Kristol Unwelcome, But The NY Times Will Survive (1 Viewer)

dapperdan

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Sometimes, you can't help but laugh...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/opinion/13pubed.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
The Public Editor
He May Be Unwelcome, but We’ll Survive
By CLARK HOYT
Published: January 13, 2008

...
This is a decision I would not have made. But it is not the end of the world. Everyone should take a deep breath and calm down. Safire was greeted with jeers and got off to a rocky start, calling Watergate “a tempest in a Teapot Dome” before eventually acknowledging that he had been “grandly, gloriously, egregiously wrong.” He went on to a distinguished, 32-year career at The Times and, agree or disagree with him, he was a compelling presence on the Op-Ed page. (He still writes a column on language in the Sunday magazine.)

Kristol was hired on a one-year contract for what amounts to a mutual tryout. He will continue as editor of The Weekly Standard and on Fox, but Rosenthal said Kristol would not advise candidates or take any other active part in the presidential campaign. If Kristol is another Safire, he has the chance to prove it. If not, he and the newspaper will move on, and the search will resume.
 
And then the retort, from a columnist at the Times of London:
http://timesonline.typepad.com/comment/2008/01/an-open-letter.html

January 17, 2008
An open letter to readers of The New York Times
Dear Friends,

I understand that your newspaper of choice has asked William Kristol, the conservative commentator, to provide an opinion column for the paper.

Since I am the op-ed editor of what you Americans call The Times of London, I have followed the controversy that the appointment has caused with great interest.

And with my mouth wide open.

Apparently many of you are outraged to hear of this new columnist. You have been writing in. And the Public Editor has written a column criticising the appointment.

Excuse me, but what on earth is going on?

A quality newspaper should have columns reflecting a wide variety of opinions, even those uncongenial to the majority of its readers. While the bulk of a paper's columnists may reflect the publication's character and view, there must always be space for an alternative opinion.

Thus, for instance, while my paper supported the decision to invade Iraq (which happened to be my view too), many of our columnists (in fact probably a majority) did not concur.

It would never occur to me when selecting an individual columnist to be concerned that some readers might not agree with some of his positions.

And considering that Kristol represents a large strand of American opinion (even if it is a smaller strand of NYT reader opinion) it is entirely unremarkable that his columns should be commissioned.
 
A bad appointment. Lord knows the Times editorial page needs diversity. Badly. But the best columnists are those who have to some extent an open mind and who at times surprise their readers by admitting that the evidence contradicts their preconceived notions. At the Times, Kristof especially and occasionally Brooks and Friedman do this. Kristol is just like Krugman and Herbert. Why read their columns? You know what they are going to say before you read their first sentence.

And Kristol has two other strikes against him. First, it is highly unusual for the Times to give a regular column to someone whose principal platform is not the Times. Kristol has the Weekly Standard and Fox News.

Second, there is no absence of Kristol's neoconservatism in the establishment press. In particular, check out the columns and editorials of the Weshington Post editorial page since Fred Hiatt took over that page.
 
Bill Kristol is the devil.

Sulzberger wanted him. The New York Times is just a hop and a skip from the Neocon world. Judith Miller was knowingly an enabler of the flase intelligence that lead to the Iraq war...

Neoconservatives like Kristol are liberals anyway. The only difference between them and the garden variety liberal is that they take their superior attitude and penchant for government solutions and social engineering and apply it agressively to the outside world.

That's all. Otherwise they are essentially liberals. The NYT is a fine fit.
 
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How do people who have been proven so freaking wrong on some very very important issues continue to have value placed on their opinions?

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How do people who have been proven so freaking wrong on some very very important issues continue to have value placed on their opinions?

I thought that's how you got a job as a columnist/commentator in the first place.

I agree in part with RJ in Lafayette... you will know what Kristol has to say before he even says it, just as one knows what people like Krugman, Hebert, that clown who replaced William Rasberry, Ellen Goodman, Cal Thomas, Ann Coulter and on and on.

He's a conservative columnist, so he's going to be presenting the conservative POV in an editorial -which is what he was hired to do.

However, I do agree that with his job at the Weekly Standard, there really isn't a need for him to be be a columnist at the Times (he already has a larger audience with the Weekly Standard and Fox News).

There are plenty of other conservatives the Times could have chosen to add...
 

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