Kristol Kicks Off NYT Column

"Some of us would much prefer a non-liberal and non-Democratic administration," wrote William Kristol today in his first N YT column. I can see the jaws drop all over the Upper East Side

"We don’t want to increase the scope of the nanny state," he continued, "we don’t want to undo the good done by the appointments of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, and we really don’t want to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory in Iraq." Yes, NYT readers, there really are people out here west of the Hudson who feel that way. A lot of us.

Kristol's column will be a periodic thorn in the side of most NYT readers, who will be like inveterate speeders having to attend traffic school. They'll get lessons they don't want to get, but lessons that are nonetheless good, even life-saving, for them.

The subject of Kristol's writing today is Mike Huckabee, who he extols, but not to the point of endorsing him. He posits that Huckabee could win a match-up with Obama and points out that a Huckabee/Obama race is the one most likely to bring Bloomberg into the race, to the detriment of Obama.

In the end, he notes that Republicans spent most of 2007 underestimating Huckabee, and that the Dems may spend 2008 doing the same thing. Interestingly, that's exactly what NYT readers have been doing with conservatives -- underestimating our intelligence, our positions and our potential. Now that Kristol's in the hen house, it may just start to dawn on them that their underestimating has been "misunderestimating."

Or, more likely, they'll just go on being mad at Kristol, and at us, for daring to bring such stuff up.