In the wake of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright scandal, and Obama's claim that, though he has been a member of the church for almost 20 years, he was never present for any of Wright's more controversial sermons, the hunt is on in right-wing and pro-Clinton circles to find some proof of Obama's attendance for one of these particular sermons.

Today, Billy Kristol used his weekly NYT column to proclaim he had found the very evidence everyone has been looking for:

"For one thing, it’s becoming clear that Obama has been less than candid in addressing his relationship to his pastor, Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ.  For example, Obama claimed Friday that “the statements that Rev. Wright made that are the cause of this controversy were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity.”

"But Ronald Kessler, a journalist who has written about Wright’s ministry, claims that Obama was in fact in the pews at Trinity last July 22.  That’s when Wright blamed the 'arrogance' of the “United States of White America” for much of the world’s suffering, especially the oppression of blacks."

Only problem with this was, Kristol opened his column with the following note:

In this column, I cite a report that Sen. Obama had attended services at Trinity Church on July 22, 2007.  The Obama campaign has provided information showing that Senator Obama did not attend Trinity that day.  I regret the error.

Never mind that William Kristol was allowed by the editors to post the column in the first place, despite the fact that the Obama campaign informed the NYT yesterday that he had been in Miami, not Chicago, on July 22nd, and proved it by providing his speaking schedule from that day, as well as video of him speaking then in Miami.  Never mind that Kristol at least deigned to "regret the error" with his disavowal of the "evidence" posted at the start.

Why is this piece still on the New York Times website?  And if it must, for whatever reason, still exist on the site, why on earth does it still include the verifiably false Kessler claim?  What major newspaper prints a correction outside the body of the piece, and leaves the falsehoods intact? 

I mean, all it would take are one of two things: dump a column based on a lie, or extract the lie, and see if the column can stand on its own.  I have read countless news and opinion pieces online over the years with corrections noted at the end or beginning of the piece.  What these writings all had in common was that the correction noted was then actually corrected in the piece. 

Isn't that the beauty of online news: that it can be easily updated and corrected without the hassle of issuing after-the-fact corrections, or in egregious cases, reprints?

I have never once read a column that essentially started with the disclaimer, "You're going to see some serious-ass bullshit in the Op-Ed you're about to read.  We're not going to remove the bullshit, mind you.  But we just wanted you to know: it's all lies.  Here you go!"

William Kristol started his NYT weekly at the beginning of 2008.  His column has been a justifiable target of ridicule from both the left and right ever since.  Whether he is making up his own "facts", or offering terribly misplaced predictions, or just tossing out really lazy writing, he is consistently the worst columnist at any major American paper. 

It must be obvious by now to Kristol that he is simply a bad fit at the New York Times.  Whether that has become clear to editor Bill Keller is anyone's guess.