Um, I mean Bill Kristol.
Apparently, the Times' decision to give you an op-ed column for the next year has led to more uproar from readers than anything since Jayson Blair's fabrications, Judith Miller's Plame/Flame-gate crisis, and the Washington desk's hyperbolic reporting on WMD. (Rough few years, I suppose, but it's still the best all-around paper there is.)
Mr. Kristol, your first two columns have certainly been smug in tone and your first column needed a correction, which, even if you're still running the Weekly Standard and putting on make-up for Fox News, is sloppy. And I don't understand your -- and, while we're at it, Sen. John McCain's -- continued defense of the troop surge in the Iraq. While violence has markedly declined there in the past six months, none of the war's major goals -- finding and securing nuclear material and other WMD; creating a more moderate, democratic Middle East; quashing radical Islamic terrorism; stabilizing international oil supply -- are close to being accomplished. They're all actually more distant nearly five years after the war's start. You and McCain are getting lost in the forest when the trees are right in front of you, or climbing up trees but not seeing the forest, or whatever the saying is.
Nonetheless, I wholeheartedly believe you deserve a place in the Times' op-ed roster. Your conservatism is harsh but intellectual and developed with the brain rather than the vocal chords. It's not gutter politics like conservative talk radio shows so often are. (And I listen to them occasionally; I have a long commute by car.) That so many Times readers, presumably the "liberal" ones, have reacted so vehemently to your appointment is disappointing. The whole philosophical spectrum always deserves to be heard and the op-ed page shouldn't be a prarie where only Paul Krugman and Frank Rich, et al, as excellent as they are, can roam. 21st-century media seems to be largely about creating echo chambers for niche audiences and that can only bring diminshing returns.
It's especially ironic that Clark Hoyt's "Public Editor" column about this "furor" (embedded in one of the above links) was published on the same day that the lede book review was Anthony Lewis' "Freedom for the Thought that We Hate," a celebration of the First Amendment. Lewis is himself a former op-ed columnist and reporter for the Times. I wonder what he would think about you.
And Mr. Kristol, if you ever wanted to trade spots with Mr. Crystal, the op-ed columns would be boring and unfunny, but watching you and Jack Palance drivin' cattle in "City Slickers" would be a true treat.
Apparently, the Times' decision to give you an op-ed column for the next year has led to more uproar from readers than anything since Jayson Blair's fabrications, Judith Miller's Plame/Flame-gate crisis, and the Washington desk's hyperbolic reporting on WMD. (Rough few years, I suppose, but it's still the best all-around paper there is.)
Mr. Kristol, your first two columns have certainly been smug in tone and your first column needed a correction, which, even if you're still running the Weekly Standard and putting on make-up for Fox News, is sloppy. And I don't understand your -- and, while we're at it, Sen. John McCain's -- continued defense of the troop surge in the Iraq. While violence has markedly declined there in the past six months, none of the war's major goals -- finding and securing nuclear material and other WMD; creating a more moderate, democratic Middle East; quashing radical Islamic terrorism; stabilizing international oil supply -- are close to being accomplished. They're all actually more distant nearly five years after the war's start. You and McCain are getting lost in the forest when the trees are right in front of you, or climbing up trees but not seeing the forest, or whatever the saying is.
Nonetheless, I wholeheartedly believe you deserve a place in the Times' op-ed roster. Your conservatism is harsh but intellectual and developed with the brain rather than the vocal chords. It's not gutter politics like conservative talk radio shows so often are. (And I listen to them occasionally; I have a long commute by car.) That so many Times readers, presumably the "liberal" ones, have reacted so vehemently to your appointment is disappointing. The whole philosophical spectrum always deserves to be heard and the op-ed page shouldn't be a prarie where only Paul Krugman and Frank Rich, et al, as excellent as they are, can roam. 21st-century media seems to be largely about creating echo chambers for niche audiences and that can only bring diminshing returns.
It's especially ironic that Clark Hoyt's "Public Editor" column about this "furor" (embedded in one of the above links) was published on the same day that the lede book review was Anthony Lewis' "Freedom for the Thought that We Hate," a celebration of the First Amendment. Lewis is himself a former op-ed columnist and reporter for the Times. I wonder what he would think about you.
And Mr. Kristol, if you ever wanted to trade spots with Mr. Crystal, the op-ed columns would be boring and unfunny, but watching you and Jack Palance drivin' cattle in "City Slickers" would be a true treat.
1 comment:
The Sports Gal responds: Remember the cow Norman in "City Slickers"? He was the cutest. ANYONE in the same shot with Norman would be a true treat!
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