Is Frank Rich reliable? Made up Al Gore "Love Story" lie & attacked Gore for anti-Iraq War speech.

[Karmadillo]

http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh060906.shtml

<edit>

The mailer asked an excellent question: Why has a “liberal” like Rich been so tough on Gore through the years? Why did he invent Love Story in 1997? Throughout the course of Campaign 2000, why did he keep pretending that Bush and Gore were a perfectly-matched pair of bumblers? When Gore spoke out on Iraq in 2002, why did Rich attack him again (inventing his facts as he went)? And in his new column, just two weeks ago, why did he nit-pick those ludicrous complaints about Gore? For example, why did he pretend—in that pathetic example—that Gore “waffled” on creationism in 1999? For the most part, readers have no way to evaluate such claims. Why does Rich just keep making them up?

Below, we’ll post our reply to the mailer. But make no mistake: In part, Rich does this because he can—because he knows that the Franke-Rutas are there to enable his conduct. Cartoonists know what happened with Gore. Film critics know what happened too. Everyone knows it—except Franke-Ruta! In her column, Franke-Ruta neatly avoids the most basic facts of our recent shared history. To this day, she still pretends that she doesn’t know who dropped those “hostile frames” on Gore. This is how young writers build fine careers. But it’s also how Democrats lose elections, and in this case, it also explains how the US marched off to Iraq. At some point, you’d think the Franke-Rutas would be shamed into telling the truth. At some point, you’d think these young scribes would be shamed into saying what happened.


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[RufusTFirefly]

1. You must be paid by the post.

And hey: you forgot to mention Barack Obama's drug use. Try the edit function.

The efficiency of the Clinton Shock Troops is pretty impressive.

[Karmadillo]

3. Nope. I'm paid for every silly response I generate. Thank you for yours.

nt

[saltpoint]

2. Through the years Gore hadn't been much of a liberal.

After the "loss" in 2000 he became much more the fiery populist, progressive voice. The beard grew out and the dynamic changed in his speaking, his public addresses, and his vision.

You went from a Gore of dry plywood to a wolf-like angel.

I sure like the new one better, and I say that as a Bradley delegate in 2000.

Rich can be trusted because he's one of the most intelligent anaysts of the political/cultural landscape we have.

He blasts Democrats on occasion to keep toes to the flame but he's savaged Bush as much as any writer and more than most.

[aquart]

4. And this is what Howler has to say about YOU:

Especially the last sentence:

REPLY (6/1/06): Here's my general view: Rich is a completely reliable "blue-state" social liberal. That is, he will always repeat the reliable case about how dumb any "red-state" manifestation is. For that reason, he's generally easy for most liberals to like. But the underlying theme with Rich must always be: "I, Frank Rich, am brighter than all." ("Along with my upper-class Manhattan cohort.") So he had to be smarter and better than Clinton and Gore—although, quite plainly, he isn't—and he reacted with horror any time they did anything that might suggest respect for the "red-state" electorate. When Gore occasionally mentioned his religious faith, for example, this struck Rich as fake and reprehensible, and he offered thunderous complaints about what a phony Gore was—just like Bush.

For the record, Rich did more than fall for the scripts; in fact, he invented the script on Love Story. And after Gore gave his 9/02 speech on Iraq, Rich trashed him in a deeply dishonest way (see tomorrow). The record here is just horrible.

You're right, in that Rich would score well on an IQ test. But I think there's something unbelievably dumb in the Millionaire Pundit Values I have discussed—and Rich is clearly the reigning poobah of the Manhattan branch of this worthless brigade. His "reasoning" in Sunday's piece is so dumb that it borders on mental dysfunction. (Gore was right about global warming. But he once owned a rifle!) This would be easy for liberals to see—if we weren't inclined in his favor because he takes our side (often embellishing facts) about those worthless red-staters.

[saltpoint]

5. I'm not sure who or what Howler is, but I stand by my praise of Frank Rich.

He's one of the best going and I don't perceive that he's the lackey of any red state strategists.

I'm sure that a lot of red staters would like to see Mr. Rich silenced.

Mel Gibson, to name one.

[madrchsod]

6. so rich has his opinions....

course i`m from the midwest and not up on the latest meme from the east coast. by the way the "oprah" was proposed to clinton by mark penn.....bill clinton that is. opps i wonder why penn did`t try this time?

[IndyOp]

7. K&R. (n/t)

[Berry Cool]

8. I would take anything the Howler says with a grain of salt. A huge one.

He seems to like to spend a lot of time declaring various people "useless" because they supposedly once said or did something that didn't fit his beliefs or agenda. "Useless" is one of his favorite words.

When someone spends that much time and effort railing about how "useless" other progressives are, I start to ask myself "Is that how you view everyone? In terms of how 'useful' or 'useless' you think they are? If so, doesn't that imply that you see them all as instruments of some master plan of your own devising, rather than as human beings with their own ideas? That you see them all merely as tools to be 'used,' and judge them as 'good tools' or 'bad tools' in accordance with how well they can be 'used'? And why is that?"

[antiimperialist]

10. Why don't you tell us what you think about Rich's treatment of the Love Story?

Please give us your opinion instead of blaming the messenger.

[maximusveritas]

9. Kind of misleading title

Rich was not attacking Gore because of some anti-war speech.
He was attacking him for his appearance on the Today Show for not giving a clear answer on Iraq, when he actually was. It's just that Couric wasn't letting him speak.

[karynnj]

11. Frank Rich was a savage Theatre critic moved to the opinion piece

Though personally liberal, he covers politics as if it was a play or a movie. Is the actor too stiff? Does he look silly in costumes? He will go for the snark over insight any time - it plays better. He will often write a good piece bemoaning that the country voted on the wrong things - but he has never admitted that he was one of the cheerleaders who had great fun leading the laughs over insubstantial meaningless non issues.

On the Love Story issue, the author went to Yale with Gore - I think they were roommates. Gore and other sons of very powerful men at Harvard were the model for the Love Story character. The plot is a common classic theme. Gore never said that the story was his and Tipper's - it wasn't.

The problem is that, just as TV News became entertainment, a large part of the op-ed page did too. The problem was that the Cool Kidz, Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich, never stopped in 2000 or 2004 to seriously look at the candidates, their resumes, and what they believed in. That would have been no fun. The problem is that people reading them took their descriptions which turned each into pretty non-inspiring 2 dimensional characters - when each are really fascinating complex people who had spent their lives in public service. Nor did their paper want them to do that - the snarky attacks sold better.

So, Frank Rich, who would be fun to read if he were a DU poster inadvertently diminished people working hard to actually make the world better - and was cheered on because we loved his clever Bush put downs - which didn't hurt Bush as they were brushed aside as liberal NYT attacks.

[NYCGirl]

12. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Al Gore, but I still love Frank Rich. NT

[ClarkUSA]

13. Another attack-the-messenger piece by Daily Howler, one of Mark Penn's blogger-stenographers?

Who's next, HillaryIs44, Taylor Marsh, The Left Coaster, or HillaryHub? :eyes:

[Enrique]

14. Somerby is writing about Gore, not Clinton

he's personal friends with Gore. I'm not aware of any relationship with either Clinton, are you?

I think you're the one attacking the messenger.

[ClarkUSA]

15. Oh, please... he's a mouthpiece for the Clinton campaign who's always being quoted here.

And claiming that Rich "attacked" Gore is another exclamatory piece of BS. Rich, along with most of the media and many Americans, had good reason
to criticize Gore's 1999-2000 campaign. Hell, there were plenty of Democrats doing the same, including Bill Clinton. So what? Daily Howler is full of
shit and his claims to "know" Gore are BS.

[Sick_of_Rethuggery]

16. Same reason Krugman is currently

making an ass of himself for: unknowable to us (hurt ego, inability to evaluate objectively, ???)