So The NYT Hires Bill Kristol, and We're Intolerant?

Bill Kristol, the new conservative crown jewel of the New York Times ' opinion squad, responded over the weekend to the criticism surrounding his hire. He said it was "amusing" to watch liberal bloggers -- hey, we're more or less that! -- have their "heads explode." Indeed, nothing casually amuses Bill Kristol more than heads exploding, particularly brown ones. Slightly more surprising, however, was the holier-than-thou defense by NYT opinion editor Andrew Rosenthal. My stars, what a self-righteous, harmless-but-slappy little man! He's just like Frank Rich, but with a few extra tablespoons of Wrong.

It's because the liberal bloggers are racist, or something (from Politico ):

Rosenthal told Politico shortly after the official announcement Saturday that he fails to understand "this weird fear of opposing views."

"The idea that The New York Times is giving voice to a guy who is a serious, respected conservative intellectual -- and somehow that's a bad thing," Rosenthal added. "How intolerant is that?"

Hey, quick question for Andrew Rosenthal: Are you comfortable, sir? You know, on that pedestal of yours?

Oh oh and a follow-up: Did you really call Bill Kristol a "serious, respected conservative intellectual"? Because that's -- I know, tough call -- that's really where I guess we differ. Kristol's been getting away with his thuggish opinions for a while because of this perceived intelligence of his. But he's not so much smart as he is well-educated and able to write crisp sentences. The man's staked the last decade plus of his career actively pushing for Iraq to be invaded, then getting his wish, and now defending his utter wrongness on its likelihood and execution with that shit-eating grin. As if the fact that the Sunnis and Shiites didn't hugnkiss in open arms when Saddam fell (as he predicted), but instead killed the crap out of each other, is only an adorable miscalc that the spirit of Ronald Reagan's cock will amend in the long run.

So no, Andrew Rosenthal, we love balanced op-ed pages. But Kristol's the worst neocon out there, and a hack, one who's been consistently wrong on consistently more important issues, with lots of death and stuff as a result, and you've just given him a pretty damn huge platform for the sake of your stockholders. Maybe the secret plan is to expose his idiocy on a national stage, but you know, not hiring him at all would also work. Either way, I'll continue to not read the NYT columnists, cuz I mean whatever, boring.

 Times defends hiring conservative Kristol [Politico]