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After O'Reilly turned down a challenge by Kristol to visit Darfur, where Shafer notes that
As Kristof readers know, he's such a frequent visitor to the Darfur slaughterhouse that he's purchased a time-share condominium there. I jest, of course, but there's something around the bend about Kristof's Darfur-instead-of-Christmas harping. Every journalist who chooses to report on Subject A receives critical mail and phone calls from folks who insist that the journalist should be reporting on Subject B if he thinks A is a problem. Kristof must think it's clever to stoop to a gambit that's beneath any self-respecting blogger.
Shafer's final admonition follows the obligatory kicking of O'Reilly in the shins for being so successful that his ratings rankle every liberal from toe to top. Then, after the bashing of Bill, Shafer observes the solipsistic autism that even bloggers fall into having its way with Kristol:
Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make a newspaper columnist. Most columnists start off with a bag full of ideas and endless energy. But the job begins to weigh on even the most talented journalist. He starts writing columns about columns he's written, about his kids, or about the deaths of relatives. He composes columns as open letters to world leaders—or writes from inside their heads. He quotes cab drivers. His columns become more assertion than argument. Finally, he starts picking silly, protracted fights with other media machers.
Kristof, a Times columnist since November 2001, can do better than this. If he's run out of gas, why doesn't he re-enlist as a reporter?
Good question, although once a columnist, it is hard to descend from the ex cathedra infallibility pedestal on Olympus to labor among ink-stained wretches who actually WORK for a living.
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