Bill Kristol Not Going Over Well at the Times

Observer alumnus Gabe Sherman has a piece in The New Republic today that pins Arthur Sulzberger Jr. to Bill Kristol's hiring and how lots of current and former Times staffers aren't happy about it.

Mr. Sherman reports that Mr. Sulzberger and Andy Rosenthal went through lots of candidates--including Charles Krauthammer, The Atlantic's Ross Douthat, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations Max Boot and Weekly Standard editors Christopher Caldwell and Matthew Continetti--but that Mr. Sulzberger hired Mr. Kristol to make a splashy move similar to his father's decision to hire William Safire.

It hasn't gone over well. Not merely because of his politics, but because some think Kristol is "medicore," doesn't have "an original voice," and that his hawkish views on Iraq are drudging up bad memories of Judy Miller.

William Safire tells Mr. Sherman: "I saw the excellent piece that the public editor wrote the other day, and that pretty much tells the story." The public editor, Clark Hoyt, had written that he would not have hired Mr. Kristol.