Imagine my suprise when I woke up this morning, sat down on my couch with a hot cup of coffee, turned to nytimes.com (after reading dkos of course) and found that neo-con idiot William Kristol will be writing a weekly op-ed beginning next week.
Needless to say, I was aghast. I truly had begun to feel that we (we being the American population, not just this site) had begun to make some progress against truthiness, faux bipartisanship, and "covering the debate" rather than stating fact. Specifically, the paper of record seems to have done much to improve its fact checking since the infamous judith Miller era. But apparently, it is 2 steps forward, 3 steps back.
Is it necessary to demonstrate the extent to which Billy Kristol has been wrong in the past? Certiainly not, but it still sounds like fun. According to Kristol:
- We should have invaded Iraq in 1998
- Iran is acting in a belligerent way and deserves to be attacked:
- Anything other than the Bushco line is "irresponsible"
- "Iran is not Iraq"...to be honest i don't even know what this really means.
That should be enough - but any competent search will find dozens of other criminally insane comments by this raving lunatic. However, I do recall him being torn to shreds by Jon Stewart; if somebody finds the link it would be appreciated.
What is the NYT thinking? Are they hoping to up their circulation by selling the the Faux crowd? Do they really think that having him on board will improve the quality of their paper?
(my first diary, appreciate any comments)
Update: I just sent the following strongly worded email to the editorial department:
I was dismayed to wake up this morning to find that the organization that used to refer to itself as the "Paper of Record" has hired the idiotic, war-mongering, biased and unethical Bill Kristol to write for its op-ed page. While I believe in the freedom of your organization to do as it wishes, this is a man who, in an era of punditry, truthiness, and triangulation, has probably set the world record for being the most wrong about the most areas of substance. His complete lack of a grasp of reality was a key cause in the deaths of 4000 american service-people and countless foreigners, and done much to weaken our nation at home an abroad. I respect the rights of people to have different points of view on issues and policy - but there is only one set of facts, and Mr. Kristol has consistently proven that he is unable to determine what statement belong in the set of truth and which do not.
I feel that you owe it to me, as you do to all of your readers, to explain why your organization feels the need to give someone with such a clear lack of talent, ethics and competence such a platform to espouse his utter lunacy. Frankly, your paper does not have the best record in these areas in the past; I was under the impression that much had been done to clean up the sloppy reporting that characterized the first half of the decade. However, I consider this a giant step back. I truly would appreciate some insight as to why you felt that this hire was in the best interest of your op-ed page, your paper, the media as a whole, and the wider world beyond that. You may feel that your paper is not important and does not have an effect on the discussion - but I assure you that there are still people out there who are paying attention.