Writing for The Daily Beast, Scott Hornton displays an incredible lack of understanding of the role of columnists compared to journalists.

In his latest column, “Palin’s Mole at The Times,” Hornton argues that Bill Kristol was instrumental in convincing Sen. John McCain and his most senior advisers to choose Gov. Sarah Palin as running mate and, Horton argues, Kristol used his column in the NYT too boost Palin’s image, to defend her when he considered doing so necessary and, even, to prepare Republican voters for a change of leadership: Kristol realized that this election would likely be lost and decided to improve Palin’s image so that she could become the party’s frontrunner for the presidential election 2012.

According to Hornton, Kristol had contact with McCain staffers such as Michael Goldfarb. McCainiacs, the Daily Beast blogger / columnist explains, came to greatly dislike Palin because, they felt, he worked against McCain’s interests in order to boost Palin’s chances for future success.

Horton finishes his column by arguing that the New York Times should fire Kristol for commenting on a campaign he was involved in to a degree.

As the title of this post indicates, Hornton’s main mistake is that he is seemingly unable to understand the role of a columnist. A columnist is not a journalist. He does not do “truth finding.” A columnist is an opinion-maker. He has an opinion, and he tries to influence public opinion by arguing his case as well as he can. If he believes that Palin should be the next leader of the Republican Party, he can use his columns to try to convince readers he’s right. If he has contacts in a campaign, he can still comment on it, as long as he words his opinion.

There are only two reasons a newspaper should consider firing a columnist: if he plagiarizes and if he purposefully lies to the public meaning when he pretends to have a certain opinion when, in fact, he does not.