In today’s NYT, A Living-Room Crusade via Blogging

And yet Ms. Novak has become so well known in Yemen that newspaper editors say they sell more copies if her photograph - blond and smiling - is on the cover. Her blog, an outspoken news bulletin on Yemeni affairs, is banned there. The government’s allies routinely vilify her in print as an American agent, a Shiite monarchist, a member of Al Qaeda, or “the Zionist Novak.”The worst of her many offenses is her dogged campaign on behalf of a Yemeni journalist, Abdul Karim al-Khaiwani, who incurred his government’s wrath by writing about a bloody rebellion in the far north of the country. He is on trial on sedition charges that could bring the death penalty, with a verdict expected Wednesday.

I have the honor of having met Jane and regard her as a friend.

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After word came out that Bill Kristol - the neoconservative commentator - would become a columnist for the New York Times the blogosphere erupted. It didn’t take long until liberal bloggers started blasting the Times for its decision.

Of course, many of our open-minded (and foul-mouthed) liberal friends argue that it’s not about him being a neoconservative - no - it’s about him being wrong on many issues. And what was he wrong about? Why do they hate him with such a passion? That’s right, because he supported the war against Iraq and continues to support it. (more…)

In what will probably cause quite a controversy, the New York Times is set to announce that neoconservative Bill Kristol will have a weekly Times column in 08.

The Anonymous Liberal explains why the NYT decided to ask Kristol to become a columnist for them: “The key to reaching the pinnacle of your profession is, apparently, to be 1) catastrophically wrong about everything, 2) utterly unwilling to acknowledge error, 3) willing to repeatedly lie and mislead your readers, and 4) completely batshit crazy,” he writes. (more…)

New York Times editorial, November 17:

It has been two long months since Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, cowed Congressional Democrats into silence, championing President Bush’s misguided course on the war.

New York Times article, November 20:

The security improvements in most neighborhoods [in Baghdad] are real. Days now pass without a car bomb, after a high of 44 in the city in February. The number of bodies appearing on Baghdad’s streets has plummeted to about 5 a day, from as many as 35 eight months ago, and suicide bombings across Iraq fell to 16 in October, half the number of last summer and down sharply from a recent peak of 59 in March, the American military says.

By the Times’ logic, “President Bush’s misguided course on the war” has produced real “security improvements in most neighborhoods.”

Ahmed Yousef wrote an op-ed for the New York Times about the situation in Gaza. Strangely, Yousef defends Hamas - in the very first paragraph he explains why, according to him, Hamas’ take-over of Gaza was not a “coup.” At the very end of the op-ed all becomes clear: “Ahmed Yousef is the political adviser to Ismail Haniya, who became the Palestinian prime minister last year.”

Ah, that explains it then.

Lawhawk at A Blog For All says it all:

Let’s just ignore all the assassination attempts by Hamas on Fatah’s Abbas and other top leaders, both in Gaza and the West Bank. Let’s ignore the Hamas thugs throwing Fatah thugs off rooftops or executing them in hospitals or firing on crowds of Fatah thugs seeking to flee Gaza to Israel.

Hamas isn’t providing political stability. It’s enforcing its brand of law and order according to Islamist precepts. If you’re a member of Fatah, you’re toast. Law and order consists of Hamas thugs doing what they do best - cowing those without the guns into doing their bidding. As for getting basic services going, perhaps the Palestinians should consider using piping for sewage rather than rockets. As for the economics, perhaps they should consider growing agriculture in greenhouses instead of looting them and then using the remnants as rocket launching facilities or terror training camps.

LGF has a video up of “Ahmed Yousef in an appearance on Hizballah’s Al-Manar TV, explaining to the audience that Israel was behind the 9/11 attacks—just like the US was behind Pearl Harbor.” Part of the transcript:

These events were preceded by very detailed planning, conducted by strategists, who wove the strands of this plot. Some people were probably recruited, and, as has been pointed out by a certain Western intellectual, Israel excels in espionage within the US. and is capable of disguising many operations as Islamic. In other words, Israel is capable of penetrating certain Islamic circles, of directing and running them behind the scenes, so that they will conduct operations from which Israel benefits. Anyone who considers the events of 9/11 cannot say that the Muslims gained anything. There’s another dimension, which some people may have noticed. No one could have captured the pictures of the attack so perfectly except for the cameras in the hands of several Mossad agents, who were near the scene of events, and succeeded in filming this scenes so that it will always serve zionism to remind the world of the Arabs’ and Muslims’ crimes against America.

Yeah, definitely a good decision of the New York Times to print his column.