That’s Rich

Some say it’s not the comments (of the candidates) but the commentary (of the pundits) that may be the more revealing. Exhibit A: Frank Rich. In Sunday’s Times, Mr. Rich disgorged himself of enough bile and bias to fill a Howard Dean bean bag chair. Frank’s point was that ABC squandered an opportunity and failed in its journalistic obligation, during (if there is a God) the last “debate”, to ask the candidates about “the mortgage crisis, health care, the environment, torture, education, China policy, the pending G.I. bill to aid veterans, or the war we’re losing in Afghanistan”. Allow me; they’re against it, for it, for it, against it, for it, against it, for it, against it. The details and demagoguery can be referenced on their websites.

Admittedly there’s no way to do justice to the sprawling idiocy of a Frank Rich signature piece, but a representative sampling may convey the systemic twaddle that lines a thousand bird cages in the metropolitan area.

Mr. Rich regards a question posed by Charlie Gibson as a symptom of “media-populace disconnect”, Mr. Rich’s term. Which is to say that to ask about the capital gains tax when people are losing their homes and jobs and gas is approaching $ 4 a gallon, is an acute case of I don’t get it. Who cares about capital gains rates, implies Mr. R. To add icing to the irony, we learn the very day of the debate that the top 50 hedge fund managers earned a collective $ 50 billion in 2007. Yeah, so? Is it a crime, should it be? Or is it just unfair? The way a baseball player earns a $ 100 million and a fan can’t afford to bring his kids to a game. As for capital gains, who cares, approximately 100 million Americans. But the money quote, from the debate, is Obama’s. While allowing that the revenue earned from capital gains could decline (as it historically has when rates increase), he said he would likely increase it out of “fairness”. It’s funny how social activists aspire to be social engineers.