Isn’t it Rich
Oct 4, 2009 Gelt, Liberal punks, Medialites
When you’ve lost Frank Rich, you’ve lost conventional-wisdom punditAmerica.
Not his smoothest phrase ever, but Glenn is right on. This is a phenomenal departure by the one-time “Butcher of Broadway” from the party line, and an encouraging sign that even for some of the biggest Kool-Aid-guzzlers, there’s hope.
I don’t mean “hope” for major political change, or anything like that. Come on!
Rather, it’s a sign there’s hope for something once again resembling a remotely honest, tell-it-like-it-is “Fourth Estate” — the very terminology of which makes me think that, in fact, something else is going on here, too:
Obama is toeing what turns out to be the third (or fourth) rail of American journalistic politics: K Street.
It turns out that PunditAmerica’s jealousy of the ascent of the lobbyist class to the status of de facto branch of government — now more powerful than the mainstream media, whose own former privileges as “owners” of the official truth have been dashed beyond recognition – trumps its class loyalty to a President whose ability to bestow the MSM with specialness has eroded concomitantly. And that is in all likelihood what is motivating Frank Rich, at least as much as political idealism, to nail his thesis to the cathedral door.
Still and all, good for you, Frank. And it’s not even a year since Election Day.
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