Quote of the Day

"The murder of Dr. George Tiller, who was shot to death as he stood in the foyer of his church in Wichita, Kan., on Sunday morning, was a reprehensible act of domestic terrorism directed toward the dwindling cadre of physicians who risk their safety to perform legal medical procedures."

The New York Times editorial board.

Bill Kristol and New York Times Part

Former New York Times columnist John Tierney was a source of great entertainment to me. Tierney urged Americans to buy more foreign oil and not recycle.

After you fill up your tank, twist the rear-view mirror so you can gaze at yourself. Repeat these words: ''I'm good enough, I'm rich enough, and doggone it, people in the Middle East like my money.''

Doggone it, I miss Tierney. I know the New York Times felt Tierney's column destroyed the newspaper's credibility. In Tierney's defense, the wordsmith penned comedy classics. The humor in Tierney's column was unintended. That only makes the reading experience more rewarding.

Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow

The New York Times feared being labeled part of the so-called liberal media. The newspaper hired Times Bill Kristol. Members of the newsroom wondered why the Times would hire a writer that accused the publication of treason.

Kristol's columns were one disaster after another. The pundit wrongly attributed a Michael Medved quote to Michelle Malkin. Kristol cited a Newsmax bogus story of Barack Obama attending Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright's " "white arrogance" sermon." Obama was in Miami, at the time. Kristol printed a retraction.

In this column, I cite a report that Sen. Obama had attended services at Trinity Church on July 22, 2007. The Obama campaign has provided information showing that Senator Obama did not attend Trinity that day. I regret the error.

The most troubling aspect is a Times columnist using Newsmax and Michelle Malkin as source material. A college professor would laugh at this garbage in a research paper. The New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. rewarded these faulty research skills with a contract.

Less than a month left in the presidential campaign, Kristol urges John McCain "fire his campaign." Sarah Palin negative polling numbers hurt McCain. Kristol publicly lobbied for Palin and predicted Palin will make gas prices plummet. Kristol wrote a Times column "A Star Is Born?"

I spent an afternoon with Palin a little over a year ago in Juneau, and have followed her career pretty closely ever since. I think she can pull it off. I’m not the only one. The day after the V.P. announcement, I spoke with an old friend, James Muller, chairman of the political science department at the University of Alaska, Anchorage. He said that Palin “has been underestimated over and over again. She took on the party and state establishments here in Alaska, and left them reeling. She’s a very good campaigner, a quick study and a fighter.”

Palin swung and missed badly. Kristol did too by incorrectly predicting Republican strategist Mike Murphy would rejoin the McCain campaign. Kristol's Times tenure is marked by poor fact-checking and wildly off-the-mark predictions. The Times did not renew Kristol's contract. At least Tierney was funny.

The training ground for conservative commentary is the Weekly Standard and National Review. The majority of these pundits have no prior journalism experience and previously worked as GOP strategists. (Kristol was Dan Quayle's Chief of Staff.) These pundits don't have investigative reporting skills or informed policy knowledge. They came through the GOP political machine and write for the GOP political machine. The kicker is Republicans have created their own media empire and have the audacity to accuse other media organizations of bias. Kristol failed as a Times columnist because he wasn't a columnist. Kristol was a press secretary for the RNC.

Bill Kristol's Political Acumen

Bill Kristol is an advisor to the McCain campaign. Kristol urged John McCain to pick Sarah Palin. Kristol advocated for negative attacks against Barack Obama. Palin and the negative ads have helped more than hurt Obama. Now Kristol is jumping ship.

It’s time for John McCain to fire his campaign.

That statement is hysterical for more reasons than can be mentioned in a post. That is entirely unrealistic in the final days of the campaign. Then again, Kristol was urging The United States to invade Iraq in the nineties. Kristol doesn't let such silly things as reality concern him. Even if Kristol used to be a Democratic and Repubican campaign advisor. McCain campaign spokeswoman Nancy Pfotenhauer is publicly attacking Kristol. This thrills me to no end.

Well, you know Bill is entitled to his perspective. And I used to work for Bill. And I can tell you personally sometimes he’s brilliant and sometimes he’s not. And this is one where it’s the latter category. You know, I think unfortunately he has bought into the Obama campaign’s party line.

My question is why does anyone in the Republican Party still listen to Bill Kristol? His political acumen sucks.

Why does the New York Times employ an unpaid McCain advisor as a columnist? There are conservatives that don't have Kristol's conflicts of interest. The Times went with Kristol, after the pundit advocated for the Justice Department to prosecute the publication. Which brings into ethical question why Kristol would work for a newspaper he accused of endangering national security? As I wrote before, it is only a matter of time before the Times fires Bill Kristol.

Bonus Quote of the Day

"I may never publish another op-ed in The New York Times after this."

John Bolton, on The New York Times not publishing the John McCain op-ed. How will The New York Times continue without Bolton's hysterical guest punditry? I still haven't recovered from The Times losing John Tierney twice-weekly comedy gems.

Bill Kristol Cites Newsmax & Gets Punked

Bill Kristol once again embarrasses himself on the New York Times op-ed pages. Kristol used a Newsmax article as gospel truth. The Jim Davis piece claimed that Obama was in the congregation the the day Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. made his controversial "white arrogance" sermon. The problem is that Obama was in Miami that day. Obama was campaigning in Miami that day. AOL has a video of Obama speaking in Miami on July 22, 2007.

Newsmax's Ronald Kessler is sticking to his story. He is claiming that Obama was in Chicago and Miami at the same time. I'm really not making this up.

While both the early morning and evening service allowed Sen. Obama to attend the service and still give a speech in Miami, Mr. Davis stands by his story that during one of the services he attended during the month of July, Senator Obama was present and sat through the sermon given by Rev. Wright as described in the story.

Kristol was forced to print a retraction.

In this column, I cite a report that Sen. Obama had attended services at Trinity Church on July 22, 2007. The Obama campaign has provided information showing that Senator Obama did not attend Trinity that day. I regret the error.

Kristol is making mistakes constantly in his column. The neocon pundit wrongly attributed a Michael Medved quote to Michelle Malkin. The man's sloppliness is staggering.

What kills me people people like Kristol and Glenn Reynolds is how they lament about inaccuracy in the so-called liberal media. The Weekly Standard and Instapundit are conservative giants of factually inaccurate information. These people have an allergic retraction to truth that is pathological.

The New York Times/ McCain Scandal

The John McCain extramarital affair scandal does not rage my outrage meter. That is a matter for Cindy McCain. The fact that McCain voted to impeach Bill Clinton and then have had a relationship with Vicki Iseman is standard hypocrisy in American politics. We live in a culture that cast shame on people for honestly discussing sexual issues. The public craves Jerry Springer and can't explain to their children the dangers of STDs. People are paying more attention to what John McCain's penis is doing than is horrible positions on Iraq and the economy.

What is newsworthy is McCain hiring criminal defense attorney Bob Bennett to intimidate The New York Times from publishing details of McCain's relationship with lobbyist Vicki Iseman. The Times only went public because The New Republic was working on their own story. It is amazing how the once mighty Times is getting pushed around by the Right. TNR published Gabriel Sherman piece on how the McCain camp kept The Times from publishing the story.

What happened? The publication of the article capped three months of intense internal deliberations at the Times over whether to publish the negative piece and its most explosive charge about the affair. It pitted the reporters investigating the story, who believed they had nailed it, against executive editor Bill Keller, who believed they hadn't. It likely cost the paper one investigative reporter, who decided to leave in frustration. And the Times ended up publishing a piece in which the institutional tensions about just what the story should be are palpable.

The Times bad handling of holding onto the story made reporters leave.

It was at about that time, amidst flurries of rumors swirling about the looming Times investigation, that the Times' McCain beat reporter, Marc Santora, abruptly left the campaign trail after covering the senator for four and a half months, frustrated by the McCain rumors. A rising star at the paper, Santora had been working grueling hours, joining the 2008 election coverage straight from a reporting assignment in Baghdad. As the campaign headed to South Carolina, the site of McCain's defeat in 2000, Santora emailed the Times' deputy Washington editor, Richard Stevenson, to vent about how the rumors were dogging him on the campaign trail, and left the McCain beat on January 10. "The last thing I wanted was to be a pawn in this thing," Santora told me. "I was exhausted, there were a lot of rumors flying around. I thought the best thing for me to do was take a break."

Santora wasn't the last casualty of the process. Two weeks ago, in early February, Marilyn Thompson, one of the four reporters working on the McCain investigation quit the Times. Thompson had been a staffer at The Washington Post for 14 years, until 2004. She had spent just six months at the Times and recorded only four bylines before accepting an offer to return to her former employer as an editor overseeing the Post's accountability coverage of money and politics. According to sources, Thompson became increasingly dispirited with the delays, and worked around the clock through the Christmas vacation on the piece, only to see the investigation sputter. Declining to comment on the investigation itself, Thompson told me her decision to return to the Post "was an opportunity to go back to the place that has been a home to me." (Thompson celebrated her byline during her last week at the Times. Her final day at the paper is tomorrow.)

The investigative reporters felt they had the McCain story nailed. Executive editor Bill Keller wouldn't go to bat for his employees. He told them to keep working on the story. Keller published a watered-down version that McCain defenders are having a field day poking holes through. Keller's defense is hysterical.

"Our policy is, we publish stories when they are ready. 'Ready' means the facts have been nailed down to our satisfaction, the subjects have all been given a full and fair chance to respond, and the reporting has been written up with all the proper context and caveats."

Keller didn't want to be in the hot seat. He watered-down a story that was publicly floating around since December. The result was another major journalism scandal for The Times. Where does The Times find such horrible editors?

Bill Kristol and the New York Times

The New York Times's hiring of Bill Kristol didn't reach the point of outrage with me. The Times Jayson Blair and Judy Miller embarrassments have shown the Paper of Record is not infallible. The op-ed pages have been on a painful downward spiral for years. Kristol's hiring makes perfect sense.

Gabriel Sherman's New Republic article provides insights into Arthur Sulzberger Jr. hiring Kristol. The short version is he is scared to death of The Wall Street Journal. What Sulzberger fails to understand is the least successful section of the WSJ is the op-ed page. The Wall Street Journal is one of the few newspapers that makes money off of paid subscriptions. The op-ed pages are free on Opinion Journal. Peggy Noonan's prose about magical dolphins saving Elian Gonzales is one of the worst op-eds ever written. Sulzberger should be more concerned about competing with the WSJ's reporting. Conservatives will always hate The New York Times.

It is widely known that Kristol wrongly attributed a Michael Medved quote to Michelle Malkin. That is a hell of a way to make a debut on Murderers' Row.

"He doesn't know what it's like to write for The New York Times," one staffer said. "So, welcome to the NFL."

Kristol is William Safire's replacement. John Tierney wisely abandoned The Times op-ed pages after producing many comedy masterpieces. Sulzberger brought Kristol in to make a splash. Unfortunately, the result was a splat. Safire agreed with public editor Clark Hoyt's harsh assessment of Kristol.

The Times' public editor, Clark Hoyt, acknowledged the Kristol kerfuffle in his column on Sunday, January 13, writing of Kristol's hiring: "This is a decision I would not have made." When reached by phone, Safire told me: "I saw the excellent piece that the public editor wrote the other day, and that pretty much tells the story."

Ouch.

At least Kristol has Judy Miller publicly backing him.

Eventually, The Times will fire Kristol either because of a scandal or the neoconservative pundit can not meet the increasingly lowering standards of the op-eds pages. The Times should have gone after George Will. I suspect Will is smart enough not to get near Murderers; Row.

The Disaster That is the NY Times Op-Ed Page

I always wondered how Thomas Friedman could get away with declaring the world is flat and that a scholarship named after Osama bin Laden is a good idea. Does Friedman's New York Times editors read his op-eds? Turns out The Times doesn't care how bad their op-ed columnist are.

Bill Kristol was caught wrongly attributing a quote to Michelle Malkin. The quote came from Michael Medved column.

Kristol:

Still, as the conservative writer Michelle Malkin put it, “For the work-hard-to-get-ahead strivers who represent the heart and soul of the G.O.P., there are obvious, powerful points of identification.”

Medved:

It’s not just Christian zealots who recognize Huckabee as “one of us”; I’ve spoken to non-religious Russian immigrant Jews who love him because he’s down-to-earth, plain-spoken and unpretentious non-celebrity. For the work-hard-to-get-ahead strivers who represent the heart and soul of the GOP, there are obvious, powerful points of identification.

Not to be outdone, David Brooks confuses Ward Churchill with Ward Connoly. It must be their striking physical resemblance.


Ward Churchill


Ward Connerly

Churchill is a neo-Nazi and Connerly is a black Republican. See how easy it is to confuse the two.

Update: Tas correctly takes me to task for calling Ward Churchill a neo-Nazi. I should say that Churchill is a radical nut. Churchill sees racism where there is none. He was also a member of the American terrorist group the Weather Underground.

The Trouble With the Times

The key to understanding Thomas Friedman is that he is a buffoonish clown. His proposal of offering the "Bin Laden Scholars" scholarship program for Middle Eastern students is highly offense and unproductive. Any serious thinker would know that universities would be terrified being assiociated with any scholarship named after a man responsible for the murder of thousands. Offering free education to young Middle Easterners has positive merits. Friedman's brainstorm is flaky. Even coming from an auther whom wrote the factually inaccurate book The World Is Flat.

Friedman nearly tops the "Bin Laden Scholars" op-ed with his latest opus.

I have no idea who is going to win the Democratic presidential nomination, but lately I’ve been wondering whether, if it is Barack Obama, he might want to consider keeping Dick Cheney on as his vice president.

Friedman once was a serious Middle Eastern journalist. The time has come to put him out to pasture. A twenty year-old blogger can write better columns than this drivel. Friedman isn't pushing interesting ideas or so great wordsmith that can get any with faulty arguments.

The New York Times op-ed section is New Orleans after Katrina. There is one disaster after the other. Maureen Dowd compared Hillary Clinton to a dominatrix. David Brooks wrote a highly dishonest defense of Ronald Reagan's Philadelphia, Mississippi campaign kickoff. The town is famous for the murders of three civil rights activists. Racists legally used state rights to block segregation. T

The paper of record can do better than this. There are sensential that could make The Times op-eds pages relevant again. The talent pool at The American Prospect and within the paper is a good place to start looking for replacements. The newest columnist is John Tierney. His writing is so bad it's good. Not qualities that should apply to Murderers' Row.

“When you hear politicians calling you an addict and warning that you'll be cut off, try my plan for energy independence…. After you fill up your tank, twist the rear-view mirror so you can gaze at yourself. Repeat these words: ‘I'm good enough, I'm rich enough, and doggone it, people in the Middle East like my money.’"

The above quoted text is reason why fewer people read newspaper op-ed sections.

Quote of the Day

Kevin Drum on the rumor that the New York Times is going to end TimesSelect. Only paid subscribers have been able to read the columnists online.

Can this be true? It would sure be nice to once again be able to mock Tom Friedman.....

Amen, brother.

Personally, I miss the unintentional comedy writing of John Tierney.

But Doggone It, the New York Times Columnist Love Paint Thinner

Greg Mitchell has an op-ed ripping into New York Times columnist John Tierney. He pulls a piece of Tierney's punditry that is truly priceless.

“When something finally comes along that's cheaper and more reliable than oil, no national energy plan will be necessary. Capitalists will be ready to sell it to eager American drivers. For now, the best strategy is to buy gasoline and stop worrying that it's sinful or dangerous.

“When you hear politicians calling you an addict and warning that you'll be cut off, try my plan for energy independence…. After you fill up your tank, twist the rear-view mirror so you can gaze at yourself. Repeat these words: ‘I'm good enough, I'm rich enough, and doggone it, people in the Middle East like my money.’"

When conservatives resort to quoting Stuart Smalley then you know we have an energy crisis.

The obvious problem is that Tierney refuses to criticize Republicans. For all of George Will's and Andrew Sullivan's faults, they can drop the hammer on a Trent Lott. Tierney is incapable of such a task.

In Tierney's defense, he still hasn't written anything as nutty as Thomas Friedman's brain fart idea for Osama bin Laden scholarships.

Maybe we could even call them the "Bin Laden Scholars." I sort of like the idea of bin Laden sitting in a dark cave somewhere, composing his latest nutty video message, and suddenly learning that all the reward money we were devoting to killing him will go instead to killing his ideas - and to bringing young Arabs and Muslims closer to America rather than pushing them farther away.

There isn't one politician in this country who would advocate for "Bin Laden Scholarship."

The funniest thing is people are paying $50 dollars a year for this punditry.