NYT Public Editor: Hiring Kristol "A Mistake"

When we broke the news that Bill Kristol would be joining the editorial pages of the New York TImes as a regular contributor, we called it "a move bound to create controversy." After a mistake-laden first effort, now the New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt has delivered his verdict: "[NYT Publisher] Sulzberger and [editorial page editor] Rosenthal made a mistake." Hoyt's reasoning:

On Fox News Sunday on June 25, 2006, Kristol said, "I think the attorney general has an absolute obligation to consider prosecution" of The New York Times for publishing an article that revealed a classified government program to sift the international banking transactions of thousands of Americans in a search for terrorists.

Publication of the article was controversial -- my predecessor as public editor first supported it and then changed his mind -- but Kristol's leap to prosecution smacked of intimidation and disregard for both the First Amendment and the role of a free press in monitoring a government that has a long history of throwing the cloak of national security and classification over its activities. This is not a person I would have rewarded with a regular spot in front of arguably the most elite audience in the nation.

Read Hoyt's entire argument here.

Comments

[HereNow]

Duh! No shit, well unless you consider what comes from kristols mouth or pen.

[THISTLE]

Why in the world would The New York Times
hire this little maggot. Kristol is a digusting
piece of crap, who loves to send other people's
sons and daughters to die in Wars. This runt
has never served, he was hiding behind his
Daddy's skirts, much like of them in this
crowd.

[LittleGreenGreaseBalls]

TO WRITE THE PUBLISHER OR PRESIDENT
Arthur Sulzberger Jr., Chairman & Publisher:
nytimes.comytimes.com.
Scott H. Heekin-Canedy, President, General Manager
nytimes.comytimes.com.

[itsnotmyfault]

wow, do you think it was a mistake for the Times to hire Fire Marshall Bill Kristol and give him a broader platform to spread his extreme right wing lunacy. Just read todays partisan rant to be found in the pages of the Times today.

[CAPTAINSKIPPY]

In the same way that allowing GWB to sneak into the WH via SCOTUS, maybe there's an upside to granting a brazen arrogant braindead fool premission to attempt writing editorials for NYT; once his shallow ideology has been flogged and flayed thoroughly, we can permanently ignore him for the worthless debris that he is/represents.

[LittleGreenGreaseBalls]

Why do all neocons seem to have lips like snakes? Bush. Kristol. Addington. etc.

[Trittydi]

Well - Seems like they must have lost a lot of subscribers - otherwise they wouldn't care, would they?

*

[thacher]

He doesn't agree with our party line. He must be silenced. Zieg heil!

[Dandy12]

BPCentris has it right about Kristol. The NYT is just too good to let Kristol get any column or shelf space. Maybe Rupert would allow him to write for the Journal or give him a soapbox over at FOX. Kristol and his ilk are destroying this country from within.

[blueshift]

Jason blair - judith miller - william kristol. A Mistake? Or is it a mistake to see the New York Times as anything other than another corporation lusting for the dollars that flow from the feeding troughs of theAmerican right (which is to say, wrong).

I canceled my subscription, and blocked their domain at my firewall. Like CNN and other engines of the mainstream media, it has succumbed, putting greed above principle. The New York Times is dead to me.

I grieve its passing as a respected voice of American journalism.

[TheHandyman]

I would like to know what exactly is the conservative message is. Everything I read by the so-called conservative writers on any subject seem to be rife with anti-humanistic policies, anti-democratic acts, and support for disasterous economic policies. Their postions have done nothing but cause death, destruction, and chaos.

Hoyt seems unapologetic for Kristol's hiring in spite of what the headline says. I always founf Safires pov and dribbles of conservative wisdom less than enlightening than the scattering of chicken bones. I am sure that someday it will be discoverd that the so called Conservative view is a mental defect and will require gene therapy to correct. While the extreme left does make some weird pronouncements now and again, the damage they do does not result in either the destruction of millions of lives nor the planet upon which all of us live.

To have even hired and given legitamacy to Kristol is akin to bringing home a jungle cat that has eaten some of your children and saying it won't do it again and then letting it play with your remaining children. Imagine the shock the two editors will experience when Kristol continues to eat their children.

I don't read the NYT's anymore except through links to stories and while I read some conservative idealogues just to see the no good that they are up to I have absolutely no reason to read Kristol. He is a fool babbling nonsense and anyone who pays any attention to him on any subject has too much time and not enough brains!

[CeeCee]

So what does this mean?? that they're going to fire him? Or???? What does this mean!

[BPCentrisAmerican]

The problem with Kristol is he is radical neo-con liar who's agenda is not the best one for the this country. He is much more radical than his father Irving Kristol, a disciple of Leo Strauss.

Their is nothing conservative about neo-conservatism, there previous enemy were the Communist, and tried to join the Democrats in the 60's, when they were rejected, crossed over to the Regan Republicans in 80's. To archive realignment of the Middle East, William Kristol and his radical ilk are more than willing to sacrifice countless American blood and treasure, not to mention Iranians and Syrians, and who ever else they think are a threat to Israel. You can count on the neo-cons to shout louder and louder the closer the election gets. Their candidate of choice is Rudy, who has surrounded himself with leading neo-cons as policy advisers. I view these people as traders to this nation, it’s economy and it’s people.

For the phony conservatives who troll this site, I wish to remind you that in Europe neo-conservatism is known as neo-liberalism, I’ m sure you know that already because your all so smart aren’t you?

By the way, another neo-conservative activist, David Horowitz of the so called Freedom Center runs around to the country harassing college professors whom his orgamziation deems to liberal. Mr. Horowitz and his phony Freedom Center are funded by neo-con think tanks like Heritage and AEI. He is an admitted former Communist as well as a former member the Black Panthers, who claims he became disillusioned with the so-called liberals in the 60’s. I would make the argument that David Horowitz has never stopped being an anarchist, now he’s is just gets paid for it like a prostitute. If you harass college professors for money, what’s the next step, burn books by authors who don’t agree with their point of view maybe jail them, doesn’t sound like freedom to me.

[antv]

personally, I don't think its a mistake, actually it could be a good thing, because now kristol is gonna get the kind of scrutiny that he's not used to. if a maniac is among other maniacs he just looks normal, but put him in a crowd of sane people, everyone will see just how much of a psycho he is.

[Joseph A. Palermo - Huffpost Blogger]

William Kristol is not your garden variety "conservative" pundit -- he's been caught red-handed lying all the time in print and on TV -- Safire lied about the Prague meetings between Iraqi intelligence and Atta (he never retracted this) - I think David Brooks lied about the real effects of privatizing Social Security in 2005 -- he blathered on about the "ownership society" without honestly appraising the costs of Bush's scheme -- so the NY Times tells us that if you're on the right you get to lie and deceive, but on left -- who? Dowd? Collins? Herbert? Krugman? -=- liberal, yes, "left" I don't think so -- you have to be factual -- why not hire Ann Coulter or Michelle Malkin?