Hey, William Kristol: Forget The Quote Foul-Up, But Write A Better Column Next Time

Mused William Kristol in his remarkably inadequate debut in the New York Times on Monday:

Who, inquiring minds want to know, is going to spare us a first Obama term? After all, for all his ability and charm, Barack Obama is still a liberal Democrat. Some of us would much prefer a non-liberal and non-Democratic administration.

"Obama is a liberal." Groundbreaking goddamn stuff, Bill. Maybe I'll use it, too.

Some of us would much prefer a non-conservative and non-Republican administration!

John McCain is still a conservative!

I hate George Bush, because he talks like an idiot and he looks like a monkey!

If I keep screaming long enough with a shrill-enough voice, maybe the Times will make me a columnist, too!

Or maybe it won't. The point is, I gave Kristol the benefit of the doubt when the Times hired him. His stunningly-ardent neo-conservatism aside, the man was supposed to be a good writer. He was supposed to entertain me, my friends, my professors and all of you as we wade through our horribly mundane lives.

When I pick up the New York Times, a paper that sits at the very pinnacle of daily editorial discourse, I am in the market for something a little bit deep. Not too deep, of course, but I should read these columns and feel that before I'd read them, I was just a little bit stupider. I should be convinced that the discussion benefited me.

Kristol failed to deliver that discussion. Not just because he turned Michael Medved into Michelle Malkin, either - that was journalistic hilarity at its finest, and I appreciate hilarity to a certain extent. Kristol's problem was that he clearly just didn't try. Read some more:

Now it's true that many conservatives have serious doubts about Huckabee's positions, especially on foreign policy, and his record, particularly on taxes. The conservative establishment is strikingly hostile to Huckabee -- for both good and bad reasons. But voters seem to be enjoying making up their own minds this year. And Huckabee is a talented politician.

It holds up nicely to one of my own essays, entitled, "Sharks," which I wrote in first grade:

It's true that sharks have big fins, especially whale sharks, and that they are grey, particularly hammerhead sharks. Some small fish do not like sharks because sharks eat the small fish, for both good reasons and bad reasons. But people like sharks because they are talented and cool. And sharks are some talented fish.

Note that I received a gold star on said essay. Then again, I was writing for my first-grade teacher, not for one of the most renowned publications in the history of mankind.

The fact that he came in with massive fanfare as one of the loudest-mouthed critics of the Times doesn't automatically make William Kristol's writing Times-caliber. Had it not been an enormous week in the circus of American politics, replete with a whole array of more entertaining diversions, readers would be exponentially more disappointed in Kristol. Had we focused on this piece of writing - had we really sat down, poured a nice gin drink and read what he had to say - he wouldn't have gotten by with near the kind of second chance that he'll have on Monday.

The New York Times was never, and should not be, in the business of simplistic musings that could be recreated to perfection in any high school or university newsroom. In the end, that's why this was a roundly poor first try by Mr. Kristol. He's not some sort of horrible writer. He's not an idiot. He's got the talent to inform and entertain in this context, and he just didn't do it.

Try harder next time, big guy.

Comments

[radiclib]

Nine more American soldiers died in Iraq over the last two days. Kristol was one of the loudest of the leading war whores. Kristol has blood on his hands. He does not belong in the New York Times. He belongs in jail.
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[Dem02020]

Some political hack by the name of kristol, writes in a newspaper called the New York Times (formally a "newspaper of record" in the U.S.), and "quotes" someone or something called a malkin...

...and it seems the whole world is quivering with various shades of anger and fear and confusion and other words generally taken to describe excitement.


Just exactly who is it these days, that's programming the matrix that so many seem to live in?
I mean, I pulled the plug on that "media" some time ago, so I never get to see the credits roll by at the beginning or end of the show...

Who programs this crappy medium today, that plucks at the nerves of so many, in the womb of the matrix?