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Bad ideas

By tfk on January 14, 2008.

Times Public Editor:

Hiring Kristol the worst idea ever? I can think of many worse. Hanging someone from a lamppost to be beaten by a mob because of his ideas? … [I]t is not the end of the world.

Is this what American journalism is reduced to? Not being as bad as a lynch mob or Armageddon? C'mon Gray Lady, aim a bit higher. The Times Op-Ed page is some of the most valuable intellectual real estate in the world. Surely the measure of a columnist is not how few things could be worse than him, but how few columnists could be better.

For what it's worth, if I were the Times, I'd have given slacktivist the job. He's not conservative, but I don't see why that's the relevant factor. He's smart, he writes well, he has experience in journalism, and in a nation that's been divided on religious fault lines for decades (centuries, in point of fact), his coverage of the shifting tides of evangelical Christianity would bring useful insights to the readers of the New York Times. Plus, he isn't already bloviating on Fox News and in the editorial board of the Weekly Standard.

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Considering the presence of the moronic imbecile Maureen Dowd, I hardly think that the addition of Mr. Kristol will further reduce the prestige of the Times Editorial Page, which was already approaching absolute zero.