Is This Rich?

All-star commenter IB says:

OT (but appropriate to a previously stated position of this blog): Another smart Sunday piece by Frank Rich.

(Noted because: About a week ago, someone (SL, I think, but correct me if I'm wrong) argued a la Somerby that one's saying something unfair about Al Gore in 2000 should forever banish one from publication. I defended Rich by saying that, while he has certainly on occasion been wrong, he is more often right and worth reading. So here's what I feel confident is the first of many examples offered in treal time.)

Well, first of all, "something unfair" is one thing, "making up lies about Al Gore when not obsessing about trivia while repeatedly arguing that he was indistinguishable from George W. Bush" quite another. (And, to be frank, I am in fact inclined to think that someone who thought that it wouldn't make any difference whether Al Gore or George Bush is in the White House really shouldn't be pulling down six figures a year to write about politics.) At any rate, while I will concede that (as with many of his columns) there's nothing especially objectionable about this one, I would also be interested in IB (or anyone else) IDing the point at which Rich tells any mildly informed liberal anything they don't already know. Parties engage in circular firing squads after losing elections? You don't say!

I should also say that, to the extent that Rich's point isn't banal, I don't actually agree with it. Obviously, comparisons to 1936 are silly; the Republicans, working in exceptionally bad structural conditions, got 162 electoral votes (as opposed to, say, 8) and lost several other states by very close margins. They maintain a solid regional base that is going to gain electoral votes in 2010, and their coalition remains probably more internally coherent than that of the typical large brokerage party in a two-party system. Party fissures are always more apparent in defeat, but it's premature at best to think that 2008 portends a major realignment in American politics.

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