"All good things must come to an end" is the start of his New York Times essay today, which concludes with an editor's note: This is William Kristol’s last column.
The subject of the piece is not the writer's tenure:
"Since Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980, conservatives of various sorts, and conservatisms of various stripes, have generally been in the ascendancy. And a good thing, too! Conservatives have been right more often than not--and more often than liberals--about most of the important issues of the day: about Communism and jihadism, crime and welfare, education and the family. Conservative policies have on the whole worked--insofar as any set of policies can be said to 'work' in the real world. Conservatives of the Reagan-Bush-Gingrich-Bush years have a fair amount to be proud of."
It's fitting for Kristol to go out on a high note of error. klutzy writing and self-delusion, but apparently the market for his kind of babbling is not entirely dead. He came to the Times after a stint with Time, and now there are reports that the Washington Post, apparently suffering from a lack of wrong-headedness not completely satisfied by Charles Krauthammer and Michael Gerson, will avail themselves of Kristol's wisdom occasionally.
Whatever. The Times' next move should be to go after an elegant conservative like Peggy Noonan to go with their other literate columnists.
Fellow conservative Grover Norquist said he wanted to shrink government small enough to "drown it in a bathtub." Kristol's team didn't do that, but they made a few people very rich and created a mess apparently only big government can address.
ReplyDeleteDon't slip in the tub, fellas.