Muddle-Headed, Fear-Mongering, BushCo Shills Still Have a Right to Shout "Fire" in a Crowded Theater

Next week, I am really going to miss The New York Times. For years now, I have spent at least part of every morning reading the Times, and I love its variety. In addition, I have had a long and enjoyable writer's relationship with the Times. I've written for the magazine, the Travel Section, the Book Review, and the Op-Ed page (once I wrote in favor of divorce, and they received a gratifying hail of shocked, shocked SHOCKED! letters in response). On the day I heard the first rumor about my Pulitzer Prize, I was working with one of the Book Review editors. In a state of disbelief, I asked her if she had heard anything. She said "No, but here at the New York Times, we have a saying that eighty percent of rumors are true." I liked that. It agreed with my experience as a gossip. Just a couple of months ago, I wrote a sidebar for the magazine. The piece was fun, the editor was fun, and they embedded me in an article about Daniel Day-Lewis. Who could ask for more?

Given my attachment to the Times over the years, I have to say that I even forgave them for Judith Miller, difficult as that was. But after the advent of Bill Kristol on the editorial page next week, that's it for the Times and me.

I cannot imagine why the Times has hired Kristol. Kristol is not merely some rightwing loose cannon like David Brooks or even William Safire, and his hiring by the Times is not a free-speech issue. Kristol has plenty of opportunities to speak, and if he didn't he could blog, like the rest of us. Kristol is a war-monger and a hate-monger, and his lies have been exposed over and over in the last four years. If you think that the Iraq War is a crime, as I do, it is bad enough that he was one of the primary cheerleaders for it, even after every single one of the reasons that the Cheney/Bush/right wing gave for the attack was exposed. But he is worse than that. Until the NIE report, he was actively advocating bombing Iran, preferably with nuclear weapons, even though the civilians in Iran who would be bombed have nothing at all to do with whatever the Iranian government is doing, or as it turns out, not doing to develop nuclear weapons. In Iraq alone, Kristol has the blood of hundreds of thousands on his hands. He is unrepentant and eager for more.

William Kristol is a man whose time has come and gone. There was a moment, in, say 2002, when some of his arguments sounded prudent, if not reasonable. Now, he only sounds crazy. NOTHING has turned out as Kristol said it would, and the process of finding this out has cost the American people a great deal, and not only money and lives. Why the New York Times would hire such a person boggles the mind to think of. The announcement even made no sense, pointing out, as it did, that "Mr. Kristol, 55, has been a fierce critic of the Times. In 2006, he said that the government should consider prosecuting the Times for disclosing a secret government program to track international banking transactions. In a 2003 column on the turmoil within the Times that led to the downfall of the top two editors, he wrote that it was not 'a first-rate newspaper of record,' adding, 'the Times is irredeemable.'" Why would the Times hire such a person? Stockholm Syndrome? Some kind if inside-the-beltway joke? An attempt to lure that bloc of American newspaper readers who listen to Rush Limbaugh? Earth to Times! Maybe they can't read!

Day after day, I read the letters to the editor column. After almost every column by David Brooks, I am struck by how few readers agree with a single thing he says, how many cogently disagree with him. Judging by the letters column, readers of the Times are liberal to moderate, and, most importantly, they have a well-developed sense of decency and responsibility. Has the Times now decided just to stick it to us, willy nilly, by giving Kristol a platform and a paycheck? Who's next, A--- C---, who suggested that the Times building be bombed? Even the Times editors themselves, in an editorial printed yesterday, lament that the U.S. has become unrecognisably lawless and inhumane. Earth to Times! William Kristol is as much to blame for this as anyone on the planet!

So, as of next Monday, the Times feed disappears from my home page, and when I get that 1-111-111-1111 number on my caller I.D., the one that reveals how the Times really thinks of itself, I won't pick up. When they send me the money they owe me for my piece, I will divide it between a charity that benefits Iraq veterans and one that benefits displaced Iraqis. You would have thought that remorse for the Judith Miller debacle would have taught them something, but clearly not. Sadly not.

Comments

[JIM08now]

I have thought about this alot. Why would they hire Wrong-Way Bill Kristol? He makes Brooks seem pallatable, somewhat. (Brooks seems like a nice guy, Kristol-I would be amazed if he has a friend! Even conservatives must think he's a dud). This move by the NYT has to be in response to Murdoch's purchase of the WSJ and his stated intent to compete (go after) directly with the Times for readeship. They must be thinking that hiring Kristol will in some way lessen the damage from the coming assault by Murdoch. My opinion is why try to attract this element? It must be mostly comprised of the 30 or so percent still backing Bush. These people are lost in so many ways. They are not ever changing.

[waltwis]

Jane Smiley's opinion of William Kristol is far more favorable than mine, but I think the letter responses to his NYTimes columns will be worth reading for the same reason that the letters in response to David Brooks are. Any number of readers will be able to see his rants for what they are.

[chocco]

Great piece of commentary, as usual, Jane. I, too, will say adieu to the NYT. This is the last straw.
There are only two reasons I can think of that would explain why the Times has hired Kristol (a) he has something on them (b) they are desperate for readers, subscribers, and ca$h.
I'll go with (b).
Either way, I won't read the NYT for the same reason I do not read The Washington Times or watch FOX news.
They are both propaganda tools for the fascist right who has has total power and plans to keep it permanently.

[MajorKong]

Must be that "liberal media" I keep hearing about.

[YogiBarrister]

I wish I had a subscription to the Times so that I could cancel it.

[tompoe]

It's important that war criminals protect their exit, and the NYT as enabler, complicit in their dealings with the war criminals, prepare the table for a major media platform to fight off the facts that will be forthcoming as war crimes are investigated, and those facts begin their focus on major media involvement. It's the platform, stupid. I'm sorry to read that Jane forgives Miller. Hopefully, over time, she'll rethink that act.

[PMyshkin]

It is hard to argue against a first amendment issue, but on moral grounds, Bill Kristol is a person whose opinions have been damaging to America at many levels and it seems unjust that he should be given a wider forum for articulating his perverted view of the world and the role of America. He has been unjustly rewarded with access to power as the son of Irvin Kristol and rewarded with exposure by the sheer volume, not quality of his writings and pontifications. The New York Times has slipped badly in the quality of both its journalism and journalists in the past few years and now seems, like most conventional MSM, to be fighting for its financial existence by trying to arouse passion rather than promoting objectivity through reasoned debate and good reporting - embracing the success of the "tabolid journalism" model of News Corp. Instead of increasing its budget for research and writing more in-depth factual articles, the Times has realized that it is far cheaper to hire a controversial hack and claim to present both sides of an issue. In reality, all that the Times is doing is turning news and opinion into an emotion-filled shouting match. Why not cut to the chase and hire Ann Coulter and start a Page 3 section?

[taxidebbie]

Think your vote at the polls means anything??? Try voting with your wallet and see how things change!!!

[esky]

Thanks for the insight. Love your work. The Times has been pulling this since Nixon. First, turning that adman hack Safire into a feared DC pundit; next we got Tierney as a kind of right wing straw man. Then Brooks to pu a smiley (no pun, honest) normal face on standard right wing crap. Now Kristol. This delusional neocon is a second (ade)generation koolade dispenser (see Irving). Now when his kind are in retreat the Times him a powerful platform to spew neocon ravings for international distribution. He is the most visiblesmirking face behind Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al. He is not just wrong. He is gleefully wrong. He doesn't about objective right and wrong. He joyfully continues to lie about the past, present, and future, has disdain for facts and objective truth. He studies nothing, reads nothing, accepts nothing contrary to the catapulted propaganda. What or who is The Times afraid of? This is clearly not the result of wise heads getting together to decide. The Times has ben editing the news forever. Deciding what's fit to print. What or who is this all about?

[hquain]

"Even the Times editors themselves, in an editorial printed yesterday, lament..."

We need a little Kremlinology here. The editorial writers did not make the choice; they are in fact revolting against it. The pick was by Sam Tanenhaus, a right-winger who has reduced the NYT Book Review to a laughingstock. It was obviously made to place an ultra-right voice in a prominent position during the election year.

[reactionrynihilist]

Sadly, we all should have learned from the Judith Miller debacle, but we didn't. Here in NY we have NY Post which is unreadable, the Daily News which is NY Post light, the Wall Street Journal, now the business pages of the NY Post. I don't know who I am going to go to for print news, but print news is making themselves obsolete.

[EdA]

The message that I sent the Times. The only plausible excuse is that they must have intended to hire Billy Crystal to write political satire, but used Jason Blair as a fact-checker.

- - - - -

I think someone in your office misheard. Instead of hiring Billy Crystal, the comedian, to write political satire, it appears that the New York Times has hired Bill Kristol, the serial fabricator, instead.


As you may perhaps know, the misrepresentations, distortions and out-and-out lies made by Bill Kristol from the Weekly Standard have helped to create a half-million Iraqi casualties and tens of thousands of American ones, not to speak of the damage to America's standing, let alone to our economy, so presumably you would not knowingly take on someone who could only damage whatever credibility the Times has left. I assume, for example, and perhaps wrongly, that you would not hire Ahmed Chalabi to report on international business and foreign affairs. Unless perhaps you also decided to rehire Jason Blair as fact-checker?

[maryec]

so right! this old long-time reader is going to miss the NYT, too. please suggest other news outlets we CAN read. the WaPo? don't make us laugh. the LA Times? isn't that owned by the NYT? Ditto the Boston Globe. good god. it's like a death in the family.

[Operaweirdo]

Bill Maher said it best" "Why don't you sit this one out, Nostradamus."

[moderationsmuse]

If Kristol is all that you say, why all the wailing and gnashing of teeth here at Huff Po? Me thinks thou all do protest too much. You should be interested to know what your opponents say. They are a vital source of information since they look at the world differently than you do. You don't have to agree, but it does no harm -- indeed does much good -- to listen to different ideas.