Booman Tribune

Bill Kristol Has a Job to Do at NYT's

by BooMan
Sat Dec 29th, 2007 at 10:34:31 AM EST

It's amazing how much we've learned over the last four years. We've learned about how a large segment of the Democratic Party is sympathetic to neo-conservatism and doesn't care about our civil liberties or the balance of powers. We've learned that the mainstream press is more likely to aid and abet an obstruction of justice than they are to report what they know about White House crimes to the America people. We've learned just how much New Democrats and the Democratic Leadership Council hate the left-wing of the Democratic Party. We've learned that the Washington Post editorial board is little better than the Wall Street Journal editorial board or FOX News. Now, we learn that even the New York Times editorial board is more inclined to amplify the most discredited people in the country than they are to push new voices that have been proven prescient.

The Huffington Post has learned that, in a move bound to create controversy, the New York Times is set to announce that Bill Kristol will become a weekly columnist in 2008.

The New York Times' editorial space is precious and highly coveted. The decision to award some of that space to William Kristol seems to confirm that neo-conservative principles are so entrenched in our country's power centers that the weaker the record becomes the more necessary it is to provide them with a platform for their ideas.

If, instead of maintaining a forward military basing strategy (along with the ridiculous and ruinous deficit military spending that makes it possible), the Establishment were laser focused on maintaining a system of Jim Crow segregation...we'd more easily see this for what it is. It's a deeply unpopular and immoral policy that cannot compete on even playing field in the market of ideas. It therefore becomes incumbent to distort the market by flooding it with fear-mongerers and extremists like Bill Kristol. Kristol's s job is simple. Sow enough fear and doubt to carve out a place for unending occupation of Iraq, military basing in approximately 150 countries, and the staggering national security spending required to maintain it and to protect us from the inevitable backlash.

It's a self-sustaining loop of death and waste. And it comes at the expense of human investment and decency. The New York Times should be too humiliated by the flame-out of William Safire in the lead-up to the war in Iraq to take a risk on Bill Kristol. But, apparently, they think maintaining the engine of war and empire is more important than a commitment to honest debate.



Display:
bought and sold by the neocons while the people are too busy buying the latest gadget to realise our constitution and democracy as we knew it is dead.
by NancyImpeachBush on Sat Dec 29th, 2007 at 10:39:08 AM EST
You know this is all the fault of the liberal elitist media.

/snark

My job is not to represent Washington to you, but to represent you to Washington- Obama
Philly for Obama

by Luam (LuamDK at gmail.com) on Sat Dec 29th, 2007 at 10:45:38 AM EST
yep.  It's actually just pollution.
by BooMan on Sat Dec 29th, 2007 at 11:01:33 AM EST
[ Parent ]
This will go on unabated as long as political discussion in America is mere chat among the ruling class. As long as traitors like Kristol confine their destruction to innocents abroad, they remain in the "safe" column. They do not incite the US population to radical means of seeking radical change, and that's all that matters.

Since it is the NYT and worse that defines and promotes the "electable" politicians, the stupid and unimaginative will always get "equal time" along with estimable middle-roaders like Krugman, even though Kristol and his many clones are recognized as psychopathic in the more civilized parts of the globe.

Happy new year.

FDR's response to progressive demands: "I agree. Now go out and make me do it."

by DaveW on Sat Dec 29th, 2007 at 11:59:54 AM EST
This was inevitable, actually.

Some of the staff at the NYT has been attempting to commit actual journalism from time to time, and if you read between the lines you start to realize that there are a few people there who may be considering disagreeing with Shrubbus Maximus and Lord Cheney.

Obviously they need a new corporate watcher and mouthpiece of absolute and unquestionable ideological purity to stamp out or at least shout down the thinkers.

Enter Kristol.

We are all captives of the pictures in our heads - our belief that the world which we have experienced is the world that really exists. - W. Lippman

by stormkite on Sat Dec 29th, 2007 at 12:07:20 PM EST
NYT's landlord is now an Israeli, I was wondering if they would take a sharp right.

Banned but hopefully not forgotten.
by Mattes on Sat Dec 29th, 2007 at 12:59:41 PM EST
.
Kristol Clear
By David Corn (The Nation) - January 2, 2007

  • On September 11, 2002, as the Bush administration began its sales campaign for the coming war, Kristol suggested that Saddam Hussein could do more harm to the United States than al Qaeda had: "we cannot afford to let Saddam Hussein inflict a worse 9/11 on us in the future."
  • On September 15, 2002, he claimed that inspection and containment could not work with Saddam: "No one believes the inspections can work." Actually, UN inspectors believed they could work. So, too, did about half of congressional Democrats. They were right.
  • On September 18, 2002, Kristol opined that a war in Iraq "could have terrifically good effects throughout the Middle East."
  • On September 19, 2002, he once again pooh-poohed inspections: "We should not fool ourselves by believing that inspections could make any difference at all." During a debate with me on Fox News Channel, after I noted that the goal of inspections was to prevent Saddam from reaching "the finish line" in developing nuclear weapons, Kristol exclaimed, "He's past that finish line. He's past the finish line."
  • On November 21, 2002, he maintained, "we can remove Saddam because that could start a chain reaction in the Arab world that would be very healthy."
  • On February 2, 2003, he claimed that Secretary of State Colin Powell at an upcoming UN speech would "show that there are loaded guns throughout Iraq" regarding weapons of mass destruction. As it turned out, everything in Powell's speech was wrong. Kristol was uncritically echoing misleading information handed him by friends and allies within the Bush administration.
  • On February 20, 2003, he summed up the argument for war against Saddam: "He's got weapons of mass destruction. At some point he will use them or give them to a terrorist group to use...Look, if we free the people of Iraq we will be respected in the Arab world....France and Germany don't have the courage to face up to the situation. That's too bad. Most of Europe is with us. And I think we will be respected around the world for helping the people of Iraq to be liberated."
  • On March 1, 2003, Kristol dismissed concerns that sectarian conflict might arise following a US invasion of Iraq: "We talk here about Shiites and Sunnis as if they've never lived together. Most Arab countries have Shiites and Sunnis, and a lot of them live perfectly well together." He also said, "Very few wars in American history were prepared better or more thoroughly than this one by this president." And he maintained that the war would be a bargain at $100 to $200 billion. The running tab is now nearing half a trillion dollars.

    Rupert Murdoch and William Kristol: Using the Press to Advance Israel's Interests

  • "But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

    by Oui on Sat Dec 29th, 2007 at 02:04:50 PM EST
    I have heard that you have hired the utterly discredited neo-conservative William Kristol to write a weekly column.  I am aghast at this decision: Mr. Kristol was one of the loudest voices agitating for war in Iraq, and at every turn he has been proven wrong.  He was wrong about the weapons of mass destruction; he was wrong that our troops would be met as liberators; he was wrong about the cost of the war; he was wrong about the length of the war; he was wrong about Iraq's stability; and he was wrong about Saddam Hussein's ties to September 11.  Thousands of American soldiers are dead and wounded because of Kristol's errors, and thousands more maimed and psychotic.  Why would you hire someone with this record?  Wasn't one Judy Miller enough?

    Frankly, you would do better to hire me: even without Kristol's pedigree or background, I was right about everything that he was wrong about.  For that matter, my dog would be a better choice than Kristol for the op-ed page: he'll work for kibble, and his scribbles would be every bit as informed as Kristol's war-mongering, wrong-headed rants.

    My girlfriend has been considering taking out a subscription to the New York Times, but upon hearing this news has decided that she will not waste her money on a newspaper that invests in such a dishonest writer.

    For shame. We will be letting our friends and families know that the "paper of record" has decided to become "the paper of propaganda" and that they should spend their hard-earned dollars elsewhere.

    Brendan Skwire
    address, etc.

    John Mccain Called his wife WHAT??

    by brendan on Sat Dec 29th, 2007 at 02:52:32 PM EST
    This is the latest reason why the opinion/analysis parts of traditional media outlets are an endangered species.  The news gathering/reporting infrastructure of the WaPo, NYT, WSJ et. al. is extremely valuable and will continue to be an important part of American journalism, but the editorial pages, Swamplands, etc. are totally committed to the Beltway version of conventional wisdom, and with every colossal failure of judgment people rightly devalue their worth.  The Joe Kleins and William Kristols are burning through these places' remaining credibility, and their editors seem content to allow it.  Incomprehensible.
    by danps (dan at pruningshears_dot us) on Sat Dec 29th, 2007 at 03:17:32 PM EST
    When I see this..........I think of this:

      Bill Kristol, AKA Old Ferret Face

    "Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity"

    by MikeInOhio on Sat Dec 29th, 2007 at 04:19:37 PM EST


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