William Kristol Finally Given the Boot

According to the tagline under his NYTimes column: "This is William Kristol’s last column." Kristol is by far the worst of the existing neocon morons and the fact that he was *still* employed by a non-neocon publication was a scandal. The NYTimes has done some stupid things in the past (among the many evil along the way: exhibit 1, ignoring the Holocaust, exhibit 2, actually liking it when Israelis are killed by terrorists), but hiring - and retaining - Kristol over the past year has to rank as one of the stupidest things in the past half-century.

Yeah, it's nice to have a balanced editorial page - it's one reason why I read daily, and subscribe to the print version of, the Atlantic - but that should require the editors to find columnists who are *honest* and (preferably) intelligent. But based on the living muppets Tom Friedman and Maureen Dowd - both whom might be too stupid to feed themselves - the Times columnists have been steadily shrinking in quality. Dowd is haphazardly opinionated, vapid, and holds a blinding vendetta against the Clintons and all male Democrats. Friedman's crimes against facts and sense are well documented.

Kristol took the NYTimes' callowness and idiocy into a new, twisted level. After Rove was ousted in 2006, Kristol became the de-facto head of the Republican party (the "intellectuals" at least) - it was he who pushed for Sarah Palin early and often, and managed to override the GOP nominee to install his own, hand-picked, meathead.

Kristol regularly lies in his written columns and all in the direction of purposefully helping the Republican party. Why should the Times participate in helping a pure partisan further his aims?

Well, as I've prediction many times before, when Obama/Democrats took over, the Press - who from 2000-2008 were willing to swallow whole whatever garbage the Republicans spewed - now realize that they have new overlords. This will persist as long as Obama stays popular.

J.M. Marshall, of TPM, has long contended that the Beltway pundits weight the opinions of Republicans/Right Wingers as more serious than those views on the left... and I agree with his assessment. Which means that as soon as Obama's popularity dips, so Kristol will be taken seriously again.

See here and here (which has links to criticism of Kristol) for more data on the NYTimes decision. Pic from here.