Bill Kristol's Op-Ed Column: The New York Times's Gain is the Washington Post's Loss

After a year, neocon king Bill Kristol gets booted from his weekly column at the New York Times, and returns for a monthly one at the Washington Post.

While the Times' Andrew Rosenthal says the decision for Kristol to leave the paper was mutual, Scott Horton at the Daily Beast says it was a canning in an anoymously sourced piece, not for his ideology but because of sloppiness and, maybe even worse, disloyalty to his employer:

….he might still have survived as a columnist had it not been for an attitude of casual and reflexive disloyalty he publicly displayed towards The Times itself. A good example came in an appearance with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show on October 30. Here's the way Editor and Publisher described it:

"Appearing once again on The Daily Show, Bill Kristol, Jon Stewart's favorite whipping boy ('Bill Kristol, aren't you ever right?'), on Thursday night defended the McCain-Palin ticket, at one point informing the show's host that he was getting his news from suspect sources. 'You're reading The New York Times too much,' he declared. 'Bill, you WORK for The New York Times!' Stewart pointed out."

That, apparently, was the last straw for the Gray Lady.

Radley Balko's apt comment upon Kristol getting the Times gig: "Failing Upward," for the man who saw the Bush administration as "probably" successful as late as 2007. This time it's failing sideways, I guess. Politico wonders on who should fill the neocon slot at the Times.