To Be Perfectly Frank

What does Frank Rich do all week? He doesn't write theater reviews anymore, and I don't think he critiques books or movies, either. So unless he's started writing about the stock market, his only responsibility is writing his Sunday column.

If that's true--I feel very sorry for Mr. Rich. There are three things I can count on every Sunday--church, doughnuts, and a wretched column from Frank Rich. He never disappoints.

Rich has only two gears: "Bush/Republicans are horrible" and "Barack Obama is brilliant/Godlike." When Rich talks about Obama, he writes in the sort of starry-eyed, hero-worshiping style most people reserve for sports legends and cult leaders.

Well, Barack Obama has been looking significantly less brilliant and/or Godlike over the past couple weeks, so Rich has gone back to beating the dead horse of "Republicans are the spawn of Satan." Never mind that he's been beating that horse so long he's reduced it to a pulpy jelly.

Today's column is just another in a long series of interchangeable Frank Rich columns. Titled "The Culture Warriors Get Laid Off," Rich gloats that...what, really? I'm not quite sure. And I read it twice.

The gist of his argument seems to be that, because times are hard, people don't care about cultural issues anymore. That, Rich exults, means that pro-life, anti-gay marriage folks like Pat Robertson and Tony Perkins are out of business.

This fits in perfectly with Rich's longer-running argument, which he has swiped rather shamelessly from the similarly-named Thomas Frank. Those evil conservatives, T. Frank and Frank R. argue, have used social issues like abortion and gay marriage to hornswoggle Middle Americans to vote against their economic interests.

Conservatives do this because...they're jerks, I guess. That's never really fleshed out in Rich's column. Rich sees Republicans as cartoon villains along the lines of Snidely Whiplash.

Really, this column reveals why liberals like Rich will never win over Middle America. In his mind, ignorance is the only explanation for social conservatism. If only those hayseed flyover yokels read more of The New Yorker! Then they'd see the error of their ways.

The Franks miss the fact that, to many Middle Americans, social issues and economic issues intertwine. Their moral code isn't imposed on them by some nefarious outside force; it was created in their community, and their community sustains it.

Middle Americans "cling" to their social conservatism because it gives a little structure to their life. When they vote for Republicans, they might be voting against their economic interests, but they're also voting to uphold their social interests. Liberals have no interest in understanding this.

In conclusion: Frank Rich is wrong, and I hate him. Maybe not hate. Hate is too strong a word for an intellectual clown like Rich. Feel sorry for him, more like it.