JOB SECURITY FOR THE PERPETUALLY WRONG…. We learned this morning that the New York Times is finally letting go of Bill Kristol, who wrote his final column for the paper today. What we didn’t know is where Kristol is headed.
Keep his career trajectory in mind. Kristol, in 2007, wrote misguided, predictable, and dull columns for Time magazine. When Time fired him, the New York Times decided he’d be a great addition to its stable of columnists. Now, after a year of misguided, predictable, and dull columns, the New York Times has fired him, and … wait for it … the Washington Post is ready to pick him up.
By way of Ben Armbruster, we see that the Politico‘s Mike Allen reports:
Progressives will delight when they get to the italic note at the end of Bill Kristol’s column in The Times today say, “This is William Kristol’s last column.” His one-year contract was up. Sources tell Playbook that he’s now beginning a monthly column in THE WASHINGTON POST.
It’s extraordinary to see the job security someone like Kristol enjoys, beyond his already-prominent roles running the Weekly Standard and serving as an analyst for Fox News.
In any other field, outside of conservative political commentary, Kristol’s record would be nothing short of humiliating. He’s been wrong, not only in his predictions — you’ll notice, for example, that John McCain was not inaugurated last week — but in his analysis of most policy issues. And perhaps more importantly, as we discussed this morning, Kristol has a nasty habit of publishing columns with demonstrable, easy-to-notice factual errors, which the NYT had to run a series of corrections to address.
In what universe does the nation’s second most prominent newspaper decide it wants to pay and publish the failed cast-off of its chief rival?
In most careers, falling up isn’t this easy. If you keep getting fired for poor performance, it’s usually difficult to find new companies willing to pay you to do the same job.
Kristol has obviously developed quite a racket. Nice work if you can get it.
Update: Kristol confirms to Michael Calderone that he will, in fact, be an “occasional contributor” to a Washington Post feature called,”Post Partisan.”
