Read James Fallows on the breathtaking banality of William Kristol's writing. Sadly, this was entirely predictable. Kristol, whatever his talents, is not known for writing, well, anything. He occasionally pens an editor's note in the beginning of The Weekly Standard. He occasionally writes a hilariously wrong op-ed in The Washington Post. He spent most of this year underperforming in a regular column at Time, from which he was eventually dropped. This is what I was getting at in my post asking which conservative you would have elevated to the op-ed page. You guys suggested a variety of smart picks: Ramesh Ponnuru, Ross Douthat, Rich Brookhiser, Tyler Cowen, Bruce Bartlett, Radley Balko, and a handful more. I'd add to that list Nick Gillespie, James Manzi, Brink Lindsey, John Miller, Daniel Drezner, Damon Linker, Christopher Preble, etc, etc. What's offensive, to me, isn't even the spectacle of the The New York Times exhibiting such insecurity that they need to hire a flagrantly wrong, technically untalented, and ideologically ugly writer for their op-ed page -- it's being so unimaginative, so contemptuous of the best-world worth of conservatism, as to pick Kristol. I would like to read more smart, interesting, conservatives. If the Times is going to insist on packing that spot with a conservative, rather than an actual leftist (which, let's be clear, they don't have), I would like a thought-provoking conservative. But Kristol was merely the nearest right-winger at hand with enough conservative fame to act as an instant shield in conversations about the Times' ideological leanings. They picked him for cover, rather than for their reader's edification, and in doing, they served us very poorly.
