|
The Bane Of McCain Falls Mainly On The Brain
2008-06-01 23:46:00 Bush should've axed Karl Rove in Miss Covert America Valerie Plame CIA leak case. Former press flack Scott McClellan to Tim Russert on "Meet The Press." VideoMaureen Dowd NYT: McClellan did not realize the value of a favorite maxim ? ?The truth shall set you free? ? until he was hung out to dry by his bosses in the Valerie Plame affair, repeating the lies Karl Rove and Scooter Libby brazenly told him about not being the leakers. ?Clearly,? McClellan says, sounding like the breast-heaving heroine of a Victorian romance, ?I had allowed myself to be deceived.? He felt ?something fall out of me into the abyss.?It could be Pillsbury doughboy Scottie McClellan who denies John McCain the presidency. Frank Rich NYT "McCain's McClellan Nightmare": Mr. McClellan isn?t a sizzling TV personality, or, before now, a household name beyond the Beltway. His book secured no major prepublication media send-off on ?60 Minutes? or a newsmagazine cover. But if the tale of how the White House ginned up ...
By: Chickaboomer
Linda Douglass: Once You Go Black, You Never Go Back
2008-05-21 21:48:00 My Evil Twin wrote that disgusting headline...Former ABC News crackerjack journo Linda Douglass throws herself on top of the Obama bus. Politico "For anyone who thinks the press is in the tank for Obama." Was cable Tee Vee talking head Miz Linda "in the tank for Obama" when she did this April 25th National Journal interview with an Obama honcho? NewBusters reports Linda's been in the bag for Barack "for weeks..." But so has MSNBC. The difference? Nobody's bolted for the campaign.Linda's now on the other side of the mic as Obama's number one media spinner..."I just can't see sitting on the sidelines anymore" she tells The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder. NYT In 1997 she was ABC's Justice correspondent digging into then-prez Bill Clinton's finances and 1998 she reported on the apparently now-forgotten Bill Clinton impeachment...Linda joins Smokey The Parrot Obama Spokesbird programmed to squawk "Obama, Yes We Can" ad infinitum. YouTubeSo why is Politico assuming such a righteous p...
By: Chickaboomer
Frank Rich Wrong: Duh, This is What To Expect When Libs in the MSM Talk ?Fa
2008-05-06 19:34:00 This just confirms my belief that MSM stands for Mostly Stupid Morons.
By: Webloggin
Being Frank Rich in the Land of Opportunity
2008-05-04 18:08:00 Scott Ott, editor in chief of ScrappleFace.com, also writes non-satirical columns at Townhall.com. Below is an excerpt of his latest, with a link to read more. - - - - - - - - - - - by Scott Ott for Townhall.com America’s status as “the land of opportunity” can be proved by this single fact: Frank ...
Frank Rich On Last Week’s Democratic Debate — ‘Shoddy! Tawdry! A Tele
2008-04-22 10:19:00 I can’t remember a debate in which the only memorable moment was the audience’s heckling of a moderator. Then again, I can’t remember a debate that became such an instant national... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
Iraq Movies: Why They Fail
2008-04-14 18:38:00 In his latest column, NY Times Op-ed writer Frank Rich gets it wrong (as usual) when talking about Iraq. This week in particular Frank misses the mark with his explanation of why movies about the Iraq war do so poorly at the Box Office. He claims Americans want to avoid talking about the war or seeing ...
By: The Hot Joints
Hillary: Death Becomes Her
2008-03-30 16:41:00 Hillary's terminal by her own hand. Somebody please put her (and us) out of our misery by handing over her black-bagged bod to Jack "Dr. Death" Kervorkian Why would so smart a candidate play political Russian roulette with virtually all the bullet chambers loaded? Sometimes only a shrink can decipher why some politicians persist in flagrantly taking giant risks, all but daring others to catch them in the act (see: Spitzer, Eliot). Carl Bernstein, a sometimes admiring Hillary Clinton biographer, has called the Bosnia debacle ?a watershed event? for her campaign because it revives her long history of balancing good works with ??misstatements? and elisions.'? But this event may be a watershed for two other reasons that have implications beyond Mrs. Clinton?s character and candidacy, spilling over into the 2008 campaign as a whole. It reveals both the continued salience of that supposedly receding issue, the Iraq war, and the accelerating power of viral politics, as exemplified by You...
By: Chickaboomer
The Day TV News Died
2008-03-09 15:28:00 The inventor of Eyewitless, I mean "Eyewitness"News" is still a player! I thought the septuagenarian Al Primo might have exited the planet. But I find him alive and well as purveyor of the Teen Kid News.com. 100 aspiring junior journos showed up at NYC's Bloomingdales yesterday to audition for the sole opening. NYDN It's helpful to have famous parents. Al's put his rich cronies' kids on the air. Meredith Viera's and Revlon psychobillionaire Ron Perelman's progeny are already getting TKN face time. Back to Primo. He tested the Internet waters in 2000 with war correspondent Peter Arnett. Primo was hoping to amass a global network of TV stations pimping foreign news. Primo was the news director of KYW TV in Philadelphia when he divined Eyewitness News in 1965. Primo took the concept to WABC NYC in 1968. Eyewitness news spread like the movie "The Blob". In 1977 Primo went into the news consulting biz in tony Old Greenwich, Connecticut and now makes a few bucks as a "motivational" ...
By: Chickaboomer
The Audacity of Hopelessness By FRANK RICH
2008-02-27 05:26:00 (reprinted from the New York Times February 24, 2008)WHEN people one day look back at the remarkable implosion of the Hillary Clinton campaign, they may notice that it both began and ended in the long dark shadow of Iraq.It’s not just that her candidacy’s central premise — the priceless value of “experience” — was fatally poisoned from the start by her still ill-explained vote to authorize the fiasco. Senator Clinton then compounded that 2002 misjudgment by pursuing a 2008 campaign strategy that uncannily mimicked the disastrous Bush Iraq war plan. After promising a cakewalk to the nomination — “It will be me,” Mrs. Clinton told Katie Couric in November — she was routed by an insurgency.The Clinton camp was certain that its moneyed arsenal of political shock-and-awe would take out Barack Hussein Obama in a flash. The race would “be over by Feb. 5,” Mrs. Clinton assured George Stephanopoulos just before New Year’s. But once the Obama forces outwitted her, le...
Frank Rich: the shallowist commentary of all time Obama and McCain
2008-02-18 13:19:00 Senator McCain, backed by a collection of sallow-faced old Beltway pols, played the past to Mr. Obama’s here and now. (from here) Frank Rich has a problem with McCain. It's not his tax or foreign policies. Rich, who looks kind of like a puffy white guy himself (why would I be reading his column instead of some hip black guy's?), doesn't like that McCain is an old white guy. That, and his myspace-thingy on the internet failed. Now, that's commentary! Let's see how offensive that is: 1. What's wrong with being a white guy? Can't white people be cool? 2. Is it kind of racist to assume that black people are cooler by birth? 3. Does he think that his country is so shallow that it would consider race and age over issues? He also falls into the "change" stupidity. The rest of the column is unintelligible. Guess what, Rich: All people know about Obama is his vapid "change" stuff that impresses the stupid i.e. they haven't noticed his left-wing policies and lack of expe...
By: Asymmetric
The Clintons' Die Nasty
2008-01-27 12:28:00 After Barack Obama's stunning landside win over Hillary in SC, Big Mouth Bill Clinton insinuates rival Obama is as insignificant as Jesse Jackson's presidential run. ABC News How is finger wagger Bill going to spin this?Caroline Kennedy backs Barack Obama. In comparing the "inspiring" Barack to her father, JFK's daughter takes a few choice snipes at the Clintons: "I want a president who understands that his responsibility is to articulate a vision and encourage others to achieve it; who holds himself, and those around him, to the highest ethical standards; who appeals to the hopes of those who still believe in the American Dream, and those around the world who still believe in the American ideal; and who can lift our spirits, and make us believe again that our country needs every one of us to get involved. I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that presi...
By: Chickaboomer
Frank Rich - Keith Olbermann - Bernie Kerik's Affair With Judith Regan | Co
2007-11-28 07:34:00 This is shaping up to be a hot story. Frank Rich of the New York Times has a great discussion of the details-to-date below, and MSNBC's Keith Olbermann has an equally informative video segment -- that too is here. November 18, 2007Op-Ed ColumnistWhat 'That Regan Woman' KnowsBy FRANK RICH NEW Yorkers who remember Rudy Giuliani as the bullying New York mayor, not as the terminally cheerful "America's Mayor" cooing to babies in New Hampshire, have always banked on one certainty: his presidential candidacy was so preposterous it would implode before he got anywhere near the White House.Surely, we reassured ourselves, the all-powerful Republican values enforcers were so highly principled that they would excommunicate him because of his liberal social views, three wives and estranged children. Or a firewall would be erected by the firefighters who are enraged by his self-aggrandizing rewrite of 9/11 history. Or Judith Giuliani, with her long-hidden first marriage and Louis Vuit...
Why The Far-Left Is Terrified of Rudy Giuliani
2007-11-18 23:16:00 Frank Rich and other ridiculously far-left columnists never miss an opportunity to write a hit piece on Rudy Giuliani. They love to show pictures of him in costumes that they allege shows he’s a “cross dresser.” They love to mention how many wives he’s had and the funniest of all the charges is that he ...
By: The Hot Joints
Frank Rich: The Cynical ?American?
2007-11-04 23:29:00 Frank Rich has written another cynical piece of garbage in Sunday’s New York Times. It’s basically the usual left wing talking points with an extra dose of cynicism added in for good measure. I will try and briefly summarize the main points below and you can apply these same points to anything Frank Rich writes ...
By: The Hot Joints
FOOD FOR THOUGHT Number 13, Part 2 - The Pernicious Hypocrisy Of Frank Rich
2007-10-24 02:24:00 by Eric Larsen The corporate media today have become, collectively, less a vehicle of information than of mind control. Peter Dale Scott, The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America, p. 249 (2007) Today the US media serves as propaganda ministry for the governments wars and police state. Paul Craig Roberts, Conservatism Isnt What It Used To Be (Sept. 7, 2007) We have rendered the nation deaf and dumb. We no longer have the capacity for empathy. Chris Hedges, Iran, the Next Quagmire (Sept. 4, 2007) Remedy: In order to turn this trend around, the people of the US must begin to acquire the anti-authoritarian traits of empathy and engagement. Phil Rockstroh, Q and A for the People of a Forsaken Republic (October 2, 2007) Oh, New York Times, oh, New York Times, are you infantile, criminal, or delusional? Eric Larsen, Letter of Lamentation to America, Part 3 (July 29, 2007) 1 After I began writing pieces attacking what Barrie Zwic...
Corruption, Incompetence and Iraq
2007-10-21 06:58:00 We can come up with a lot of reasons that the Bush/Cheney cabal invaded and occupied Iraq; oil, middle east hegemony etc. But what if they just wanted to turn the middle east into a temporary cookie jar for their friends - a quick chance to make some big bucks. Frank Rich talks about the Iraq war and the seemingly unending corruption which is even more prevalent the the apparent incompetence. Set against the epic corruption that has defined the war in Iraq, Mr. Riechers?s tragic tale is but a passing anecdote, his infraction at most a misdemeanor. The $26,788 he received for two months in a non-job doesn?t rise even to a rounding error in the Iraq-Afghanistan money pit. So far some $6 billion worth of contracts are being investigated for waste and fraud, however slowly, by the Pentagon and the Justice Department. That doesn?t include the unaccounted-for piles of cash, some $9 billion in Iraqi funds, that vanished during L. Paul Bremer?s short but disastrous reign in the Green Zone. ...
Frank Rich on The ?Good Germans? Among Us
2007-10-14 20:19:00 The Van Der Galin Gazette has a more balanced comment as he does acknowledge that "the treatment of prisoners is truly embarassing to the US. Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, etc. have done great damage to America?s image." Unfortunately he also writes, "With regards to the treatment of prisoners Rich compares the US to? Nazi Germany (as liberals are so fond of doing these days with anyone and everyone they disagree with)." This is certainly true of some liberals, and Michael might have been overly-influenced by a recent attack on him from one of the more off the wall liberal blogs in a dispute which did involve the over-use of Nazi comparisons. I do have three objections to this, the first being that, while sometimes true, this is hardly characteristic of the majority of liberals. Secondly, Rich was quoting conservative writer Andrew Sullivan, not a liberal, in making the Nazi comparisons. Thirdly, there are some situations in which Nazi comparisons are valid.
By: Liberal Values
Food For Thought - The Pernicious Hypocrisy Of Frank Rich Of The New York T
2007-10-13 18:42:00 by Eric Larsen Food For Thought - The Pernicious Hypocrisy Of Frank Rich Of The New York Times (Number 13, Part 1) Today the US media serves as propaganda ministry for the governments wars and police state. Paul Craig Roberts, Conservatism Isnt What It Used To Be (Sept. 7, 2007) We have rendered the nation deaf and dumb. We no longer have the capacity for empathy. Chris Hedges, Iran, the Next Quagmire (Sept. 4, 2007) Remedy: In order to turn this trend around, the people of the US must begin to acquire the anti-authoritarian traits of empathy and engagement. Phil Rockstroh, Q and A for the People of a Forsaken Republic (October 2, 2007) Oh, New York Times, oh, New York Times, are you infantile, criminal, or delusional? Eric Larsen, Letter of Lamentation to America, Part 3 (July 29, 2007) 1. Just imagine this for a moment. Imagine that you could actually set aside the fear of and the burning hatred for the fraudulent, treasonous, and cri...
I Hate It When Frank Rich Beats Me to the Punch!
2007-10-02 20:04:00 I think I was channeling New York Times columnist Frank Rich this weekend.I was really pondering the 2008 campaign, especially after getting off the conference call the Silicon Valley Moms, DC Metro Moms and Chicago Moms had with Elizabeth Edwards on Saturday.I was reflecting on the recent performance of the Democratic candidates at the MSNBC debate and had what I thought was a real pundit moment -- Hillary's run at the Presidency is reminding me of Al Gore, and not in a good way.Not because I think she'll be planting a big one on Tipper any time soon, but Hillary can be so wonky in her answers sometimes. So was Al.The "consensus" is (and SNL says!) that Hillary is a shoe-in, not only for the nomination, but the White House, as well. So was Al.I was scribbling notes furiously for what I thought would be a truly original post, my little political synapses firing away.Then, after my yoga class on Sunday morning, I settled down with my Sunday New York Times and my cup of decaf...
By: PunditMom
Anniversary
2007-09-09 07:04:00 Frank Rich Reminds of an anniversary. I have nothing to add so here it is.As the Iraqis Stand Down, We?ll Stand Up IT will be all 9/11 all the time this week, as the White House yet again synchronizes its drumbeating for the Iraq war with the anniversary of an attack that had nothing to do with Iraq. Ignore that fog and focus instead on another date whose anniversary passed yesterday without notice: Sept. 8, 2002. What happened on that Sunday five years ago is the Rosetta Stone for the administration's latest scam.That was the morning when the Bush White House officially rolled out its fraudulent case for the war. The four horsemen of the apocalypse ? Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell and Rice ? were dispatched en masse to the Washington talk shows, where they eagerly pointed to a front-page New York Times article amplifying subsequently debunked administration claims that Saddam had sought to buy aluminum tubes meant for nuclear weapons. "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom clo...
Karl Rove's Legacy
2007-08-19 16:02:00 We here at MEJ have covered Mr Rove's departure in: Rove to Spend More Time With his FamilyWhat will Rove's mark be?Quick HitsAnd they called him a genius!In addition Jazz discussed the sorry state of the Republican Party going into 2008 after the Rove years.Karl Rove and the disaster he has left in his wake is also the subject of the Frank Rich commentary this morning.He Got Out While the Getting Was Good BACK in those heady days of late summer 2002, Andrew Card, then the president?s chief of staff, told The New York Times why the much-anticipated push for war in Iraq hadn?t yet arrived. ?You don?t introduce new products in August,? he said, sounding like the mouthpiece for the Big Three automakers he once was. Sure enough, with an efficiency Detroit can only envy, the manufactured aluminum tubes and mushroom clouds rolled off the White House assembly line after Labor Day like clockwork.Five summers later, we have the flip side of the Card corollary: You do recall defective produ...
Rove: Gone But Not Forgotten
2007-08-19 05:05:00 He Got Out While the Getting Was GoodBy Frank RichThe New York TimesBACK in those heady days of late summer 2002, Andrew Card, then the president's chief of staff, told The New York Times why the much-anticipated push for war in Iraq hadn't yet arrived. "You don't introduce new products in August," he said, sounding like the mouthpiece for the Big Three automakers he once was. Sure enough, with an efficiency Detroit can only envy, the manufactured aluminum tubes and mushroom clouds rolled off the White House assembly line after Labor Day like clockwork. Five summers later, we have the flip side of the Card corollary: You do recall defective products in August, whether you're Mattel or the Bush administration. Karl Rove's departure was both abrupt and fast. The ritualistic "for the sake of my family" rationale convinced no one, and the decision to leak the news in a friendly print interview (on The Wall Street Journal's op-ed page) rather than announce it in a White House spo...
Bush's Terror Propaganda: Take Two
2007-08-12 19:19:00 Frank Rich warns those gullible few who still can't see the truth through the forest of Bushie lies that the "White House?s public relations strategies for the war in Iraq are again gathering steam to America?s peril." As always, Rich is a MUST READ.Shuffling Off to Crawford, 2007 EditionBy Frank RichThe New York TimesTHE cases of Pat Tillman and Jessica Lynch were ugly enough. So surely someone in the White House might have the good taste to draw the line at exploiting the murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. But nothing is out of bounds for a government that puts the darkest arts of politics and public relations above even the exigencies of war. As Jane Mayer told the story in last week?s New Yorker, Mariane Pearl was called by Alberto Gonzales with some good news in March: the Justice Department was releasing a transcript in which the long-incarcerated Qaeda thug Khalid Sheikh Mohammed confessed to the beheading of her husband. But there was something off about ...
Unreconstructed Iraq Hawks
2007-08-05 18:34:00 Frank Rich takes on the Patriots Who Love the Troops to Death. The ranks of unreconstructed Iraq hawks are thinner than they used to be. Some politicians in both parties (John Edwards, Chris Dodd, Gordon Smith) and truculent pundits (Peter Beinart, Andrew Sullivan) who cheered on the war recanted (sooner in some cases than others), learned from their errors and moved on. One particularly eloquent mea culpa can be found in today?s New York Times Magazine, where the former war supporter Michael Ignatieff acknowledges that those who ?truly showed good judgment on Iraq? might have had no more information than those who got it wrong, but did not make the mistake of confusing ?wishes for reality.?But those who remain dug in are having none of that. Some of them are busily lashing out Korff-style. Some are melting down. Some are rewriting history. Most seem more interested in saving their own reputations than the American troops they ritualistically invoke to bludgeon the wars? critics and...
The Last General Standing
2007-07-29 17:18:00 We have seen that George W. Bush listens to the Generals and then fires them we they don't tell him what he wants to hear. As I discussed over at The Gun Toting Liberal the last general standing is the very political David Petraeus. Even though he has been as wrong about the situation in Iraq as anyone in the Bush administration he is now their "credible" spokesman at a time when they have zero credibility of their own. Frank Rich takes a look at General David Petraeus today in:Who Really Took Over During That Colonoscopy(TS) THERE was, of course, gallows humor galore when Dick Cheney briefly grabbed the wheel of our listing ship of state during the presidential colonoscopy last weekend. Enjoy it while it lasts. A once-durable staple of 21st-century American humor is in its last throes. We have a new surrogate president now. Sic transit Cheney. Long live David Petraeus!It was The Washington Post that first quantified General Petraeus?s remarkable ascension. President Bush, who ment...
Republican Implosions
2007-07-22 07:18:00 I Did Have Sexual Relations With That WomanBy Frank RichThe New York Times ITS not just the resurgence of Al Qaeda that is taking us back full circle to the fateful first summer of the Bush presidency. Its the hot sweat emanating from Washington. Once again the capital is titillated by a scandal featuring a member of Congress, a woman who is not his wife and a rumor of crime. Gary Condit, the former Democratic congressman from California, has passed the torch of below-the-Beltway sleaziness to David Vitter, an incumbent (as of Friday) Republican senator from Louisiana. AR2007071700754.html"target="_0-">Mr. Vitter briefly faced the press to explain his very serious sin, accompanied by a wife who might double for the former Mrs. Jim McGreevey. He had no choice once snoops hired by the avenging pornographer Larry Flynt unearthed his number in the voluminous phone records of the so-called D.C. Madam, now the subject of a still-young criminal investigation. Newspapers back home also ...
Chertoff's Truth
2007-07-15 04:40:00 Don't Laugh at Michael ChertoffBy Frank RichThe New York TimesMICHAEL CHERTOFF, President Bush?s fallback choice for secretary of Homeland Security after Bernard Kerik, is best remembered for his tragicomic performance during Hurricane Katrina. He gave his underling, the woeful Brownie, a run for the gold. It was Mr. Chertoff who announced that the Superdome in New Orleans was ?secure? even as the other half of the split screen offered graphic evidence otherwise. It was Mr. Chertoff who told NPR that he had ?not heard a report of thousands of people in the convention center who do not have food and water,? even after his fellow citizens had been inundated with such reports all day long. With Brownie as the designated fall guy, Mr. Chertoff kept his job. Since then he has attracted notice only when lavishing pork on terrorist targets like an Alabama petting zoo while reducing grants to New York City. Though Mr. Chertoff may be the man standing between us and Armageddon, he is seen...
George W. Bush - Coward in Chief
2007-07-08 17:47:00 The younger Mr. Bush?s cowardice is arguably more responsible for the calamities of his leadership than anything else.Frank Rich looks into the eyes of George W. Bush and sees above all else a coward.A Profile in Cowardice(TS) THERE was never any question that President Bush would grant amnesty to Scooter Libby, the man who knows too much about the lies told to sell the war in Iraq. The only questions were when, and how, Mr. Bush would buy Mr. Libby?s silence. Now we have the answers, and they?re at least as incriminating as the act itself. They reveal the continued ferocity of a White House cover-up and expose the true character of a commander in chief whose tough-guy shtick can no longer camouflage his fundamental cowardice.The timing of the president?s Libby intervention was a surprise. Many assumed he would mimic the sleazy 11th-hour examples of most recent vintage: his father?s pardon of six Iran-contra defendants who might have dragged him into that scandal, and Bill Clinton?s...
When the Vice President Does It, That Means It's Not Illegal
2007-07-01 05:50:00 By Frank RichThe New York TimesWHO knew that mocking the Constitution could be nearly as funny as shooting a hunting buddy in the face? Among other comic dividends, Dick Cheney's legal theory that the vice president is not part of the executive branch yielded a priceless weeklong series on "The Daily Show" and an online "Doonesbury Poll," conducted at Slate, to name Mr. Cheney's indeterminate branch of government. The ridicule was so widespread that finally even this White House had to blink. By midweek, it had abandoned that particularly ludicrous argument, if not its spurious larger claim that Mr. Cheney gets a free pass to ignore rules regulating federal officials' handling of government secrets. That retreat might allow us to mark the end of this installment of the Bush-Cheney Follies but for one nagging problem: Not for the first time in the history of this administration or the hundredth has the real story been lost amid the Washington kerfuffle. Once the laughter sub...
Anticipating the surge's failure
2007-06-24 19:52:00 The old spin and lies are inoperative so it's time to re-spin the spin. Frank Rich explains that's what we are seeing from the Bush administration now that they are anticipating the surge's failure. And what better time to re-spin?They?ll Break the Bad News on 9/11(TS) BY this late date we should know the fix is in when the White House's top factotums fan out on the Sunday morning talk shows singing the same lyrics, often verbatim, from the same hymnal of spin. The pattern was set way back on Sept. 8, 2002, when in simultaneous appearances three cabinet members and the vice president warned darkly of Saddam's aluminum tubes. "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud," said Condi Rice, in a scripted line. The hard sell of the war in Iraq ? the hyping of a (fictional) nuclear threat to America ? had officially begun.America wasn't paying close enough attention then. We can't afford to repeat that blunder now. Last weekend the latest custodians of the fiasco, our ne...
"Surge" Propaganda
2007-06-24 07:45:00 They'll Break the Bad News on 9/11By Frank RichThe New York TimesBY this late date we should know the fix is in when the White House's top factotums fan out on the Sunday morning talk shows singing the same lyrics, often verbatim, from the same hymnal of spin. The pattern was set way back on Sept. 8, 2002, when in simultaneous appearances three cabinet members and the vice president warned darkly of Saddam's aluminum tubes. "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud," said Condi Rice, in a scripted line. The hard sell of the war in Iraq the hyping of a (fictional) nuclear threat to America had officially begun. America wasn't paying close enough attention then. We can't afford to repeat that blunder now. Last weekend the latest custodians of the fiasco, our new commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, and our new ambassador to Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, took to the Sunday shows with two messages we'd be wise to heed.The first was a confirmation of recent White House...
Pity the Idiot?
2007-06-03 04:44:00 Failed Presidents Ain't What They Used to BeBy Frank RichThe New York TimesA few weeks ago I did something I never expected to do in my life. I shed a tear for Richard Milhous Nixon.Thats in no small measure a tribute to Frank Langella, who should win a Tony Award for his star Broadway turn in Frost/Nixon next Sunday while everyone else is paying final respects to Tony Soprano. Frost/Nixon, a fictionalized treatment of the disgraced former presidents 1977 television interviews with David Frost, does not whitewash Nixons record. But Mr. Langella unearths humanity and pathos in the old scoundrel eking out his exile in San Clemente. For anyone who ever hated Nixon, this achievement is so shocking that its hard to resist a thought experiment the moment youve left the theater: will it someday be possible to feel a pang of sympathy for George W. Bush?Perhaps not. Its hard to pity someone who, to me anyway, is too slight to hate. Unlike Nixon, President Bush is less an overreach...
Evil
2007-05-27 17:30:00 In my 60 years I have disagreed with all politicians some of the time and some of them most of the time but never have I thought of an administration as evil until now. George W. Bush may mouth the right words from time to time, Dick Cheney doesn't even try, but evil are their actions and in-actions. Frank Rich gives us a startling example today in:Operation Freedom From Iraqis WHEN all else fails, those pious Americans who conceived and directed the Iraq war fall back on moral self-congratulation: at least we brought liberty and democracy to an oppressed people. But that last-ditch rationalization has now become America?s sorriest self-delusion in this tragedy. However wholeheartedly we disposed of their horrific dictator, the Iraqis were always pawns on the geopolitical chessboard rather than actual people in the administration?s reckless bet to ?transform? the Middle East. From ?Stuff happens!? on, nearly every aspect of Washington policy in Iraq exuded contempt for the benefici...
A Convenient Scapegoat
2007-05-27 06:42:00 Operation Freedom From IraqisBy Frank RichThe New York TimesWHEN all else fails, those pious Americans who conceived and directed the Iraq war fall back on moral self-congratulation: at least we brought liberty and democracy to an oppressed people. But that last-ditch rationalization has now become Americas sorriest self-delusion in this tragedy. However wholeheartedly we disposed of their horrific dictator, the Iraqis were always pawns on the geopolitical chessboard rather than actual people in the administrations reckless bet to transform the Middle East. From Stuff happens! on, nearly every aspect of Washington policy in Iraq exuded contempt for the beneficiaries of our supposed munificence. Now this animus is completely out of the closet. Without Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz to kick around anymore, the wars dead-enders are pinning the fiasco on the Iraqis themselves. Our government abhors them almost as much as the Lou Dobbs spear carriers loathe those swarming ali...
The Reverend Falwell's Heavenly Timing
2007-05-20 05:45:00 By Frank RichThe New York TimesHARD as it is to believe now, Jerry Falwell came in second only to Ronald Reagan in a 1983 Good Housekeeping poll anointing ?the most admired man in America.? By September 2001, even the Bush administration was looking for a way to ditch the preacher who had joined Pat Robertson on TV to pin the 9/11 attacks on feminists, abortionists, gays and, implicitly, Teletubbies. As David Kuo, a former Bush official for faith-based initiatives, tells the story in his book ?Tempting Faith,? the Reverend Falwell was given a ticket to the Washington National Cathedral memorial service that week only on the strict condition that he stay away from reporters and cameras. Mr. Falwell obeyed, though once inside he cracked jokes (?Whoa, does she look frumpy,? he said of Barbara Bush) and chortled nonstop. This is the great spiritual leader whom John McCain and Mitt Romney raced to praise when he died on Tuesday, just as the G.O.P. presidential contenders were convergi...
Is Condi Hiding the Smoking Gun?
2007-05-06 07:27:00 By Frank RichThe New York TimesIF, as J.F.K. had it, victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan, the defeat in Iraq is the most pitiful orphan imaginable. Its parents have not only tossed it to the wolves but are also trying to pin its mutant DNA on any patsy they can find.George Tenet is just the latest to join this blame game, which began more than three years ago when his fellow Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient Tommy Franks told Bob Woodward that Douglas Feith, the Pentagon?s intelligence bozo, was the ?stupidest guy on the face of the earth? (that?s the expurgated version). Last fall, Kenneth Adelman, the neocon cheerleader who foresaw a ?cakewalk? in Iraq, told Vanity Fair that Mr. Tenet, General Franks and Paul Bremer were ?three of the most incompetent people who?ve ever served in such key spots.? Richard Perle chimed in that the ?huge mistakes? were ?not made by neoconservatives? and instead took a shot at President Bush. Ahmad Chalabi, the neocons? former ...
All the President's Press
2007-04-29 20:45:00 By Frank RichThe New York TimesSOMEHOW it?s hard to imagine David Halberstam yukking it up with Alberto Gonzales, Paul Wolfowitz and two discarded ?American Idol? contestants at the annual White House Correspondents? Association dinner. Before there was a Woodward and Bernstein, there was Halberstam, still not yet 30 in the early 1960s, calling those in power to account for lying about our ?progress? in Vietnam. He did so even though J.F.K. told the publisher of The Times, ?I wish like hell that you?d get Halberstam out of there.? He did so despite public ridicule from the dean of that era?s Georgetown punditocracy, the now forgotten columnist (and Vietnam War cheerleader) Joseph Alsop.It was Alsop?s spirit, not Halberstam?s, that could be seen in C-Span?s live broadcast of the correspondents? dinner last Saturday, two days before Halberstam?s death in a car crash in California. This fete is a crystallization of the press?s failures in the post-9/11 era: it illustrates how easily a ...
Frank Rich Unmasks Bush Yet Again
2007-03-20 00:00:00 Frank Rich, of the NY Times, has done it again (as he is so often able) in this week's column. His ability to pick apart the Bush Propaganda Machine, as it were, is uncanny. For instance, as we're watching the...
Frank Rich Unmasks Bush Yet Again
2007-03-18 00:00:00 Frank Rich, of the NY Times, has done it again (as he is so often able) in this week's column. His ability to pick apart the Bush Propaganda Machine, as it were, is uncanny. For instance, as we're watching the...
Frank Rich on Imus: America craving diversions
2007-02-14 02:30:01 New York Times columnist Frank Rich on Imus in the Morning today came up with an interestingtheory. He believes thereason why Americans are so fascinated right now withstories likeAnna Nicole Smith’s death and the diaper wearing astronaut is because we are so fed up with Iraq that we’re craving somethingelse. As a news producer this got me thinking. I worked atABC News for asmall amount of time during the whole Natalee Holloway craziness. I worked the war in Iraq beat and I was astonished at the amount of money and resources the network dedicated to the missing teen. But of course the resources didn’t come until market studies showed the higher ups that Americans craved the coverage. And now we see it with Anna Nicole Smith. (more…)
He's in the Bunker NowBy Frank RichThe New York TimesPRESIDE
2007-01-15 04:14:02 He's in the Bunker NowBy Frank RichThe New York TimesPRESIDENT BUSH always had one asset he could fall back on: the self-confidence of a born salesman. Like Harold Hill in ?The Music Man,? he knew how to roll out a new product, however deceptive or useless, with conviction and stagecraft. What the world saw on Wednesday night was a defeated Willy Loman who looked as broken as his war. His flop sweat was palpable even if you turned down the sound to deflect despair-inducing phrases like ?Prime Minister Maliki has pledged ...? and ?Secretary Rice will leave for the region. ...?Mr. Bush seemed to know his product was snake oil, and his White House handlers did too. In the past, they made a fetish of situating their star in telegenic settings, from aircraft carriers to Ellis Island. Or they placed him against Orwellian backdrops shrieking ?Plan for Victory." But this time even the audio stuttered, as if in solidarity with Baghdad?s continuing electricity blackout, and the Oval Office w...
Frank Rich - The Greatest Story Ever Sold
2006-12-13 03:20:04 From The Oprah Winfrey Show : Truth in America, 12 October 2006 The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth from 9/11 to Katrina by Shmuley Boteach New York Times columnist Frank Rich examines the trail of fictions manufactured by the Bush administration from 9/11 to Hurricane Katrina, exposing the most brilliant spin campaign ever waged. When America was attacked on 9/11, its citizens almost unanimously rallied behind its new, untested president as he went to war. What they didn’t know at the time was that the Bush administration’s highest priority was not to vanquish Al Qaeda but to consolidate its own power at any cost. It was a mission that could be accomplished only by a propaganda presidency in which reality was steadily replaced by a scenario of the White House’s own invention-and such was that scenario’s devious brilliance that it fashioned a second war against an enemy that did not attack America on 9/11, intimidated the Democrats i...
By: Oprah Selects
|
|
 |
|
 |
