NEW YORK A day after the Huffington Post first reported it, The New York Times has announced that it has indeed hired conservative pundit, and Fox News analyst, Bill Kristol, as a new regular op-ed columnist.ÂÂ
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.ÂÂ
Times’ editorial page editor Andy Rosenthal defended the move. Rosenthal told Politico.com shortly after the official announcement Saturday that he fails to understand “this weird fear of opposing views….We have views on our op-ed page that are as hawkish or more so than Bill….ÂÂ
“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?â€Â ÂÂ
There’s nothing there that would disabuse me from jumping to a conclusion that Andy Rosenthal is a complete tool. Just wanted to say that. Mostly because he probably said the same things about inert vagina David Brooks, who is an inert vagina.
I like vaginas ert. I’m a feminist, that way.
The Nation writer Kata Pollitt said upon hearing the news about Kristol that someone should just “shoot her.” I don’t have a problem with that.
A desperate grab for relevance? You be the judge.
Let me be the first to ask; Kristol is an intellectual? I guess, in the same way that I’m an NBA quality center.
After a quick Technorati search, I’m a little disappointed that the Left is avoiding calling it Kristolnacht, because of the Zionaziness.
Even so, E&P calling it “Kristol Mess” is nice, because of the crackwhoriness.
So they are castigating a left wing newspaper for hireing a right wing commentator on one page? Why do they not just get the pretense over with and rant at the NYTimes any time they publish an article that makes the left wing look bad?
Oh, they do that, too… it’s just that hiring Kristol hits one of their many hot buttons.
You have to understand how they see the world. You’ve heard what happens when you add a drop of fine wine to 100 gallons of sewage, and what happens when you add a drop of sewage to 100 gallons of fine wine?
Well, they take the same view of what happens when you add a drop of “right-wing” commentary to 100 gallons of liberal bias.
Good for Kristol, and good for the NYT. I’ve been watching him on Special Report every day for years. Kristol is very serious and measured and has been a staunch defender of promoting freedom and democracy in Iraq, though a bit too harsh on Maliki imho.
For a while it looked like perceptions of Iraq failing would discredit neoconservatives and their drive to bring liberal democracy to the Mideast, but the worm may be turning thanks to Petraeus (who as Bill (or maybe Krauthammer) noted last week may be a strong President in 2012, his invocations of Sherman notwithstanding).
I’ve enjoyed a considerable amount of schadenfreude over this. The “progressive” blogosphere is writhing in agony. Sweet!
A desperate grab for relevance?
More like a desperate grab to keep their crappy stock from being delisted.
I miss his daily show appearances. I doubt this will be that good. But it could have other benefits. Like now the actual reporters at the NYT might want to goad Kristol with more reasons to call for the criminal prosecution of his new boss.
In the Name of Free Speech and All Liberal Ideals, I condemn the NYT for hiring Kristol. How dare they desecrate the High Temple like this!
“I like vaginas ert. I’m a feminist, that way.”
Well, I guess I do too. But now I’m old enough, thank God, to take a good look at the those who are carrying them around (I know! I know! It works the other way around, too).
I remember coming across a note from some financial analyst or other indicating that at its current stock price, the NYT is valued at the cost of buying up the property on which it stands. No more. They’ve got to do something to save themselves.
Thing is, after you discount the politics, the paper can be a good read.
These are people who believe that Ted Kennedy occupies the center of American political thought, to whom Ned Lamont’s primary victory over Lieberman was a revolution of irate moderates.
Does this count as Kristol Blue Persuasion?
“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, or the Shia in Iraq just want to establish some kind of fundamentalist regime. There’s almost no evidence of that at all. Iraq has always been very secular.”
wow, may I just say I’m most impressed with how that’s making the rounds? couldn’t find anything more recent?
More recent?
Shit, that quote is a Lifetime Achievement. How much ass-wankery can one man be expected to provide? More recent? It’s like saying that Neville Chamberlain was a fine diplomat after 1938.
this phoebe makes the one on Friends seem like Einstein.
so you’re saying that muslim sects can’t get along ever and Iraq wasn’t a secular country?
But I thought that al Qaeda couldn’t have had anything to do with Saddam’s Iraq because it was secular.