A former editor of the New Republic and Slate.com, Kinsley helped ring in an era of broadcast punditocracy by jousting with Pat Buchanan on "Crossfire" from 1989 to 1995. Estrich, who gained national stature by managing Michael Dukakis' presidential campaign in 1988, writes a nationally syndicated newspaper column and provides commentary on Fox Television.
Kinsley, 54, said the fight with Estrich has been a painful distraction from efforts he said the newspaper had already been making to bring more women to the op-ed pages.
"I was on the case already. And now you feel a little queasy about pushing for more women because you think you are being used and you are giving this jerk a victory," Kinsley said. "I have to force myself to sort of look beyond that and do what we were doing anyway."
Estrich, 52, apologized for raising the issue of Kinsley's health, saying she was only trying to "warn an old friend what was being said about him around town." She said that misstep should not be a distraction from her larger cause.
"The minute people begin to count the number of columns by women, [newspapers] can't begin to justify the outcome," she said in an interview this week. "Because the fact is that 90% of the talent is not in men's hands, but 90% of the columns are."
A tenured professor of law and political science at USC, Estrich had been a fairly regular contributor to The Times' opinion page -- with more than 50 bylined columns during the 1990s. But since 2000 she has written only two freelance columns and The Times has not carried her syndicated column.
In 2003, she surprised some of her feminist allies with an essay in The Times that chastised the newspaper for what she called an 11th hour "smear." Just days before the recall election, The Times had told the stories of several women who said that then-gubernatorial candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger had groped or sexually harassed them.
Since their days at Harvard three decades ago, Estrich and Kinsley had been mostly out of touch. But when Times editor Carroll named Kinsley to head the opinion pages last April, Estrich was soon repeating her complaints about the lack of women.
Over several months, Estrich alternately courted and cajoled The Times' new op-ed man. She invited him to dinner and signed one message "xoxoxo." She threatened to take her campaign to other media outlets or to women on the board of the Tribune Company, which owns The Times. (Estrich's e-mails to Kinsley -- posted briefly on her website -- made those details public.)
