Bill Kristol Not Even Trying Anymore At New York Times

If you've read this morning's op-ed from Bill Kristol in the New York Times, feel not alone. You are correct: it does, in fact, make no sense at all. Indeed, the piece is a perfect circle of nonsense. And yet, I understand it perfectly. Bill Kristol's contract to write these columns is about up, he probably won't be back, and he's doing his best to play out the string with as little effort as possible. This week is a special triumph for that mission: it's a column in which the columnist basically filibusters himself.

The basic ingredients are two big news stories that lack any meaningful connection, a smattering of insight that a bunch of people already had, and the conjunction, "but." Here's how it goes:

• Bill Kristol watched Fox News Sunday, a show he is on.
• He recaps a section of the most recent edition of the show he is on.
• He restates something asinine he said on said show (Dick Cheney telling Pat Leahy to "go fuck himself" is "a beautiful statement of justice.")
• He wanders around for a while.
• "Have I praised the "Surge" in the past five minutes? No? Okay! SURGE!" (Twiddles nipples.)
• BUT!
• Rod Blagojevich! He's been in the news, right?
• Adds some funny lines from the wiretaps.
• As noted by others, Blago's wife is a foul-mouthed Cubs hater.
• Fills more column space by including several lines of Rudyard Kipling.
• As noted by others, Blago stopped short of a self-aware line in that poem.
• As noted by others, HAIRBRUSH JOKE.
• As noted previously, Blago was on wiretaps.
• THOUGHTFUL MOMENT: "Hmm. I wonder if Dick Cheney has ever read Kipling?"
• EUREKA: "Woo! I tied this all together! Off to copyedit."

Anyway, the New York Times has abused their readership by printing Kristol's effort-free nonsense for a year, and they've benefited from it because every time he's penned something, people everywhere react with outrage or mocking or fact-checking or criticism, and that's precisely why he was hired in the first place -- not for quality insight, but for the clicks that come from hosting a weekly intellectual highway accident. So, out of fairness, I'm including a link to this mess, but I urge you: do not click it. You'll only be giving the Times what it wants. Trust me: Bill Kristol wants you to read this about as badly as he wanted to write it.

Comments

[24hourrifle]

how could anyone take seriously a man who openly campaigned for sarah palin.
he is ajoke.absolutely hilarious.

[gnomic]

All this time I just figured Kristol owned an infinate number of monkeys...but only one typewriter.

[TedMichaelMorgan]

Kristol was 18 in 1970. Why did he not enlist in the Marine Corps and make a record for himself in the military before he supported dam fool military adventures? The man is a fake.

[TedMichaelMorgan]

Kristol has never had much intelligent to say about anything. He has blood on his hands. The sooner he goes the better. William Buckley said he enjoyed reading liberal commentators because he enjoyed how often they were wrong in making predictions. Kristol is like that. He is never on target. He is just another draft dodging right-wing pseudo-intellectual who sends real men and women into pointless battle.

[zest]

He has nothing more to say because he is no longer being fed talking points from the RNC.

[brooklyncitizen]

Serves the NYT right for spending their money on this troll.

[truthyguy]

If Kristol is not fulfilling his contract, the NYT is under no obligation to pay him.
I am sure there are performance standards in his employment agreement - assuming the attorneys for the NYT were even half awake during the contract negotiations.

[JoeHurley]

Could you name the conservative writer that you like?

The answer to that is the reason for this article.

[Machun]

David Brooks is the other conservative in the Times and he does an excellent job. Even if you don't agree with him he makes a reasoned argument.

[brooklyncitizen]

Newsflash- the NYT is faux- Liberal....the paper is actually a bunch of conservatives in liberal drag. They have been staunch propagandists for the Bush administration and its policies.

[dollars2donuts]

And Peggy Noonan, the patrician Republican, is all that...she's an elegant writer, intellectual and thought-provoking; even while I'm disagreeing with her I'm admiring the fact that she is a true thinker and writer.

[TedMichaelMorgan]

She is a fine writer. Excellent commentator.

[AndThenOneDay]

I like George Will, though I seldom agree with him. Same with Pat Buchanan though he seldom writes op-eds anymore.

[TedMichaelMorgan]

Yes, George Will, of course. David Brooks has a sense of humor and an sense of honor.

[leopoldmozart]

David Gergen, Christopher Buckley, Andrew Sullivan. Basically, any conservative who doesn't lie to me.

[karinova]

When I get my mail, I sort of play a little game: the game is to identify junk mail as junk WITHOUT opening the envelope. If I open an envelope only to see that it's junk, they "win."

I did not click that link.
I win.

[Shieldmaiden]

Wait....Bill Kristol was trying before? MUAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA!

[veracity]

Once again, Here's BILL KRISTOL sneering and scorning American schoolchildren who may die because they can't afford preventable health-care, much less the health care required to confront a terminal or chronic illness...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqObdWSv5lg

Needless to say, Kristol demands that American taxpayers shell out BILLIONS upon BILLIONS upon BILLIONS upon BILLIONS of US tax-dollars to prop up Israel (no questions on how that money is spent allowed or answered), and, on top of that, the USA military spend trillions more "stabilizing" the Middle East.

That's his signature there on the January 1998 "ATTACK, INVADE, and OCCUPY IRAQ NOW!" PNAC manifesto,
http://newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm
the blueprint that Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz (all signers of the previous PNAC document)
http://newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm

Oh yeah - I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby was also a signer of one of these first 2 PNAC documents, he's the one convicted of PERJURY and OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE, in helping Cheney obstruct and cover-up the premeditated "outing" of, not just a single CIA undercover officer, but untold CIA operations in at least several Mideastern countries ......

followed upon siezing the White House in January 2001.

[unscum]

A very good reason why you should never buy a newspaper or a magazine. Save the trees, everything is on the Internet.

[vietveter]

I think that he is very trying.

[scottymac11]

It takes an idiot administration like this one of Bushs to view the likes of Kristol,Wolfie and Rummy as some sort of brain trust. A person could empty a thom Mccanns throwing loafers at these guys.

[Fremon]

Bill Kristol was brought to the paper to balance out political thinking. What he could not do was provide intellectual credence to what he wanted to say which was basically to say what is good with conservati­ve/republi­can (isms). He is basically in the camp of Jonah Goldberg which is to spout right wing crap and hope it sticks. The readership of the NYT is not his bag as it is a more liberal intellectual paper. He belongs at the Washington Times, or whatever paper he came from, and Fox news. That's his audience. I always remember him during the start of the war and said that there was no history of suicide bombers in Iraq and that things would go (as Coulter would say) "swimmingly". They have an audience like my neighbor of this morning who said that Palin would have been good for the US and when I asked why he said "because she is real". I responded like we wanted Bush who one could have a beer with and see how that turned out. Will never speak politics with this neighbor again.

[TedMichaelMorgan]

The New York Times is not liberal. That is the great Republican myth. The NYT and CBS are not right-wing but they are conservative.