Bill Kristol: Payola Pundit Skewered

Today I commented on an essay by Anonymous Liberal (AL) at the blog site "Unclaimed Territory" - by Glenn Greenwald. In it AL discredited Bill Kristol's past commentaries, and questioned Time Magazine's hiring of Kristol as a "Pundit Superstar". Here's one of a long list of examples of how Kristol consistently gets it wrong:

"On March 17, 2003, on the eve of our invasion of Iraq, Bill Kristol wrote the following:

"We are tempted to comment, in these last days before the war, on the U.N., and the French, and the Democrats. But the war itself will clarify who was right and who was wrong about weapons of mass destruction. It will reveal the aspirations of the people of Iraq, and expose the truth about Saddam's regime. It will produce whatever effects it will produce on neighboring countries and on the broader war on terror. We would note now that even the threat of war against Saddam seems to be encouraging stirrings toward political reform in Iran and Saudi Arabia, and a measure of cooperation in the war against al Qaeda from other governments in the region. It turns out it really is better to be respected and feared than to be thought to share, with exquisite sensitivity, other people's pain. History and reality are about to weigh in, and we are inclined simply to let them render their verdicts."

MY COMMENT:

Payola Pundits

And to think that Kristol is just one of many got-it-wrong payola pundits. Some FCC licenses should be revoked.

Write a Letter to the Editor letters@time.com

Or call/FAX:
Phone: 212-522-1212
Fax: 212-522-0323

This is just one more example of The Discredited American Political Elite to which I add the corporate media, and propose some remedies.... starting with a letter to Time Inc.

letter to Time:

TO: letters@time.com

To Time Inc.

It is well documented that the major media outlets are employing comentators who are discredited, while preventing better qualified individuals from having access. This growing body of documentation puts you at risk with your investors,.

One of many examples of this, which applies to Time Magazine, is documented in an essay available at http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/ 01/02/07, entitled "Bill Kirstol - Pundit Superstar."

I reject the predictable counter-argument that the matters to which Kristol speaks are too complex to analyze with accuracy. There are many people who consistently provide insightful predictions of events who are prevented from appearing in commercial media, in great part because it is commercial. This is well documented by academics like Robert McChesney of the Univeristy of Illinois. It is also documented, as relates to the oligopolistic cable industry, in "Cable News Confidential" by the founder of Fair and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) founder Jeff Cohen.

I'm asking that you reconsider your contract with Bill Kristol and that you hire comentators that have a better record of getting it right, like former weapons inspector Scott Ritter.

Your failure to take this correspondence seriously could expose you to costly legal challenges of your corporate charter.

Sincerely,

- END -

As our Commander-in-Chief once said, "Bring them On"