What's the context of these remarks?

That column almost made me weep with joy.

Krugman is the greatest American columnist. This piece does allow him to stand in his shadow.

The column is excellent.  I had posted a link to it on Josh's thread.

My brain is about worn out from trying to follow all the threads of this story, and Rich sort of boils it down to the essentials.  He makes the point that the administration - except for Rove's lawyer - finally caught on that they should stop talking, but they were late getting there, too late for their own good. 

 I'm not sure why Rich is so confident of a Rove resignation.  That outcome seems far from a "certainty" based on the public record.  What am I missing?  

I agree with that sentiment. We all owe a lot to Joe and Valerie Wilson. They have certainly carried their weight and more all these months. Both had distinguished themselves by service to the nation prior to the start of this affair, and they have distinguished themselves even further as the investigation has wound its way through the maze of deceipt thrown up by the Bushies. There is probably only one word that can be used to describe them. They are patriots.

He’s a great writer, and he has great references to many elements of popular culture. But one shouldn’t have to be up to speed on the latest episode of Desperate Housewives to be able to understand someone’s critique of the Bush administration. Don’t get me wrong. I like reading Rich’s columns. But to single out Rich as the “greatest American columnist” displays a somewhat NYT-centered outlook on the world. Why not, say, Katha Pollitt? In my opinion, her regular column in The Nation is perhaps the most consistently insightful and well argued political commentary available anywhere.

He's pretty much been the most consistent, in terms of opening my eyes to the bigger picture.  Here is his latest Rove-gate column - before Rich's latest, I might add.

Frank Rich did himself proud in this one. Yes, the Wilsons' deserve credit for bringing this into the open and have paid for it and may yet pay more. But Rich is pointing out on Page One of the New York Times that the Emperor has no clothes and it is the Emperor who should concern us the most, not his staff. And for all of that, it's also what Josh Marshall has been saying. And we who have been reading. The Blog is coming into it's own.

Rich was really the first columnist to take on the mendacity and hypocrisy of Republicans at the time of the Gingrich "revolution" in 1994.  He is certainly a must read.  I also think Lewis Lapham is in the same class.

When I came across this phrase in Rich's essay

last week's erection of the stonewall manned by the almost poignantly clownish Mr. McClellan,

I was definitely reminded of Lewis Lapham. Of course Lapham and Rich aren't really pundits in the usual sense; both writers are much more steeped in culture and history than our workaday pundits like E.J. Dionne.

Conservative pundits from Buckley to David Brooks tend to be more culturally literate, though of course they invariably marshal cultural artifacts in service of their ideology, rather than allowing their worldview to be shaped by what they read.

But there is something to what Emmett Tyrell wrote about Michael Kinsley in Tyrell's otherwise-useless book The Liberal Crack-Up. Basically Tyrell called Kinsley a philistine who has no conception of the good life. And while it's unfair to single Kinsley out, it is perhaps true of the liberal punditariat as a whole: too much policy and politics, not enough perspective.

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DATE: 07/17/2005 10:01:56 AM

Rich's column today definitely qualifies as one of the best I have ever read, and that's saying something, since he's been damn good for a damn long time.  A fine exposition of outrage.

I'm almost surprised he didn't use this quote, so - since he didn't - I'll post it here, because this is the analysis of the situation that hits the nail on the nead.  Written 70+ years ago by Josef Goebbels:

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.  The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie.  It thus becomes vitally important for the state to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus bey extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."

I loved the column and I enjoy Frank Rich, not because I necessarily agree with him, but because he has a big brain and his columns are rich in informational detail. (I confess I read George Will for the same reason.)

 This column's importance though is not that it tells the truth about the larger issue the current scandal points to. The importance is the prominence of its author and its venue. I've stayed up past my bedtime since Judy Miller went to jail, sucking facts out the posts here and clicking links to other sources, but when I begin to jabber excitedly to the people I see all day --- educated, left-leaning, active people --- it's news to them that this has the potential to expose the Bush administration's lies and distortions used to get us into this war. Even people who believe this war to be illegitimate don't yet see the significance of "Plamegate."

Even the WaPo article has two truly astounding sentences (emphasis mine):

 "To a Bush administration intent on selling the American public on war based on the threat posed by Iraq's weapons program, the yellowcake was no small deal."

and

"As for the Bush administration, the investigation has exposed how an administration that publicly deplores leaking has engaged aggressively in the practice to advance its goals."

 These state it all rather flatly, don't they?

You wrote ... "The fact is, American Democracy hangs by a single thread - Fitzgerald. If he folds up his tent, nothing matters."

THis may be the truest statement ever made on this blog!

As much as I admire Wilson and Plame, for the most part, I agree with Rich that they are the sideshow here. And I think that the left should embrace that notion. The more we get all weepy about what heroes they are, the more the story focuses on them, what they said, when they said it, etc. until the press throws up its hands like it did with the Swift Boat guys and says "Oh, well, I guess we'll never really know the truth." The fact is, Wilson and Plame are the equivalent of the Watergate break-in. The whole Watergate scandal didn't rise and fall on the breaking and entering trial. Similarly, this affair has provided a prosecutor who so far seems to be doing his job with the power to subpeona people throughout the administration, and expose the duplicitous way in which they are managing the country. It's so easy to raise doubts in people's minds about any individuals. It's the entire pattern of corruption that's being exposed, and that's a good thing.