Bill Kristol Gets New York Times Op-Ed Slot

by Katha Pollitt - December 29th, 2007 - The Nation

Just shoot me. First, it was Sam Tanenhaus, conservative editor of the New York Times Book Review being put in charge of the News of the Week in Review section. That means one conservative will determine how politics, culture and ideas are covered in TWO of the most important sections of the supposedly liberal newspaper of record. Now, says the Huffington Post, the Times is set to announce that Bill Kristol will be writing a weekly op-ed column. That's Bill Kristol, Fox commentator, editor of the the Murdochian agitprop factory Weekly Standard, George W. Bush's propagandist in chief, co-founder of the Project for a New American Century, relentless promoter of the war in Iraq, ideological bully and thug.

This is typical of the outraged reaction among liberals over the fact that the New York Times is going to have ONE op-ed writer they call conservative. Kristol will not cover news for the Times. That will still be 100% in the hands of liberals. However on their op-ed page they are going to have ONE moderate writer. Wow! As noted the liberal press of our nation was already outraged that a conservative (in their view) had been allowed to be editor of the Book Review. Now they have a second they call conservative!

Key to how amusing is this outrage is that Kristol is not conservative. Conservative reaction has been along the lines of, why did they have to pick a moderate like Kristol? Why can't they get a real conservative like Mark Steyn or Charles Krauthammer?

It is going to be interesting to see if the New York Times can stop hemorrhaging readers. That is the major reason for this move. They are losing readers constantly, now being below a million distribution in a town of twenty million people. Plus people are starting to recognize they don't represent leadership in news or editorial reporting any longer. Too many episodes of reporters lying and inventing news, liberal biased news. If the world stopped thinking of them as the leading newspaper, they would drop another hundred thousand distribution in a flash.

Equally interesting will be to see if any other liberal dominated newspaper, magazine or TV network follows the lead, or whether this is just a token move because the Times is in so much trouble.

Almost all major city newspapers are in trouble. They don't seem to get the fact that 36% of Americans identify themselves as conservatives, 35% as moderates. Only 26% still think of themselves as liberals. Among news reporters, most come from the far left of that 26% liberal element. A large number are socialists and Marxists. More and more Americans are aware that the MSM does not represent them.

The Times now has ONE writer who represents the 35% of moderate Americans. That is at least an improvement. When are they going to even acknowledge the 36% that see themselves as conservatives, much less actually hire one for their newspaper? My best advice is "don't hold your breath!"