There's some chatter onilne that Kristol's stay on the Times' Op-Ed page might not extend beyond one year, and that his contract might not be picked up for 2009.

If that's how it unfolds, how would Kristol's stint at the Times be remembered? We'll let Nora Ephron do the honors:

The man could not write his way out of a paper bag. His column was simply awful. Reading it was like watching someone dance on the head of a pin: his need to prove to his base that he hadn't gone over to the other side was so strong, his need to please his constituency was so moving, that I began to wish he would quit his job as editor of the Weekly Standard and become a Times columnist full-time. It was certainly not going to inconvenience him: the column couldn't have been taking him more than about twenty minutes to write. And it was great having him there, visible, so people like me could see what people like him were like. He was wrong about everything. It was such a comfort.