Frank Rich Is Back And Bigger Than Ever!

My Sundays have not been the same since Frank Rich left the New York Times to write longer pieces for New York Magazine.  His sharp wit, brilliant writing, and unerring ability to skewer the government and the media by connecting the dots too often left unconnected have been sorely lacking from our current discourse.

He is finally back, and his first article, Obama's Original Sin, reminds us of what we have been missing and why it is worth giving him more words to play with.  As I wrote in the previous Fair and Unbalanced post, the Obama Administration made a grave error in failing to hold accountable the Bush officials responsible for torture.  Rich argues that what also "haunts the Obama administration is what still haunts the country: the stunning lack of accountability for the greed and misdeeds that brought America to its gravest financial crisis since the Great Depression. There has been no legal, moral, or financial reckoning for the most powerful wrongdoers. Nor have there been meaningful reforms that might prevent a repeat catastrophe."

Rich goes further, contending that Obama is guilty not only of "a weak performance on Wall Street crime enforcement and reform but also with a scattershot record (at best) of focusing on the main concern of Main Street: joblessness."   As Rich explains, one is a consequence of the other:  "His failure to push back against the financial sector, sparing it any responsibility for the economy it tanked, empowered it to roll over his agenda with its own. He has come across as favoring the financial elite over the stranded middle class even if, in his heart of hearts, he does not."

To further summarize the article would deprive you of the joy of reading the whole thing yourself.  So please do.