Considering that the New York Times employs Bob Herbert, Maureen Dowd, and Paul Krugman – to call Frank Rich the worst columnist over there means that he has beaten out some heavy competition for that coveted title. Frank Rich orignally was the theater critic for the Times, the self described “Butcher of Broadway”. After helping to close down many shows that deserved better fates thanks to his unbridled nastiness , some genius at the Gray Lady decided that he ought to have a column where he could fulminate about national affairs from a left of Stalin viewpoint. His weekly column comes with all the joy you would get from someone dumping a bucket of vomit on your desk every morning. In addition to Frank Rich, I would say the following are some of the worst left-wing newspaper commentators: Derrick Z. Jackson, Eugene Robinson, Mike Barnicle, and Mark Morford.
by Dennis Prager
If one had to read one columnist to appreciate the state of contemporary left-wing commentary, my nomination would be Frank Rich of the Sunday New York Times.
No well-known leftist columnist better exemplifies the worst aspects of today’s left. Virtually every piece is filled with anger, filled with ad hominem responses to arguments, filled with insults of opponents and at the same time devoid of intellectual arguments. A Frank Rich column is essentially a weekly tantrum meant to make his readers nod in agreement and reinforce their contempt for those who differ with them.
I offer this past Sunday’s column as an example.
The subject was the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy regarding gays in the military.
Not a single serious argument of proponents of DADT was cited, nor did Rich did offer a single argument on behalf of repealing it. Instead, the article was a smear of all supporters of that policy or of retaining the male-female definition of marriage. The article contains 71 sentences. Twelve sentences contained an insult. I suspect that Times readers who love his columns — this was listed as the second most e-mailed piece in the New York Times — are generally people who read Frank Rich so as to have their hatreds reinforced, not for cogent arguments.
The article’s title is, appropriately, an insult: “Smoke the Bigots Out of the Closet.”
It is commonplace for liberals and leftists to avoid refuting conservative arguments and just dismiss the conservative with one of seven epithets: “Racist,” “Bigoted,” “Sexist,” “Intolerant,” and the three phobias: “Homophobic,” Xenophobic,” “Islamaphobic.”
Such ad hominem dismissals of conservatives and their arguments testify to the shallowness of those using these terms, meaning, unfortunately, most mainstream commentators and spokesmen on the left. The fact is that epithets substitute for thought — and at the same time render it easy to write a left-wing column. It is the Frank Rich Formula: make believe the other side has no thoughtful argument, offer no argument of your own and debase your opponents.
—————————— But also note “spewing” because Rich almost never describes conservatives as speaking normally: In this column alone, they “spew,” Sen. Orrin Hatch “vamped” and John McCain “huffed,” “fulminated” and was “yapping.” No conservative “says,” or “claims” or “argues.” Conservatives spew, vamp, huff, fulminate and yap. Do Charles Krauthammer, George Will, Thomas Sowell or any other conservative commentators meant to be taken as seriously as the left takes Rich use such verbs to describe the speech of prominent liberals? I doubt it. The gulf in depth of thought and sophistication of expression between Frank Rich and virtually every mainstream conservative columnist is enormous.
(I did a 30-day search of the words “spew” and “spewed” on the Washington Post and New York Times websites, and every single time they were used, it was by a liberal writer talking about conservatives.)
Read the rest: Frank Rich and the State of Liberal Commentary
Tags: Dennis Prager
