ok, back into the kristol.the public editor of the nyt, clark hoyt has a piece on the bill kristol hire. now first of all this piece irritates me with its inability to formulate a coherent opinion. yes or no? no. only yes. here's why he briefly says no:

On Fox News Sunday on June 25, 2006, Kristol said, “I think the attorney general has an absolute obligation to consider prosecution” of The New York Times for publishing an article that revealed a classified government program to sift the international banking transactions of thousands of Americans in a search for terrorists.

Publication of the article was controversial — my predecessor as public editor first supported it and then changed his mind — but Kristol’s leap to prosecution smacked of intimidation and disregard for both the First Amendment and the role of a free press in monitoring a government that has a long history of throwing the cloak of national security and classification over its activities. This is not a person I would have rewarded with a regular spot in front of arguably the most elite audience in the nation.

ok. deal with it. saying that a newspaper should be prosecuted is itself the expression of an opinion, not an act of censorship. i'm completely puzzled by the idea that this "smacks of intimidation." you mean bill kristol sounds angry enough to go on a shooting spree in the times newsroom? or maybe just that he'll make you look stupid. real stupid. and then there is pathetic pandering to the audience and the paper ("the most elite audience"). please, man. maybe we're complaining about the wrong guy; this hoyt column is incoherent, cowardly in its wishywashiness, and cloying. christ, get someone who can think and write sharply.