The NY Times Hires Bill Kristol And The Left Goes Wild

December 31, 2007 · Filed Under Liberal Bias, Liberals, Media, U.S. News

A day after the Huffington Post first reported it, The New York Times has announced that it has indeed hired conservative pundit, and Fox News analyst, Bill Kristol, as a new regular op-ed columnist.

I’m not sure what prompted The Times to finally make an attempt to balance out their egregiously left-wing Op-Ed section, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction.

Of course the epicenter of “free speech” (as long as it’s liberal free speech) known as the Far-Left Blogosphere is going wild at the news. Liberal bloggers are firing off angry letters threatening to cancel their subscriptions, and posting attacks on the editorial page editor of the Times, Andy Rosenthal.

Nothing outrages left-wingers more than not being able to shout-down or in someway silence opposing viewpoints. Just knowing that Bill Kristol’s words will actually be printed in the Times will simply render the paper unreadable going forward for some liberals.

What I find amusing is that Andy Rosenthal actually called out his fellow lefties for being the intolerant ideologues they are.

Times’ editorial page editor Andy Rosenthal defended the move. Rosenthal told Politico.com shortly after the official announcement Saturday that he fails to understand “this weird fear of opposing views….We have views on our op-ed page that are as hawkish or more so than Bill….

“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?”

Kristol was asked about the liberal uproar, and he said it gave him some pleasure to see their “heads explode.”

It really is wonderfully ironic that the party that almost daily accuses Republicans of being intolerant fascists, are themselves trying to crush any and all viewpoints that don’t line up with their “progressive ideology.”

We saw a similar uproar when Newsweek hired Karl Rove as a political commentator for the upcoming elections. What made that interesting is that Newsweek also hired Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas to give the other viewpoint.

So basically, Newsweek hired the most right-wing guy on the planet and the most left-wing guy on the planet to give a balanced commentary. Sounds pretty fair right?

Not to the left-wingers! They were outraged that Newsweek would dare to print the words of Karl Rove. It’s almost like liberals think they might be at risk of being converted to a Republican against their will if they accidentally read something Karl Rove or Bill Kristol writes.

I think far-left columnist Paul Krugman who writes for the Times might be the most dishonest and repugnant little weasel that has ever written an Op-Ed, but I don’t want to silence him. I think it’s important to understand the mindset and viewpoints of the opposition.

Why is it that liberals don’t share that philosophy?

-Chris Jones