Frank Rich: "Hillary Clinton, R.I.P."
Posted on March 2, 2008 by ronkseattle
The NYT columnist's ever-poised pen brewed up this opinion piece over a night at the movies:
When even an entertainment as impeccably pro-Clinton as "The American President" consigns Hillary to history's dustheap, you can see just how deeply ambivalent this country has been and still is about our (formerly) activist First Lady.
The date: November 29, 1995.
At least you can say this for Frank Rich — he's no flip-flopper.
Filed under: General |
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Shainzona, on March 2, 2008 at 7:42 pm said:
May I say it…Fuck Frank!
Boston Boomer, on March 2, 2008 at 7:48 pm said:
That's funny. I didn't realize that Frank Rich hated Hillary so much all the way back in 1995. He's been off my list since the Imus thing. Of course he did his part to defeat Al Gore back in 2000 too.
lisadawn82, on March 2, 2008 at 8:00 pm said:
Nope. Just a Flop.
litigatormom, on March 2, 2008 at 8:15 pm said:
Visit Slate's Obama Messiah Watch.
http://www.slate.com/id/2185592/
Boston Boomer
Rich was nowhere near as bad as MoDo about Gore. And they've both outdone themselves when it comes to Hillary's presidential campaign.
DCDemocrat, on March 2, 2008 at 8:52 pm said:
litigatormom: Thanks so much for that link. I thought I was alone in asking whether or not Barack Obama is the alpha and omega, the rod of Jesse's stem, the Man from Galilee, the Everlasting Father? Imagine my relief to find that others are pondering this same question.
Taylor Marsh has a piece up that Joe Wilson wrote. It's full of red meat question of Obama's self-promotion: For example, "As a consequence of Obama's dereliction of duty on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a feckless administration has had absolutely no oversight as it careens from disaster to disaster in Afghanistan."
jawbone, on March 2, 2008 at 9:25 pm said:
Somerby's DailyHowler.com is invaluable for tracking the MCM's Hillary Hate.
And don't let Frank Rich off–he was responsible for getting some of the false ideas and accusations out about Gore.
I don't understand the man, Or MoDo for that matter.
CB, on March 2, 2008 at 9:37 pm said:
Hi DCDemocrat,
Here are some background links about Barry Obama. The first describes his short, sweet political career. He started it by hiring an election official to level the playing field (eliminating the popular Black woman activist incumbent) so he could run unopposed.
His political career in the Illinois Senate happened over one year (after the Dems got in power in 2002) and was the result of others' hard work—the new Black Majority Leader threw everything to Obama: "I'm going to make me a U.S. Senator." You probably remember how charmed Obama's run for the U.S.. Senate was (if not, you can read about it below):
http://www.houstonpress.com/2008-02-28/news/barack-obama-screamed-at-me/
The following link gives some background about his life story, and highlights some discrepancies in the official autobiography:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/chi-070325obama-youth-story,1,4006113.story
Scroll down to see a photo of Obama in Lincoln's stove pipe–this article from Black Agenda asks whether Obama is a movement or a marketing ploy.
http://www.blackagendareport.com/
No Blood for Hubris, on March 2, 2008 at 9:42 pm said:
Frank, Frank, Frank. Oh my.
Boston Boomer, on March 2, 2008 at 10:04 pm said:
Litigatormom,
Thanks for that Slate link. I suppose you've already seen this one, but just in case:
http://obamamessiah.blogspot.com/
I can't read Modo at all. It's just not worth getting that enraged and having to get over it. I honestly don't think I'll ever be able to read Frank Rich again, and I haven't watched Keith Olberman for at least two weeks. In fact, I haven't watched MSNBC for at least that long. I didn't even watch the debate, just read the liveblog on Talkleft.
litigatormom, on March 2, 2008 at 11:26 pm said:
Boston Boomer:
I had not seen that link. Yeesh!
I used to anticipate Frank Rich's column eagerly all week. I even bought his frakkin' book, "The Greatest Story Ever Sold." He is now unreadable. Even when he pauses from bashing Hillary to bash McCain, its because he's acting like Hillary!
MoDo is a very very unhappy person, that's all I can say. The kind of woman how has to dump on other women to show that she's not a knee-jerk feminist (or any kind of feminist at all). Just goes to show you that red hair isn't everything.
Paul Krugman in Monday's NYT, questioning whether an Obama presidency would give us another FDR or an "oratorically upgraded Michael Bloomberg."
It will drive the Daily Obama wild.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/03/opinion/03krugman.html?hp
I used to write angry e-mails to MoDo when I read her columns. I would get so angry that I'd have to take deep breaths to calm myself down! I can't stand her. She is in love with her own "cleverness."
I hate to think what she will do to Obama if he's the nominee. But I will enjoy seeing the anguish and gnashing of teeth on Daily Kos when it happens. Poor "Obambi."
Stellaa, on March 3, 2008 at 1:50 am said:
I started a new pet project. Take a typical Dowd anti Hillary column. Go to the Dowd page, use Dowd's words, in exactly the way she uses them against Hillary, and write her a love letter. CC the NYTimes public editor. If we cover them with those letters, imagine how many versions we can get it would be wonderful performance art. Here is an example from the column titled: Begrudging His Bedazling, February 27. It's so much fun, it beats drinking games.
Dear Ms. Sunshine,
I have wanted to write to you to compliment you on your work, what better way to find compliments but to use your own words.
Peevishly and pointlessly you are going down the drain. Your cascading images and hairstyles become dizzying and unsettling, suggesting that you woke up every day struggling to create a persona, now you seem to think there is political writing in what you do or maybe critical thinking.
You can't turn on your own charm and wit because you can't get beyond what you see as the deep injustice of Hillary being more popular and smarter. Your sunshine-colored words hardly disguise the fact that you are pea-green with envy.
You have been so discombobulated that you has ignored as you said : tartly Sunny beats gloomy. Consistency beats flipping. Bedazzling beats begrudging. Confidence beats whining. Beating Hillary is the lamest thing you can do. It is only because of the utter open-mindedness of the Times that you can write horrible column after column and still be treated as a contender.
Please enjoy the reflection of your words unto you.
ghost2, on March 3, 2008 at 3:28 am said:
Link goodies:
NAFTA gate: http://www.mydd.com/
TaylorMarsh also has it. A memorandum of the meeting has surfaced!! AP breaks the story.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Democrats-NAFTA.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
DCDemocrat, on March 3, 2008 at 7:16 am said:
CB and Boston Boomer: Thanks for those links.
Boston Boomer, on March 3, 2008 at 8:31 am said:
ghost2,
Thanks for the link. NAFTAgate is growing and the Rezko trial starts today. No wonder the Obama fan base wants Hillary out ASAP before all the sh*t hits the fan. The next couple of days are going to be fun.
I was listening to the Bill Press show this morning, and he had James Moore of the Houston Chonicle (co-author of Bush's Brain) on to talk about the TX primary. Moore thinks Hillary could win Texas! Imagine if she wins Ohio and RI and squeaks out a win in Texas?
ronkseattle, on March 3, 2008 at 11:07 am said:
The Obama 'movement' is in a rush to close the deal before anybody reads the fine print. Here's hoping tomorrow slows 'em down.
A split win in TX (winning the popular vote but trailing in delegates) would give people plenty to think about.
For instance, they might give the Washington state results another look — where Obama won 68% of the delegates at caucus, but took only 51% of the popular vote in a separate nonbinding ("beauty contest") primary election.
And they might factor that back into interpretation of his 10 or so caucus state wins.
FYI, fans of those famous NY ed page columnists might appreciate my continued timeline elaboration of the Jan 7 – 14 "race baiting" eruption.
I'm going back through contemporaneous chronologies – political blogs, etc – and pulling up nitty-gritty detail. The base post is a moving target, which I'll re-summarize "for show" later.