the Iraq war since before the beginning, the Times would hire one of the conflict’s "chief cheerleaders." And Josh Marshall asked what sense the hire made when Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr. already has David Brooks—"the house-broken William Kristol"—writing for op-ed page unless Sulzberger "got some sort of two for one deal or other kind of group discount."
Matt Drudge is unimpressive tonight. The networks are reporting Caucus results already and Matt had nothing for half an hour (now he updates).
