It’s almost as if Frank Rich is trying to school himself when he writes this morning:
We can’t keep blaming 43 for everything, especially now that we don’t have him to kick around anymore.
But try as he might, Rich just can’t shake his very bad case of Bush Derangement Syndrome. Check out this line from the opening paragraph of his column today, describing the former prez and VP at the inaugural:
Bush and Cheney . . . in black hat and wheelchair, looked like the misbegotten spawn of the evil Mr. Potter in “It’s a Wonderful Life” and the Wicked Witch of the West.
Does Rich really want to go there? Does he really want to make the physical appearance of political opponents fair game?
The thrust of the column is an attempt to explain away Pres. Obama’s generally lackluster inaugural address. It wasn’t bad, insists Rich. It was “austere”–and by design, given the need to rebuke the Bush administration and admonish the rest of us who were complicit in the lead-up to the current financial mess. According to Rich’s headline, it was “no time for poetry,” and boy, did Pres. Obama ever deliver!
Whatever. The columnist comes across much like the theater critic he once was, trying to make excuses for a flop by a favored playwright.
In the meantime, Rich really needs to let the BDS go.

