Informed Speculation

By now, one suspects that Frank Rich manages to insert the image of George W. Bush on the aircraft carrier with the “Mission Accomplished” sign behind him into his dinner conversation. “Honey, would you pass the gravy?” “Certainly…you know, this bowl of gravy is symbolic of that day in San Diego…”

I scarcely exaggerate. If the Times didn’t hide their archives behind pay-as-you-go links, a serious study would reveal just how often Rich resorts to this rhetorical device, regardless of subject matter. Need I even bother you, then, with the confirmation that he trots it out for New Orleans?

…[E]ven as Mr. Bush promised “victory” (a word used nine times in this speech on Tuesday), he was standing at the totemic scene of his failure. It was along this same San Diego coastline that he declared “Mission Accomplished” in Iraq on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln more than two years ago.

Then, Rich veers off into another of his hallucinatory conspiracy rants:

This administration would like us to forget a lot, starting with the simple fact that next Sunday is the fourth anniversary of the day we were attacked by Al Qaeda, not Iraq. Even before Katrina took command of the news, Sept. 11, 2005, was destined to be a half-forgotten occasion, distorted and sullied by a grotesquely inappropriate Pentagon-sponsored country music jamboree on the Mall. But hard as it is to reflect upon so much sorrow at once, we cannot allow ourselves to forget the real history surrounding 9/11; it is the Rosetta stone for what is happening now. If we are to pull ourselves out of the disasters of Katrina and Iraq alike, we must live in the real world, not the fantasyland of the administration’s faith-based propaganda. Everything connects.

Why grotesquely inappropriate? Because of that “hillbilly” country music those folks down in Jesusland like? Watch out, Frank, your biases are showing…

For Rich, every week is the week that finally destroys Bush once and for all:

You could almost see Mr. Bush’s political base starting to crumble at its very epicenter, Fox News, by Thursday night. Even there it was impossible to ignore that the administration was no more successful at securing New Orleans than it had been at pacifying Falluja.

How can that be, Frank? You assured us just last week that Mother Sheehan had completely demolished the Administration…and a few weeks before that it was PlameGate…and before that…

With Rich, you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. After everyone on the Left demonized the President for not showing up instantly knee-deep in the water and single-handedly rescuing every last survivor, Rich blasts him for showing up at all:

On Thursday morning, the president told Diane Sawyer that he hoped “people don’t play politics during this period of time.” Presumably that means that the photos of him wistfully surveying the Katrina damage from Air Force One won’t be sold to campaign donors as the equivalent 9/11 photos were. Maybe he’ll even call off the right-wing attack machine so it won’t Swift-boat the Katrina survivors who emerge to ask tough questions as it has Cindy Sheehan and those New Jersey widows who had the gall to demand a formal 9/11 inquiry.

Classic Rich – Swift Boats, Mother Sheehan, the 9/11 widows (well, at least the 9/11 widows who oppose Bush) – only Hunter S. Thompson had this vivid an imagination. You see, we, bloggers like me, columnists like George Will, Republicans – we’re all part of the right-wing attack machine (though Rich slips and has Bush calling the shots rather than Rove – probably got a little feverish in his ranting).

Say, I wonder if Frank has left the cozy environs of Manhattan to volunteer his services? Certainly, he can afford the plane ticket to the vicinity of New Orleans, and he has no real job to speak of…