Informed Speculation

For some odd reason, the New York Times is not protecting this week’s Frank Rich column (an early indication of surrender? Probably not…but still…). What is immediately apparent is that anyone paying $50 a year is getting taken for quite a ride, at least if they are doing it for the columnists, because, and I kid you not, this column could be any of a dozen columns that have come out this year.

It’s the same old tired schtick. Rich’s signature style is one he has apparently stolen from Oliver Stone: throw in everything, including the kitchen sink, and hope no one notices how thin your connections are. Case in point:

What makes Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation compelling, whatever its outcome, is its illumination of a conspiracy that was not at all petty: the one that took us on false premises into a reckless and wasteful war in Iraq. That conspiracy was instigated by Mr. Rove’s boss, George W. Bush, and Mr. Libby’s boss, Dick Cheney.

Mr. Wilson and his wife were trashed to protect that larger plot. Because the personnel in both stories overlap, the bits and pieces we’ve learned about the leak inquiry over the past two years have gradually helped fill in the über-narrative about the war.

Of course, it goes without saying that anyone who uses the word ‘über-narrative’ should be flogged mercilessly at dawn in the public square, but Rich doesn’t even try to hide his paranoid vision of reality.

All the tired touchpoints are here: the Downing Street Memo(!!!), Mission Accomplished(!!!!), and “Bush’s Brain”(!!!!!). Frank Rich occasionally shows a touch of writing style, but his painful overreaching every single column, without fail, is sadly pitiful. Is Frank Rich the most overpaid ‘journalist’ in America? Only his fellow Times columnists offer any competition. Please, please, for God’s sake, put the subscription wall up again…and hurry!…