The Intellectual Poverty of Frank Rich

While the competition has been keen at the New York Times to secure the mantle as the most virulent Hillary hater, Frank Rich is in a class by himself. No other columnist now writing for the "Gray Lady" is more intellectually dishonest and lacking in basic integrity than Frank Rich, the bloviating former theater critic turned professional Hillary basher. Maureen Dowd? Alternating between catty and crazy, Dowd's nose is out of joint apparently because Hillary looks better in boots. How about Bob Herbert? You can't fault an African American who wants to give a brother a break and devotes his time to peddling moralizing conventional wisdom and cheer leading like there's no tomorrow for Obama. And William Kristol and David Brooks? They are just neocon party-liners. (Only one among the NY Times line up ever writes anything complimentary about Hillary-Paul Krugman, who has a day job at Princeton as an economist, actually knows something, and let's the chips fall where they may.)

Week after week, Rich slings the mud at Hillary, oblivious to facts. Stunning but not surprising given his track record. He did the same thing to Al Gore-sliming the 2000 Democratic nominee as a liar and fraud. Rich was among the useful idiots of the press corps aiding and abetting the election of George W. Bush. But his attacks on Hillary have the smell of desperation.

Rich, in his comic book style, portrays Hillary as the villain plotting against the adored black superhero. There's nothing evil she hasn't done or won't do. She's responsible for the Iraq war, not George W. Bush. BAM! She's the racist, even though it is Obama who has spent the last 20 years enabling and protecting his racist, anti-Semitic, anti-American pastor and mentor, Jeremiah Wright. ZAP! Yes, after reading Rich, you can draw no other conclusion-Hillary's a low-life who can never measure up to the spotless Obama. KA-BOOM!

This week Rich warmed up by trashing Hillary's precise, thoughtful policy speech on how to deal with Iraq, comparing it unfavorably, of course, to Obama's immortal Gettysburg Address (wherein he lies about having known about Rev. Wright's hate mongering sermons and throws his grandmother under the bus). Here's Rich sliming Hillary and exalting Obama:

Mrs. Clinton needn't have Mr. Obama's poetry or pearly oratorical tones to deliver a game-changing speech. She just needs the audacity of candor. Yet she seems incapable of revisiting her history on Iraq (or much else) with the directness that Mr. Obama brought to his reappraisal of his relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Then Rich claims that Hillary is lying about her record on the Iraq war and that she was a liar about voting for the Authorization for the Use of Military Force Resolution in 2002 (along with the majority of Democratic senators) because she says that it was in fact what it was: not a declaration of preemptive war.

Of course, Rich conveniently ignores Obama's flip-flops on Iraq, going from opposing the war when he had no vote on the matter to supporting the Bush policy when he arrived in the Senate. And now he's Mr. Anti-war. It is enough to give your average pundit whiplash just trying to chart his varied positions. But not Frank Rich, he sees nothing but Hillary, but never in a favorable light.

And Rich, of course, doesn't ever describe Hillary's actual position at the time, delivered in her floor speech, that she favored letting the United Nations weapons inspectors finish their job and building an international coalition before any invasion. Of course, Rich doesn't want to cite her real stance because it would confound his hysterical posturing. Hillary's approach was against preemptive war -- an approach that Bush did not follow. Bush did not listen to her. It was his war and his war alone.

But Rich's obvious falsehoods and hype aside, left me wondering: Where was this brave visionary in the run up to the war? Let's apply the same standard to Frank Rich that we say should be applied to Hillary. What was Rich writing at the time? Thanks to the archives of the New York Times, now online and easily available, I was surprised to discover that some writer named Frank Rich gave credence to Bush's claims about weapons of mass destruction, attacked the U.N. weapons inspectors, and misrepresented the positions of Democrats, including Hillary's, and questioned their patriotism.

On September 14, 2002, as Bush's marketing campaign for the war raged, just a week after the New York Times published its bogus front page story written by Judith Miller about WMD, Frank Rich wrote:

"That Iraq is 'a grave and gathering danger,' as the president also said, is not in doubt."

On October 12, 2002, the day after the Senate vote on the authorization, Frank Rich wrote:

"But even so, the Democratic leaders never united around a substantive alternative vision to the administration's pre-emptive war against the thug of Baghdad. That isn't patriotism, it's abdication."

Oh? In fact, Hillary and other Democratic senators offered different positions from Bush. But Rich overlooks the facts while he rushes to smear their patriotism.

Finally, on December 7, 2002, in a column called "Pearl Harbor Day," Frank Rich staged a sneak attack on the U.N. and the weapons inspectors. He wrote:

"A savage dictator is delivering a 'full' accounting of his weapons arsenal that only a fool would take for fact, and a president of the United States is pretending (not very hard) to indulge this U.N. rigmarole while he calls up more reserves for the confrontation he seeks."

"U.N. rigmarole?" Who needs that stinking U.N.? Is Frank Rich really John Bolton without a shaggy mustache? Rich lambasted the inspectors, just beginning their job, as a bunch of clowns that no one who take seriously. He wrote:

"In Iraq, there's a team of inspectors out of 'H.M.S. Pinafore,' charged with a mission that is probably impossible and whose results will soon be disregarded by the relevant parties anyway."

The "relevant" party ignoring them was not just Bush. Judith Miller was not the only one in the employ of the New York Times who helped the Bush administration make a public case for war. Frank Rich was an eager cheerleader. Rich also wrote in one of is columns:

"We know Saddam Hussein is a thug and we want him gone."

Hey Frank? Ever heard the aphorism, "people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw rocks?" You smeared Al Gore in 2000 and helped elect George W. Bush in 2000. You tarred leading Democrats, like Hillary, who pushed for a diplomatic solution in Iraq, as unpatriotic. You suppress and misrepresent Hillary's real position on the war. You ridiculed the U.N. and the weapons inspectors, who were doing a good job and helped whip up public sentiment to reject the peaceful solution to the Iraq threat. And you shilled like Judith Miller in warning Americans about the existence of Saddam Hussein's WMD.

Face it Frank. You are short on substance. You are careless with facts and historical events. And you are blinded by an irrational hatred of Hillary Clinton. But at least you are consistent -- you were wrong about Iraq and you are wrong about Hillary.

Comments

[AreYouFibbing]

Larry....y­ou rock!! Intellectually honest people will totally get what you have posted here. Because it is true. I long ago stopped reading Frank Rich, Maureen Dowd and Bob Herbert. Their views are so tilted towards Obama that they are no longer capable of writing an objective piece on this campaign.

[blindjester]

I think reality tilts toward Obama. That makes it hard to write the other direction.­....

[RobtBrock]

Question - did Bush give a damn how Mrs. One Percent of the Senate voted on the resolution? Who took us to war - Hillary...­or Soon to be One of the Most Hated Past Presidents in History?

[YellerDawg]

Bravissimo!

[ckemp]

The desperation in the reach here is reassuring, in any event.

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

Excellent essay.

Nothing like hoisting someone on their own petard.

A comment about some of the comments below (five first-level appearing at this point): None deal directly with the author's criticism of Frank Rich as a political hit-man. No disrespect to the varying opinions on Hillary, Obama, Wright, or anyone else. This is about Rich himself, as well as nearly all of the other NYT columnists early on.

[MizJ]

Larry Johnson is on target: let ye who are without sin cast the first stone. He did his homework in fact checking Frank Rich columns all the way back to 2002 when Frank seemed to be singing a totally different tune. The media is in the pocket of corporate interests and you can readily tell this when they all sing the chorus of praises for Obama without any criticism (nor is it tolerated) by opposing points of view. Keith O is the latest example who chose to rip a new one on Hillary when he decried her association with Geraldine Ferrero with one of his hysterical "special comments" Did he back off during the Rev Wright fiasco? Nope. He even went so far, along with Howard Fineman, to imply that the passport leak might somehow be tied to Hillary. The next day it was revealed that her passport information had also been compromised. Frank Rich is just another hack who has lost objectivity and is clearly in the tank for Obama. Hillary hatred is alive and well in media land and I wonder how long the romance with Barack will continue should he become the nominee and eventual leader of the free world. Anyone want to place a bet?
s

[SCharb]

I suppose you're a great genius? Why are you wearing a "Robin, the Boy Wonder" mask?

It doesn't take a genius to know that Obama's the right candidate.­.. but it DID take a genius to see that the Iraq War was doomed before it started.

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

I'm confused.

I am on record here as saying the Iraq War was doomed before it started. I am on record here in support of Hillary.

In your view, am I a genius or not?

[Demosthenes]

Mr. Johnson:

In my opinion Frank Rich is too kind of Clinton. Clinton has no chance of winning absent engaging in the kind of skullduggery that will destroy the Democratic Party. I live in a very Democratic area -- Chicago -- and almost every Obama supporter I know absolutely now hates Clinton and would never vote for her. Clinton is a completely intellectually dishonest politician -- one need only consider the recent revelation of her lies about Bosnia. I for one am tired of having presidents that lie all the time. Wouldn't be nice to have a president that you can actually believe? Clinton and her brand of politics is the very reason why the Democratic Party utterly imploded in the 1990s and if she is the nominee it will happen again.

[auntiewillow]

Funny, I AM a Frank Rich fan.
Hillary could have been a leader in the Senate.
But she wasn't.
She could have owned up to her mistake.
Millions of people knew AT THE TIME that there were no WMD's, that Bush would use the authorization of military force to, well, use military force.
Millions of people knew that caving in was wrong, that there was no way to compromise on a core issue such as whether we were a nation of laws and honored treaties, or whether we were a budding empire serving vested interests and punishing all who opposed domination­...inside and outside our borders.
So....it's not that I hate Hillary.
I just hate what she's done.

[BubbaC33]

I can see why you are a fan of Rich. Ignore the facts, ignore honesty, ignore the actual record, and distort the truth in order to attack Hillary. Sounds like Rich is an Obama supporter posting on HuffPo.

[OwenScottIII]

Mr. Johnson, How much do you actually know about REv. Jeremiah Wright? How about a brief summary of the research you've done in order to arrive at the intellectually rich conclusion that Mr. Wright is "racist, anti-Semetic," and "anti-American" and is Sen. Obama's "mentor?" Do you also believe that Sen. Obama is a Muslim? That he is unpatriotic because he doesn't wear an American flag lapel pen? That his wife has never been proud of the USA until her husband won primaries on the strength of non-black voters? That Sen. Obama is an "empty suit?" That everyone who admires him has "drunk the Kool-aid?" Your post is little other than a diatribe.

[YellerDawg]

Your post is something less than a diatribe, but hateful nonetheless.

[ATLiberal]

Hateful? How so? I read it and I don't see a single personal attack or heteful remark. Enlighten me.

[OwenScottIII]

YellerDawg, My goal is to maintain a respectful tone in my comments. it isn't my intention to be "hateful" toward anyone and I regret that my comment offended you. I'm not offended when someone makes a factual statement or inference that criticizes people or policies I support. My comment expresses annoyance at people who toss out insults and oversimplified takes that attempt to manipulate those who don't think in more complex and relevant terms. I see that as an old style tactic that insults the reader's intelligence. Repeating talking points in an emotionally-charged rant is particularly aversive when the party doing the tossing is the author of the post. My string of sarcastic questions is intended to compare the gratuitous put-downs of Sen. Obama in the article to the repetitive insults often posted by partisan readers. Mr. Johnson gives the impression that his real intention is to attack Sen. Obama and defend Sen. Clinton by sneaking the inflammatory language into comments incidental to his attack on Mr. Rich; and, so I called him on it.

[PioneerKing]

Mr. Johnson:

You are well aware that the American media is no longer the 4th estate of American politics. The American media has evolved into nothing short of a simple balance sheet for multi-conglomerate corporations.
These corporations are able to operate in the manner that they choose to since Americans are complacent and reluctant to hold their selves accountable for what is considered our socio-economic and political discourse.
Americans may be entitled to a better media apparatus; unfortunately Americans have the media that deserve.

[TheOtherMaven]

Bad and unfunny satire, or hysterically funny straight opinion? What do the rest of you think?

[Clinton]

Perhaps you should read the biography of HRC by Bernstein. Aside from that, it is clear that HRC will do anything to win the nomination, and in fact has frankly admitted this. So, apparently HRC is devoid of principles.

[bauersox]

"HRC will do anything to win the nomination, and in fact has frankly admitted this"

Where has she "frankly admitted this?"

[BubbaC33]

This is nonsensical.

[blindjester]

I love Hillary in the 90s. I still liked her when she entered the Senate. But she never used her name recognition, she never used her political capital, to help progressives when the neocons were deconstructing the country.

She never talked about voting issues (in 2000, or 2002, or 2004). She never really opposed Bush, and she let progressives down again and again. How about filibustering some of the terrible appointments Bush made, or the bankruptcy bill, or the bills funding Halliburton instead of soldiers? How about fighting to stop the war? Americans paying attention knew we'd been lied to for years before she began to even timidly be critical of the war in Iraq or other Bush policies. She had to know what the truth was, but she didn't act, and she didn't speak. For years we waited. She let us down with her silence and inaction. So I stopped liking her.

I'm not a Frank Rich fan, but he's right. She made a mistake voting to authorize the war. Kerry admitted it. Edwards apologized for it. She never did. She uses weasel words to say she was wrong but not responsible. And no matter how smart she is, her ability doesn't erase the feeling that she's not being honest, and hasn't been in a long time.

[Loophole]

so once Larry met Hilary everything changed for him, huh? like many that have been with the Clinton gang since the early 90's (Carville, Begala, Wolfson, et al), i bet he sees that a Hilary presidency would benefit whatever dubious business dealings he's involved in. When he sees Obama he sees money flying out his window...