Why Is Frank Rich Mad as Hell?
One of the most brilliant careerists of my journalism generation is Frank Rich, who now writes a record-length column for the Sunday New York Times op-ed page. He’s pulled off his career goal: becoming as quintessentially part of the establishment as you can be. When he talks, people within the culture and media system listen. At the Times itself, he runs his own power center: You don’t lightly cross Frank Rich (indeed, if you need juice at the Times, you call Frank Rich). And his kids — we all want to help our kids’ careers, but Frank’s have had books and television shows to their credit by their early twenties. Anyway, Frank’s column in the Sunday Times was about how much he, and all Americans, in his estimation, resent that in so many aspects of modern life the fix is in. “What disturbs Americans of all ideological persuasions is the fear that almost everything, not just government, is fixed or manipulated by some powerful hidden hand, from commercial transactions as trivial as the
