Clark Hoyt, the NYT’s public editor, recently explored the paper’s decision to hire Bill Kristol as a columnist, a move Hoyt described as a “mistake.” For his part, Kristol seems to be intent on proving Hoyt right.
Kristol’s inaugural column, four weeks ago, went a long way in making his critics’ concerns look well grounded. It was filled with predictable Republican Party talking points; it attributed a quote to the wrong person; and it heralded Hillary Clinton’s demise as a presidential candidate — just one day before she won the New Hampshire primary.
Kristol’s second column — get this — criticized Democrats for not supporting Bush’s “surge” policy. How provocative.
His third gem came last week and featured odd praise for John McCain and his “neo-Victorian straightforwardness.” It was a column without a point.
And today, Bill Kristol seems to go out of his way to write the most predictable column imaginable — accusing Bill Clinton of sparking a racial dispute — a week or two after every other pundit in the country had already covered this ground.
In the run-up to Saturday’s South Carolina primary, Bill Clinton repeatedly denounced racial divisions in American politics. Indeed, he said Friday in Spartanburg, Americans are “literally aching to live in a post-racial future.”
But Clinton certainly hasn’t been hastening that day. Quite the contrary…. Bill Clinton has been playing the race card, and doing so clumsily.
As Kevin asked, “Are they actually paying him for this level of banality?” Actually, yes, about $5 a word.
Gabriel Sherman had a great item in TNR last week about Kristol’s hire, which, if the paper is not yet regretting, one assumes it’s only a matter of time. Sherman’s piece included some interesting perspectives from NYT staffers.
Times staffers felt Kristol just wasn’t a very good writer. “Having a robust conservative voice on the page is a good idea. But you want quality,” one staffer said. “In general, he’s mediocre. He doesn’t seem like the best choice, and the first column was crap.”
“It was a very odd choice,” a senior staffer added. “Personally, I don’t think he’s an original voice, and that should be the standard. It’s the most coveted piece of journalistic real estate in the country.”
My initial concern about the Times hiring Kristol was rewarding failure — this guy has been wrong about every major policy issue for years. But these concerns have evolved. The more notable problem, after a month of columns, is that Kristol is just an awful columnist, a weak writer, and a boring political observer. (And he’s been wrong about every major policy issue for years.)
How bad is it? Even William Safire agrees with the Hoyt piece that described the Kristol hire as a “mistake.”
When reached by phone, Safire told me: “I saw the excellent piece that the public editor wrote the other day, and that pretty much tells the story.”
Is there anyone outside the paper’s leadership who still thinks this was a good idea?