NY Times dumps William Krystal onto the garbage heap of history

[Cyrano]

In truth, the NY Times itself is about to join that same garbage heap after kissing George W. Bush's ass, and printing his propaganda, for eight long miserable years. (They're losing money and can't find new financial backers or buyers.)

Today, at the end of Krystal's column, was a printed notice that it would be his last. There never should have been a first.

Krystal is an amiable man with a nice smile that makes all of us believe that he's not as bad as Rush Limbaugh. Actually, he's worse.

People such as Krystal, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Dick Cheney and many others, are the neocons who conned this country into invading Iraq. They are all drenched in the blood of hundreds of American soldiers and countless thousands of Iraqis.

So what was he doing as a columnist on the Op-Ed page of the NY Times?

I've been a Times reader since I was about 17 years old, and I really did agree that they were the "Paper of Record." In other words, if you read news in the Times, it was accurate. And if you read NY Times' Op-Eds, each columnist had a point of view. But no columnist, liberal or conservative, was permitted to outright lie -- until the past few years.

William Krystal has been on the Op-Ed page of the NY Times for only a year or two. But his lies and propaganda that they printed without so much as a footnote indicating the variety of untruths he was peddling, makes the NY Times an accomplice to those lies and propaganda.

Buh-bye, Krystal. And in the not to distant future, buh-bye NY Times. The absence of Krystal is a blessing. The absence of what was once one of the greatest papers in the world saddens me. The owners and editors who permitted the NY Times to fall so low are among the worst assassins in history. They've killed off what once was greatness.

[pennylane100]

1. It's about time.

Now lets work on getting rid of David Brooks.

[Cyrano]

4. Brooks is a conservative with whom I almost always disagree

However, he seems to have a grasp on some semblance of reality.

I don't specifically recall any of his columns in which he was writing outright lies. He was writing opinions with which most of us here on DU disagree. And he has every right to do so.

William Safire was a conservative NY Times Op-Ed columnist for many years. I rarely agreed with his point of view, but he was someone with whom I could agree to disagree. I put Brooks into that same category.

Krystal, on the other hand, was/is a bald faced, lying propagandist. The day his first column appeared is the day I canceled my NY Times subscription.

[Rageneau]

9. I think Safire was just as bad as the rest of them.

I don't agree with the respect you have for William Safire. IMHO, he was as big a wingnut as the rest of them, and was worse than most, influence-wise, because he was 'respected.' He frequently suppressed his honesty in order to carry water for the same ones Rush Limbaugh carries water for.

How else can one view Safire's labeling of Hillary Clinton as a 'congenital liar?'

Hillary is NOT a liar, congenital or otherwise. Safire knew that, but he said it anyway -- shouted it again and again from his national platform -- solely for the perjorative effect. I can't summon up any respect for anyone who would do something like that.

[ShortnFiery]

16. Yes, neither Brooks nor his editors were aware that Applebees does NOT have "a salad bar"

Right wing political elites? Indeed! :evilgrin:

[Cyrano]

22. Applebees doesn't have a salad bar?

[ShortnFiery]

29. Oh Brother!

Simply, "NO!"

Forgive me but it's my belief that most middle-income people with kids in the urban areas sort of KNOW this fact. ;)

Brooks made a snide comment with words to the effect that "Obama would not be comfortable at an Applebee's Salad Bar."

Thus, the impetus for my smart ass quip above.

[Cyrano]

33. I was kidding you

I know that Applebees doesn't have a salad bar. But you have to admit that they have a great wine cellar.

[ShortnFiery]

44. Oh, my bad ... nevermind.

:blush:

[tavalon]

81. Applebees are baptist and I had enough of that as a kid

I'm middle class and I couldn't have answered that question. I won't darken their door and ask the same of them.

[Kolesar]

84. Bad menu for a vegetarian, too.

I have been there once since 2004.

[Stephanie]

36. Here's one >

His attempt to take the heat off PNAC:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=998284

[EFerrari]

50. Brooks called Iraq Bush's epic gamble.

He's an idiot. It was no gamble for the presidential cronies.

[Captain Hilts]

54. He steps off the reservation often enough that I will read him. nt

[L0oniX]

47. ..and the WP major asscarrot ---> Krauthammer

[Captain Hilts]

55. Actually GWB's former speechwriter, Michael Gerson is more repugnant on the WP op ed page. nt

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Hallelujah... one less outlet for this propaganda meister

[Idealism]

3. I wonder if he will start writting more PNAC press releases again

in between FOX news commentaries and WSJ guest op-eds.

[bushmeister0]

5. I smell a new NPR guest commentator spot opening up.

Daniel Schorr is ready for retirement. Bill can move right in. Perfect. Neocon radio is on the air.

[Cyrano]

8. I doubt it. NPR is dependent on gov't funding. Do you really believe

a Dem controlled congress is not going to go out of their way to keep Krystal from being "a new Daniel Schorr."

That aside, Daniel Schoor is a real journalist. Krystal is a propagandist. I don't have the statistics, but my guess is that very few dittoheads listen to NPR. It's my belief that most NPR listeners/supporters/contributors are people who think.

I wonder how many people would just turn their backs on NPR were they to hire someone like Krystal?

[bushmeister0]

32. Have you listened to NPR lately?

Just last week ATC had John Bilinger on, Condi's legal advisor (the guy who twisted Lord Goldsmith's arm to change his legal advise on invading Iraq) to discuss Obama's plan to shut down Gitmo; On TOTN they had Douglas Feith (DOUGLAS FEITH) on to discuss whether the US should be the world's policeman, of all things! He naturally went on about what a humanitarian project the Iraq invasion was and got not the slightest challenge from the host Neal Conan, and on their inaugural coverage they had the Weekly Standard's Matt Continenti on who, naturally, found Obama's speech uninteresting.

Note this FAIR study from 2003.

"Looking at partisan sources—including government officials, party officials, campaign workers and consultants—Republicans outnumbered Democrats by more than 3 to 2 (61 percent to 38 percent). A majority of Republican sources when the GOP controls the White House and Congress may not be surprising, but Republicans held a similar though slightly smaller edge (57 percent to 42 percent) in 1993, when Clinton was president and Democrats controlled both houses of Congress."

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1180

It's just gotten worse since. Now, it's all neocons all the time at NPR.

When NPR has Kenneth "cakewalk" Adelman on to relate his found rememberances about Jeane Kirkpatrick, you know the fix is in.

[L0oniX]

48. National Petroleum Radio ..is what one of my friends call it.

[Kolesar]

83. In 2003, NPR was intimidated by bush and Kenneth Tomlinson,

...the installed head of public broadcasting. Bush* and Tomlinson have been tossed.

NPR's programming has improved very much since 2003, so I would say the FAIR article is out of date.

[Kahuna]

6. You get a K&R from me!

:thumbsup:

[BirminghamExaminer]

75. dumb question

I'm new here. What is a K&R? I've seen that mentioned in several places. Thanks.

Karen

[HCE SuiGeneris]

76. Here's some help

in deciphering the DU lingo... http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_oet&address=358x190

Welcome!

[rainy]

7. He was always so wrong about everything. I was surprised that

he was given a voice after all the screw ups he made.

[Winterblues]

12. It would appear the more wrong a pundit is the more time they are allowed.

Gingrich, Graham, Bennett, Tucker Carlson, Limbaugh, the list goes on and on..:shrug:

[closeupready]

27. You forgot Friedman in that list...

:rofl:

[xxqqqzme]

39. add buchanan

to that list. How that bigot gets so much air time is a mystery to me.

[Cyrano]

40. Well, as much contempt as I have for Buchanan, I give him credit for

finally giving up his annual parties honoring Hitler's birthday.

But on a more serious note, I must agree with you. Buchanan's bigotry and hate-filled screeds have a long, on-air history.

One of the best put downs of this pig/man was Molly Ivins quip about Buchanan's speech at the 1992 Republican convention. He gave a hate-filled diatribe which might very well have contributed to Bill Clinton's winning that election.

Molly's comment about Buchanan's speech was that "It sounded better in the original German." You've just gotta' love her -- and miss her so very much.

[devilgrrl]

10. Kind of OT, but I'm sick of newpapers printing LTTE's filled blantant lies

eom

[Subdivisions]

11. Neverminding Kristol, I posted about a month ago that NYT

may go down. They had a loan payment due that they weren't expected to be able to meet. I hope, with their dying breath, that they spills some the beans they've been collecting as bushco shills. A fella can dream, can't he?

[MadMaddie]

68. If printing the dirt on * will save their paper they will do it!

It is always about the money!!

[Richard Steele]

13. K&R

[cali]

14. AARGH. The NYT did NOT kiss bush's ass for 8 years

With the exception of the Miller bullshit, no MSM outlet was even close to as critical of bush as the NYT. I'm so fucking sick of that stupid ass lie.

And the reason the NYT is in financial trouble, is the reason that ALL newspapers are in financial difficulty- people are reading less.

Your post is nearly 100% bullshit.

[donco6]

26. I dunno - they look pretty puckered to me.

Thomas Friedman
Bill Kristol
David Brooks
Rowland Evans

Blecccchhh.

And you can hardly deny that the Grey Lady's standards have slipped quite a number of times over the past 8 years.

[cali]

37. LOL. You don't read the NYT and you know jackshit about it.

pisses me off when people try to fake knowledge. Guess what? Not only did Evans never write for the NYT, he's been dead for nearly a decade. Thomas Friedman, much as I often disagree with him, is not really a conservative- read his column today which is highly critical of Israel. Yes, he supported the Iraq War, and yes he's often a pompous ass- but then most public intellectuals are. David Brooks is hardly representative of the right- call him right-lite. And Kristol lasted all of one year.

Let's list some more names: Frank Rich, Paul Krugman, Gail Collins, Maureen Dowd, Brent Staples, Nick Kristof. Not to mention the hundreds of editorials that slammed bushco over the past 8 years.

yes, the NYT screws up, and they've screwed up badly, but losing the NYT would be terrible.

[donco6]

66. Nah. No great loss.

They've dug their own grave. Time for something better to take over. Good riddance.

[jakeXT]

82. They even mentioned Rove on page 20 something

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3708756

[Cyrano]

28. I agree with you that all newspapers are in trouble

Perhaps, three to five years from now, there will be no such thing as newspapers. Those who currently scoff at the internet are going to find themselves in a new world that frightens them, angers them, and that they can't comprehend.

Having said that, the "100% bullshit" accusation is unjustified and here's why. My problem with the NY Times, The Washington Post, and so many other "respectable" newspapers is not so much in what they printed over the past eight years, but in what they chose to ignore.

The NYT and the other "great papers" are part of the MSM we are always complaining about. Many of them are owned by giant corporations who have government contracts. But contracts or not, they all chose to ignore the countless, virtually daily, crimes committed by BushCo. The list is too long, but you know the drill: war crimes, torture, spying on Americans, shredding the Constitution, etc.

I really never believed the NY Times would go along with the non-reporting of reality. But take a good look back at the past eight years. For whatever reason, they became just one more "news" outlet pimping for Bush/Cheney and their mob. And in doing so, they destroyed their own reputation, spit on their own history, and disappointed so, so many of us.

[Captain Hilts]

56. They did in '99 and '00, but you are correct vis a vis the Iraq War. Very true. nt

[calimary]

15. I'd love to know the backstory on this.

Why they put an asshole with his Scrooge-Meets-Alice-in-Wonderland world view on the op-ed pages all the time - was beyond me. NOBODY there cared about his background, his abysmal track record about telling the truth, his wrong-headedness on all the points that really count, his revisionist history and economics, etc. He's PNAC and therefore not to be trusted.

And I wonder what finally got him removed. Somebody finally wake up over there? Somebody finally had a belly-full? Had it gotten too much to take - even for them???

Wonder who made the decision - and why? Anybody know?

[DainBramaged]

18. Someone at the NYT will spill the beans, you wait.

Maybe MoDo will.....

[Captain Hilts]

58. They obviously have a restraining order - or photographs - preventing MoDo from writing about Rice's

reference to Pres Bush at the NYT reception as "My husb...."

It must drive MoDo to drink.

[immoderate]

20. I think he had a one year contract -- and they just let it run out.

I don't think he was "fired," just expired.

--imm

[Lydia Leftcoast]

17. It was frequently noted in the "comments" section of the online edition of the NYT

that William Kristol had never been right about ANYTHING.

[The Wielding Truth]

19. YAY!!! Goodbye to another propagandist!

[lurky]

21. For all its flaws, the NYT is the closest thing we have to

a serious newspaper in this country. If it went away, where would we go, the Wall Street Journal? USA Today? Washington Post?

[Cyrano]

31. See post #28 above

[MADem]

23. Their publisher should have stuck to his knitting, and not fiddled around with

illicit romances and oddball adventures, while pandering to the party in power and forgetting that truth isn't negotiable.

The paper has been going to shit for a long time--they aren't a "paper" anymore, they are a conglomeration. They reproduce their vapid crap across the land, and in diluting it, they make it suck even more, if such a thing were possible.

[Jack Rabbit]

24. You have Kristol nailed

There are two ways to tell if a neoconservative is lying:

1. His lips are moving;
2. There is verbiage under his by-line.

Kristol is a classic neoconservative. There's a need to maintain a national myth and no need to tell the unwashed masses the truth. That's a formula taken from Leo Strauss, and Strauss took it straight from Plato. Plato, too, had his dark side.

The myth that was maintained by the neocons (I think we can talk about them in past tense now) is that America is a righteous and generous nation that has the will and power to spread the blessings of liberty throughout the world; the truth is that the invasion of Iraq was an imperialist war for Iraq's natural resources and just as much a war against the Iraqi people as against Saddam Hussein. It was grand theft: nation.

Plato thought that such a civic myth was a check against tyranny, which he also thought was the form of government that naturally followed democracy. The common people, he said, had no time or inclination to learn philosophy (i.e., formal reasoning). We, as democrats, must take it as an article of faith that Plato was wrong. The Truth will set everybody free, including Joe Sixpack and, yes, even Sarah Palin if she chose to learn it and apply it.

The Wall Street bankers and oil company executives who led us down the primrose path with lies about the goodness of a Pax Americana or the self-correcting nature of an unregulated free market are no less tyrants than the demagogues of Athenian democracy Plato attacked. They were set to expropriate the natural resources that belonged to the Iraqi people and the personal wealth that belonged to average Americans. What was so sustainable about home ownership when the home owner's job was shipped to India or Mexico? A few less priests of this false creed and a few more common people who are able to apply formal reasoning to matters of public interest is what is needed.

William Kristol, the high priest of the false creed of neoconservatism and voodoo economics, can now sit down and shut up.

[ihavenobias]

30. Well said.

It's disheartening often times, the lack of intellectual curiosity in the masses. Still, often times people *will* embrace logic and knowledge IF it's presented correctly and they understand why they should.

Of course that's easier said than done, but still.

[Jack Rabbit]

35. Basic Aristotelian logic is very easy to learn

It's actually easier to grasp than geometry or algebra, which is the way we yanks teach formal reasoning to high school students.

That fact that we use mathematics to teach formal reasoning rather than a linguistic-based system of logic probably goes a long ways in explaining how a country that can put a man on the moon can also elect Ronald Reagan president.

Aristotelian logic should be taught in elementary schools.

[Art_from_Ark]

67. I don't think you can write off the neocons so easily

They have a tendency to come back to life like Freddie Kruger and Jason.

To wit:
Johnson's trouncing of Goldwater in 1964 was supposed to have nailed the neocon coffin shut. Instead, Nixon won 4 years later, and Goldwater is now seen as a moderate by today's standards.

Carter's defeat of Ford in 1976 was seen as the beginning of a new direction for the country after the Nixon scandals and Ford's ineptness. Four years later, we get stuck with Reagan and then bu$h 1 for the next 12 years.

The peace and prosperity of the Clinton years should have been enough to ensure Al Gore a clear victory in 2000. Instead, people got their knickers in a knot over Clinton lying about a blow job with a consenting female adult, and Al Gore being "stiff" and wearing "earth tone" clothes. That, coupled with all the shenanigans that occurred in Florida and elsewhere, ended up sticking us with the most ignorant and unqualified person ever to occupy the White House in anyone's living memory. But he was a neocon's wet dream, and he got most of their agenda passed with barely a whimper from the "loyal opposition".

[Jack Rabbit]

78. Their only chance of coming back is if Obama fails

You really can't talk of Goldwater being a neoconservative, although he may be an inspiration for some of their ideas. Neoconservatism is for the most part a post-Cold War phenomenon, based on the idea that America is the world's only superpower and that it should use that power to dominate other nations in every facet of that power and severely punish those that resist domination.

For now, that seems to be in the trash heap of history. Given the magnitude of the Frat Boy's failures, Obama would have to be pretty abject before the American people vote for a return to neoconservatism. Things could change, but right now I don't see any Republican on the horizon who could beat Obama in 2012 as long as the economy sees some improvement.

On the other hand, Reagan was one of the weakest candidates the GOP could have put up in 1980. He was the best known, and therein laid his problem: he scared a lot of people, and rightly so. Nevertheless, what we must face is the simple fact that Jimmy Carter didn't cut the mustard as president. The Republicans rewrote history in 1980 to give the impression that Ford handed a robust economy to Carter, who then ruined it. That's not what happened, but pleading the truth wouldn't have helped Carter that much. He inherited a bad economy and failed to do anything effective to improve it; in fact, things actually got a little worse under Carter. In beat Carter handily; I think any other Republican would have beaten Carter even more easily.

As you say, the peace and prosperity of the nineties should have been enough to assure Al Gore of victory in 2000. Even with a severe case of Clinton fatigue, Gore won the election. It was the Supreme Court's interference in the matter that allowed Bush to usurp power. The rest is a bloody page of world history.

[lunatica]

25. Help! I'm getting overloaded on all this good news!

Good news every single day? Can we take it?

[Stephanie]

34. If they fire David Brooks too maybe I'll subscribe again

Not until then, though.

[Cyrano]

45. I'll never subscribe again.

I stopped my subscription because of Krystal.

However, I was only subscribing to the Sunday edition which was somewhere about $5 a week. That adds up to $260 a year.

$260 A YEAR??? FOR THE SUNDAY PAPER???

Newspapers have historically made most of their income off of advertisers. Today, advertisers are more likely to use the internet. So the price of papers has gone up to an amount that only a fool or a wealthy person would pay.

I miss my printed version of the Sunday NY Times. But given where our economy is today, $260 barely covers a minor car repair.

My guess is that within the next few years, newspapers will cease to exist and we will all be getting our news (and Sunday Times crossword puzzles) online. And even my estimate of "the next few years" might be a bit generous.

[JackRiddler]

38. Poor Billy Krystal. I hope the NYT at least also gets rid of William Kristol.

[Liberal_in_LA]

41. I'm hoping Bill Krystal's legacy of the Iraq war sticks to him.

[Elidor]

42. He's been picked up by WaPo

Alas.

[Captain Hilts]

60. Please tell me you're kidding. We have Gerson and Kathleen Parker as the latest hires. Ugh!

[Cha]

43. Freakin' NYT backed the wrong bloody horse.

They went for propaganda instead of facts and this news must mean..there are a lot of people out there who don't think enough of them to buy their paper.

[Cyrano]

46. I think that they're initial hiring of him was a move of desperation

Newspapers are dying. They're being killed by the availability of news on the internet. Who's going to pay $260 a year for a print version of (only) the Sunday New York Times, when you can read what you want online for nothing?

The world is changing faster every day.

[Cha]

51. Yes, but, I'm talking about

the way they pushed to War On IRaq via judy miller.

[Cyrano]

52. I know. Read some of the posts up near the top this thread

My biggest problem was not what they printed, but everything they didn't print and let BushCo get away with for eight years.

I feel so betrayed by the NY Times, that it's going to be hard to ever again place trust in anyone or anything.

[Cha]

59. Exactly...It was worse

than shoddy reporting and they used to be the best.

[blogslut]

49. Best thing I've heard all day

Of course, he's still employed elsewhere but it's a start!

[Captain Hilts]

53. Tierney, MoDo's ex also got dumped from the op-ed page. nt

[Cyrano]

61. Who is her ex?

[marmar]

57. They should never have picked him up from the clearance rack to begin with....

n/t

[mantis49]

62. Actually, it's "Kristol" n/t

[Cyrano]

63. Damn, now you tell me. My bad.

[DCKit]

64. I haven't seen a week filled with such good news in many, many years.

K&R, and thanks for posting this. Hopefully, *nobody* will remember how to spell "Kristol" in a few years.

[pleah]

65. K&R HAHAHAHAHAHHAHA!

:rofl:

[fishwax]

69. it's about time

[cynatnite]

70. I just read this....ROFL! n/t

[NoSheep]

71. we must go to the nyt site and thank them!

[CLANG]

72. Isn't it William Kristol ?

If it is, good riddance - the guys a jackass nincompoop boob

[joeunderdog]

73. Colbert humiliated him.

"Hmmmm...Project for the New American Centure. How's that new century goin' for ya?" All the guy could do is stutter and Colbert just kept hitting him.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[11 Bravo]

74. The least you could do is to spell the poor, silly, fired, dickhead's name correctly!

It's "Kristol".

[Lasher]

77. They should have never published his crap in the first place.

Neocons like Kristol are pure evil. From a comfortable distance they work their sinister deeds to further dreams of world conquest against innocents, at the hands of other peoples' sons and daughters. If David Duke or Charles Manson had been columnists it would have been no worse.

Edit: The Washington Post just hired this jackass to do a monthly column.

William Kristol, the conservative columnist, and The New York Times have quietly ended their relationship after little more than a year, the newspaper said on Monday.

A single sentence printed below Mr. Kristol’s weekly column in the Monday issue broke the news: “This is William Kristol’s last column.” His column itself made no reference to his departure, and the paper did not release a statement.

Also Monday, The Washington Post announced that it had hired Mr. Kristol to write a monthly column and contribute to its opinion blog, PostPartisan.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/business/media/27kristol.html?_r=1&scp=4&sq=kristol&st=cse

[Number23]

79. WashPost says Kristol is the one who severed ties

And that's only 'cause he's going to write for THEM.

"Kristol Severs Ties With the N.Y. Times"

Still kicking and rec'ing for the good news that he won't be at NYTimes anymore..

[sfpcjock]

80. Krystalnacht ist vorbei - it's over, peeps

Endlich (finally)! :bounce: