{"id":14383,"date":"2008-01-28T10:05:51","date_gmt":"2008-01-28T15:05:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/14383.html"},"modified":"2008-01-28T10:05:51","modified_gmt":"2008-01-28T15:05:51","slug":"kristol-columns-continue-to-confound","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/kristol-columns-continue-to-confound\/","title":{"rendered":"Kristol columns continue to confound"},"content":{"rendered":"

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<\/a>.” For his part, Kristol seems to be intent on proving Hoyt right.<\/p>\n

Kristol’s inaugural column<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n

Kristol’s second column<\/a> — get this — criticized Democrats for not supporting Bush’s “surge” policy. How provocative.<\/p>\n

His third gem<\/a> came last week and featured odd praise for John McCain and his “neo-Victorian straightforwardness.” It was a column without a point.<\/p>\n

And today, Bill Kristol seems to go out of his way to write the most predictable column<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

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.”<\/p>\n

But Clinton certainly hasn’t been hastening that day. Quite the contrary…. Bill Clinton has been playing the race card, and doing so clumsily.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As Kevin asked<\/a>, “Are they actually paying him for this level of banality?” Actually, yes, about $5 a word<\/a>.
\n
\nGabriel Sherman had a great item<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

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.” <\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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<\/i> he’s been wrong about every major policy issue for years.)<\/p>\n

How bad is it? Even William Safire agrees with the Hoyt piece that described the Kristol hire as a “mistake.”<\/p>\n

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.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Is there anyone<\/i> outside the paper’s leadership who still thinks this was a good idea?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14383\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}