Reply #31: Jane Smiley chimes in

[eridani]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-smiley/muddleheaded-fearmonge_b_79089.html

William Kristol is a man whose time has come and gone. There was a moment, in, say 2002, when some of his arguments sounded prudent, if not reasonable. Now, he only sounds crazy. NOTHING has turned out as Kristol said it would, and the process of finding this out has cost the American people a great deal, and not only money and lives. Why the New York Times would hire such a person boggles the mind to think of. The announcement even made no sense, pointing out, as it did, that "Mr. Kristol, 55, has been a fierce critic of the Times. In 2006, he said that the government should consider prosecuting the Times for disclosing a secret government program to track international banking transactions. In a 2003 column on the turmoil within the Times that led to the downfall of the top two editors, he wrote that it was not 'a first-rate newspaper of record,' adding, 'the Times is irredeemable.'" Why would the Times hire such a person? Stockholm Syndrome? Some kind if inside-the-beltway joke? An attempt to lure that bloc of American newspaper readers who listen to Rush Limbaugh? Earth to Times! Maybe they can't read!

Day after day, I read the letters to the editor column. After almost every column by David Brooks, I am struck by how few readers agree with a single thing he says, how many cogently disagree with him. Judging by the letters column, readers of the Times are liberal to moderate, and, most importantly, they have a well-developed sense of decency and responsibility. Has the Times now decided just to stick it to us, willy nilly, by giving Kristol a platform and a paycheck? Who's next, A--- C---, who suggested that the Times building be bombed? Even the Times editors themselves, in an editorial printed yesterday, lament that the U.S. has become unrecognisably lawless and inhumane. Earth to Times! William Kristol is as much to blame for this as anyone on the planet!

So, as of next Monday, the Times feed disappears from my home page, and when I get that 1-111-111-1111 number on my caller I.D., the one that reveals how the Times really thinks of itself, I won't pick up. When they send me the money they owe me for my piece, I will divide it between a charity that benefits Iraq veterans and one that benefits displaced Iraqis. You would have thought that remorse for the Judith Miller debacle would have taught them something, but clearly not. Sadly not.