So, anyone else steamed about Frank Rich's column in

[whometense]

yesterday's New York Times? Or is it just me? I'm looking for input here because I've been working on a r-e-a-l-l-y pissy post, but don't want to be guilty of making mountains out of molehills.

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/29/opinion/29rich.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fColumnists

Offensive bit:

All the post-election talk of "moral values" notwithstanding, the terrorism card proved the decisive factor in the defeat of John Kerry, a character whose genius for equivocating on just about any issue rendered him a pantywaist against an opponent who had stood with a bullhorn in the smoky wreckage and had promised to round up the bad guys "dead or alive."

I'm trying not to be too thin-skinned, but it drives me insane (and I think Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich are even more guilty of this than the execrable Joan Vennochi) that these people can be so flippant and faux-clever at our expense. They amuse themselves by taking potshots at Kerry as well as *, so this makes them...what? Witty and sophisticated? Oh so above it all? Something in me just burns to make these people accountable for this kind of crap, which is just raw meat for the wingnuts. Just wait. How long will it be before some freeper starts saying that even that old lefty Frank Rich referred to John Kerry as a pantywaist? Did you see that the Washington Times quoted Joanie's last horrible Kerry-trashing column?

Ok guys, talk me down.

[ginnyinWI]

1. Too cute by half

That's how I feel these columnists are. Yeah they get their jollies by being so smarty-pants cute while they try to demolish our heros!
I have very little patience with this type of crap. We Kerrycrats are still feeling the sting of the election. And I don't just mean this little group--there are a lot of people out there in America who doubtless still are feeling the hurt. And I'll bet Kerry is, too.

Frank Rich is right about the terrorism part--I'll give him that. It was not that people all wanted us to live under the American Taliban.
If the media had given JK a fair shot at some coverage...but you know the rest!

[whometense]

2. I'm afraid I do.

What I don't understand is how they feel justified writing this garbage. They set themselves up as sharp observers, but if you forgive the fairy tale analogy, they waste their powers by using them for self-aggrandizement when they could do good instead.

That quote TayTay put up where he acknowledges his earnestness? At a time the country is dominated - it seems to me anyway - by liars - we need a lot more earnestness. Not less.

[TayTay]

3. What do *you* believe in?

There are about a million forces that want nothing more than to buffet you about and challenge your beliefs and values. What do you believe? What lives at your core? Who are you and why do you believe what you believe?

Frank Rich is a good guy. I think he was talking about the power of the Rethugs to control the media and use the 'Dems are wussy' meme yet again. I don't think he meant to say that Senator Kerry was weak. The Rethugs own the media and the 'Dems are weak' theme is hardly new. The Rethugs were able to utilize the fears generated by 9/11 to blind people to the truth. It's happened before.

But it is also beside the point. What do you believe? Why do you place trust and/or faith in certain people? These charges are baseless and false. They are lies. Do you think that other people actually believe them or are they temporarily blindfolded? This matters.

The whole debate over values and strength and what-not is a test of wills. The Rethug side has been launching despicable proganda lies for sometime now. They have the media and control, for now, of most of the government. They have the the power of fear at their backs and the promise of strength and security if the population follows them. And yet, and yet.....

Hmmm, last time I looked, nearly half the countries voters didn't buy it. All that power, all that media propoganda and Sen. Kerry, with all the disadvantages that he faced in that last election nearly took * out. (A sitting President in a time of war and fear.) He nearly took him out. The lies didn't take for everyone. It comes down to the individual citizen and belief. So, what do you believe? Why don't the Rethugs lies have any hold over you? (A American citizen who feeds at the same media trough, went to the same schools, shops in the same stores and so forth.) It matters; what do you believe?

[whometense]

5. Well, I don't see myself in

any way as average on this point. I mean, I'm not claiming superiority or anything, but I certainly claim a superior knowledge of John Kerry's character over what most american voters know of him.

A large number of, say, lefty freepers on DU and Kos, for example, repeat - ad nauseam - the kind of snark Rich and Dowd love to traffic in. I don't buy it because I know the truth. None of us here buys it because we have taken the trouble to figure out what is true and what isn't about Kerry.

What bothers me is the careless way these people let such ill-considered words hang in the air. People who are clued in ignore them. They are picked up, though, by people with an axe to grind (i.e. embittered Deaniacs and lurking conservatives), and blown around so the people who aren't paying any attention at all hear them and say things like, "John Kerry...I don't really know him but isn't he the guy who cursed at his Secret Service agent??..." That, I think, does real damage.
I agree with you that Rich is no fan of *. But he could be just as clever with out using such negatively inflammatory language. He has the right idea in his column. Why does he need to say it so that the loudest word in the column sounds like a slam at Kerry?

[wisteria]

4. I didn't like the pantywaist reference at all.

It was misleading and a rather poor choice of wording. Actually, I think what he was attempting to point our was a majority of Americans were taken in by a guy with a bullhorn who shouted out a very simplistic message. Unfortunately,though it is the John Kerry comment that stands out and that makes me angry. I think it should be brought out that Rich failed to mention the lack of coverage pertaining to John Kerry's aggressive statements on the war and the lies that were carried and perpetuated by the MSM pertaining to Kerry service and his toughness that lead to this opinion of John Kerry. In this regard, Rich,by referring to Kerry as a pantywaist,(gosh, were did he find that awful word) is again perpetuating a lie.He should be shown the error of his ways and maybe he will print a more favorable Kerry piece. Perhaps, something like, President Bush should review John Kerry's tough, well thought-out election year strategies for managing and safely removing us from the Iraq War and implement them immediately.

[ginnyinWI]

6. agreed

The world is in too serious a state to have someone engage in such needless bashing. His oversimplification of one aspect of the election left out so much that it became a lie. He should use his space in one of the world's most important papers to try to inform people. By calling JK a "character" with a "genius for equivocating" he was criticizing Kerry himself, not just talking about Kerry's image in the media v.s. Bush's.

It's distressing how quickly everything Kerry had said during the campaign was just dismissed, evaporated into thin air! As if nothing he said contained any credibility at all, just because he didn't win the White House! That's as stupid as thinking that everything Bush said is true, just because he won re-election. They all just threw Kerry down the memory hole.

I do think people pay attention to columnists, because they are looking for some who seems to be "in the know" who can tell them what to believe. If a guy is in the New York Times, then he must know something. It is serving to make permanent these kinds of myths about Kerry and the 2004 race that are factually wrong and hurtful, not only to Kerry but the whole Dem party.

[politicasista]

7. I agree 100%

[Firespirit]

8. Memory hole indeed.

Everything about it is Orwellian, including the idea that "majority = correct" (if indeed it was a majority before the suppression and funny business).

Not to mention that I don't like the idea of blaming Kerry for the actions of the weak and ignorant. We had a massive voter registration and GOTV drive; that can't be denied. If the Republican vote came from people who saw visions of "terra" with Kerry as president, making them shake in their skivvies and feel a sudden urge for duct tape, then I'm sorry... but there was not one thing that could be done about it. People who would vote on such an idea are not using logic and reason; it's nothing more than primitive fear instinct that the Republican Party manipulated to their advantage. Many people in this country have not been taught to think, one might say, and for them, those primitive instincts will be trusted before anything that they managed to reason out.

Blaming Kerry for people's inability to use their higher cognitive functions is misplaced and completely pointless. Put the blame where it is due, please, columnists. :eyes:

[karynnj]

9. I absolutely had the same reaction you did

I usually like Frank Rich's articles, but he was never very enthusiastic about Kerry and I never had any sense of why he was so uninspired. This paragraph was really unfair - I can't think of anything on which Kerry equivocated. (This is just repeating the flip flop RW charge - which is less true for Kerry than most politicians). True, he often had complex answers, but they were for complex problems. Saying that it made Kerry look weak is just unfair.

The article as a whole is poorly written - the first 2 paragraphs which deal with what ground zero has been over the last 3 1/2 years was pretty interesting. (Especially as the future plans make no sense at all.) Then it goes off in unrelated tangents. The Kerry/Bush comparison has absolutely nothing to back it up. Bush came to ground zero about a week after 9/11, he expressed outrage - as would any person who came there at that point. It wasn't that his words or the bullhorn (which given that there were no mikes was simply the obvious thing to do)were particularly inspired. Actions also count -What he then did after warning Bin Laden on ground zero was to attack Afghanistan but used warlords to keep Bin Laden from escaping allowing Bin Laden to get away and then diverting resources to fight Iraq.

There was nothing weak about Kerry's constantly repeated statement that he would hunt down the terrorists and kill them. Especially when coupled with the (now proven correct) statement that Bush outsourced surrounding Tora Bora to the warlords who only weeks before were allied with the Taliban, letting Bin Laden get away. (I don't have the actual quote, but I think the paraphrase is close because I think Kerry said this hundreds of times.) The problem was that Tommy Franks was given more credibility than Kerry by the media when he lied and said this was not true.

The only reason for this mess of a column may be he wanted to go on vacation for the long weekend and his column wasn't done. But the NYT has treated Kerry worse than any Democratic candidate in my memory. In another article, contrasting upper and lower class, they felt it necessary to talk about the election choice of the elite Yale educated scions of the Bush and Winthrup families - where the Kerry discription was aloof windsurfer. On the Bolton story - Kerry is not mentioned, though they said that the Bolton critics gained some ground near the end of the day. The key argument - preseving the Senate's advise and consent role and insisting they get the information - was Kerry's argument at least as much as anyone elses.

[sandnsea]

10. In this instance

The piece overweighs the one remark. I'm not even sure he didn't mean it in a backhanded way, George Bush was supposedly the resolute one, yet Ground Zero has been tossed aside. No more hallowed ground, no more terror alerts, no color coding, no firefighters, no 9/11 widows. Who really played the people and is the real pantywaist? I think it's supposed to be snark, in part at least.

[LittleClarkie]

11. Speaking of Dowd, I have been reading Conason's Big Lies

And to hear that she was partly responsible for passing along all the lies and half truths about Gore just ground my butt to the bone.

And I was recently reading one of her Kerry articles right after the first debate, where she attributed the tactic of getting under Bush's skin as coming from the Clintonistas. I see, anything from Kerry = bad, anything from Clinton = good.

I read accounts where KERRY said he thought he could get under Bush's skin. And let us not forget that the Clintonistas were saying "It's the economy stupid" when we can now be pretty sure "It was the foreign policy stupid."

Maureen and Rich seem like people who are operating on "conventional wisdom" ie half truths that have become facts for those too lazy to really dig into an issue and come up with fresh commentary, as I think Conason does.

I has some respect for Dowd until I heard about the Gore stuff. So is that to seem objective that she would do that? Or did she not like Gore either.

I don't want my presidents chosen by a pundit's popularity contest. "I like him, so you can have him for president." Oh thanks for you freakin' approval, oh pundit.

ARaaaaaggggGGGHHHHHHhhhh.

[TayTay]

12. Members of the Club

She writes from the perspective of the ultimate insider. Kerry doesn't smooze well with the press. She got him back. She out-and-out lied about a comment that was never said (Whom among us doesn't like NASCAR) and she never published a column that took it back.

She doesn't care about accuracy or about impact. She is part of the insider crew that has a lot of access to lose if one of her favorites does NOT get in. That's the way it is.

[LittleClarkie]

13. Almost unpatriotic in a way

Wasn't getting rid of Bush more important than getting one of her favorites IN?

And for those who think of Kerry as an insider, it's things like this that prove that he's not.

Think about that for a moment. Folks here who can't stand insiders are listening to one (Dowd) in regard to Kerry, who isn't one, really. He's been a loner mostly it seems, since he tended early on to deal with radioactive issues.

So those who and stand insiders prefer Dowd to Kerry, as they take her word for things when she has been known to lie. Isn't that just ducky.

[karynnj]

14. Ironic isn't it?

All these media insiders who complain about insiders. How long will it be before they talk about wanting a leader who is a brilliant statesman who doesn't pander, who has genuine core believes, who is moral, honest and can be trusted? These are among the things many of them seem to say they want, but then they are immediately in love with politicians like Clinton who can be absolutely convincing when he is lying and who will do what is politically convenient.

I do wonder why they are continuing the obnoxious slams. Kerry seems to be working at least as hard as anyone to identify the problems and find a way to get the Democratic message out for 2006. I really don't get Dowd. Politically, you would think that she would be in sync with Kerry's vision and she obviously hates Bush. In her case, I wonder if she was willing to allow 4 more years of Bush to potentially get Hillary.

[TayTay]

15. I actually think this is a setup

for Hillary. I really do. She will be built up until the end of next year and then all the columnists will fire all guns on her. I really don't think the establishment insiders will ever forgive her hubbie for what he did in the WH with the Lewinsky affair.

[whometense]

16. Interesting idea.

But why would they do that? Just for sport? Seriously.

[TayTay]

17. Because not much is happening right now

in the Pres race. And it's what they do. They love to build someone up and then tear them apart. This is what the press does. It makes the day pass.

[karynnj]

18. Good Point

They really have done similar things in the past. I couldn't believe how fast the cycle was for Dean though. It seemed like only a couple months separated him being on the cover of Time and Newsweek and other magazines simultaneously only to be on all of them again when they questioned his temperament and whether he was ready to be President.

I'm also not sure what accomplishments Hillary has really had - I know it's hard for a Senator in the minority, but I really can't think of many things where she has taken the lead. As first lady, the health care fiasco was the major thing she worked on.

I also wonder if Bill Clinton really has it in him to subordinate his own ego to push even his own wife - or will he be like Dole who never seem to get that his wife was running.

I wonder who they see as the ultimate candidate - maybe Edwards?