In which a villager (h/t Digby) explains more than they meant to about how their business works
A source close to the Times familiar with the decision not to renew Kristol’s contract makes clear that his neoconservative ideology and viewpoints were not a problem—Kristol’s proximity to key Washington players ranging from Bush and Cheney to John McCain (whom he supported in 2000) was considered a distinct plus. His leading advocacy of the Iraq War also added to his appeal. Kristol was viewed as a mover and shaker whose ideas had ready impact on the political firmament in Washington.
The problems that emerged were more fundamental. Kristol’s writing wasn’t compelling or even very careful. He either lacked a talent for solid opinion journalism or wasn’t putting his heart into it. A give-away came in the form of four corrections the newspaper was forced to run over factual mistakes in the columns, creating an impression that they were rushed out without due diligence or attention to factual claims. A senior writer at Time magazine recounted to me a similar experience with Kristol following his stint in 2006-07. “His conservative ideas were cutting edge and influential,” I was told. “But his sloppy writing and failure to fact check what he wrote made us queasy.”
Mover! Shaker! Impact! Fresh! Important!
Sloppy. Wrong.
And that, in microcosm, is what’s wrong with the way "influence" is handed out these days. Opinion columnists are supposed to approach the facts through a partisan filter. William Kristol doesn’t approach them at all. His career arc has been unaffected by his lack of intellectual rigor because he’s not there to think. He’s there because his name is Kristol, and his family connections impress the people who hire him (or, sometimes, like Sulzberger fils, are the people who hire him), and he pisses off liberals. This, clearly, amuses the usual suspects sufficiently to keep him in work.
Unfortunately for him, his mid-life crisis Sarah Palin episode caused him to turn the spite-hose on a significant portion of his own party – and arguably help to take it down – and I guess his friends at the Times don’t find it charming any more.
As ever, though, he’s failing upwards. Mr. Kristol will be helping to fill the bleeding ideological wound left by the departure of the similarly-qualified Deb Howell at the Washington Post.
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Go figure the hack was indeed a hack. Shocking.
Could they possibly be talking about this?
http://www.salon.com/opinion/g…..index.html
Hey not to worry. Since he’ll be at the WaPo0, he can make all the errors he wants without anyone saying anything. I believe that was Lil’ Debbie’s response when it was pointed out to her how wrong so many of the op-ed pieces were by Novak, Broder and others.
Was it ever a problem or a conflict of interest knowing Kristol was one of the founders of the Project for the New American Century, you know, the right wing think tank Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld were a part of and how the views expressed by this group for almost a decade was why our nation was lied into a fake war for THEIR financial profit?
Why is it the so-called “liberal” media is chock full of lying, talentless, right-wing ideologues? But you never see a Noam Chomsky or maybe Ralph Nader in the Washington Times?
That’s a rhetorical question, I think we all know the answer(s).
Ooooh, fact checking. That’s so pre- “We make our own reality.”
A cutting edge, influential conservative thinker gets the facts wrong. Duh. See the history of the last 8 years.
Why didn’t they sack him years ago when it became clear that he was a hack?
Yeah. Everyone knows, per Colbert, that facts have a liberal bias.
well, if you just reframe the question slightly, it gives you “Does it bother anyone at the Times if one of their employees pimps for Ahmed Chalabi”?
If Kristol’s self-expression is so sloppy, why not proceed to the next reasonable question, which is whether his cutting-edge, influential conservative ideas are so much horseshit?
The corporate broadcast and print media is nothing more than incestuous circle jerk that has produced a generation of certifiable idiots.
because they hired him after it became clear that he was a hack?
Because he’s BFFs from way back with the guys whose fathers gave them the Times to run from back when his dad used to hang with their dads?
I’m currently unemployed I wish I could have failed upwards! Oh yeah, I’m not some conservative, lying, fact-deprived prick.
Well, see, that’s the problem. What they’re essentially saying is that his facts may be wrong, but his theories make them all tingly. Problem is, if a theory isn’t subject to proof, it’s more like a prejudice.
If the New York Times op-ed page hired Bloody Bill Kristol for “balance,” what’s the Washington Post’s excuse?
People are suffering all over America in a very big way. When do the rich lying pampered and priviledged fuckers in the corporate media begin to suffer?
Oh, yeah. I forgot the media isn’t a meritocracy./s
Yeah, those damn Dems as the “Party of hereditary power” right?
Oh wait. He’s not a Democrat?
Never mind
Aw, Teddy, you know this one. They hired him because they need to balance conservative columnists who didn’t like the McCain ticket with conservative columnists who did so conservatives won’t feel bad. Our late lamented Deb Howell told us that on her last day.
Shorter Time: We had no problem with him being batshit crazy. It was just that he wasn’t compellingly so.
Oh, and just so you folks at Time know. People who are batshit crazy don’t factcheck so you might have to clear out the rest of your editorial stable because those aren’t roses you’re smelling.
Dugg!
Right here — please join me!
At least the Wapo is on board with Bloody Bill’s sloppy hackishness.
Hooray.
-G
Bill has not had a “fresh” movement in 20 years and any important shaking has involved his staring at his withered… Bye, bye ya smug witless half-assed fascist.
They’re looking for a candidate for Mr. Congeniality?
I suspect that David Brooks didn’t like being treated like a Trotskyite by Kristol. I mean after all those years of sucking up and regurgitating Republican talkingpoints Brooks is due more respect.
It looks like Kristol will have only a small role at the WaPo so Fred Hiatt whom Forbes declared the third most influential liberal will continue to trumpet his leftist agenda unopposed.
Truly. If anyone knows who’s a trot-come-lately, it’s Irving Kristol’s boy.
Kristol can join Fox News where fact checking is never an option.
I was just thinking the same thing
And did I mention Kristol will be a contributor to Post Partisan. *elbow nudge* See it’s a pun. Post as in Washington Post and Partisan well like as in the Post. So actually it means the opposite of what it is saying, you know like calling the Post a dependable news organization. That kind of thing.
He’s already there
and so is Kathleen Parker, Sarah Palin’s nemesis. That ought to be fun on liveblogging nights.
Sh*t floats.
He practically lives there already.
I think the incestuous circle jerk explanation is the right one.
In point of fact, his “conservative” ideas, weren’t. There are few zealots more radical, with the possible exception of Ledeen and Wurmser.
Kristol should get a job with the Bush Lieberry, helping them make up lies about what did and didn’t happen in the Bush administration.
his aversion to facts should hold him in good stead there.
Yeah. Maybe that.
And, yeah, Glenn’s cute. Still….
My dog licks his vomit.
I want something I don’t already know.
“sloppy writing and failure to fact check” – that explains the many DC centered epidemics these last few years of what has been wrongly diagnosed as food poisoning.
Queasy covers it for me, he makes me sick.
You should take the rest of the day off, lay down for awhile.
OT, but Senator Harkin is ripping Geitner a new one on C-Span. I think Obama should get rid of Geitner and also Lynn. He (and we) don’t need these folks, there are surely others out there that can do these jobs.
AP reporting that Conyers has just issued a subpoena for KKKarl Rove.
LINK
Looks like Marcy is already on the case
cspan-2?
Thanks Matt. Ongoing bullshit.
I think Raven and SD should make a call on Mr. Rove. ‘ Cause as much as I admire Mr. Conyers, I’m getting impatient for justice.
LOL Nicely put. Thanks. ;-)
He did that for years, Neurophius. LOL
Yes, he is finished now, but Senator Dorgan came up and supported Harkin.
Regrettably, they will probably vote for the jerk. Can you imagine not paying those taxes? I have been an independent consultant after my Government life, and I guarantee my CPA told me about those kind of taxes.
thanks. did catch dorgan, will look for harkin’s statement later on cspan archives.
not a fan of geithner – but it’s summers who scares me more than all the others.
oh, and harkin can bite me. did he explain that he was a co-sponsor to Luger’s version of the CFMA of 2000? (although to be fair he did vote against the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act).
vote was 60 aye and 34 nay
Maybe Wapo has plenty of extra cash to hire a fact checker for Kristol but probably not. I wonder how the hard working reporters at WaPo geel about hires like this.