Mugger Takes Rich to the Woodshed (again)

Every Thursday, the NY Press puts out its weekly online edition. It is a bit dated in blogospheric terms by the time we get to read the opinion pieces, which are usually provocative. That said, I still eagerly await Russ Smith's weekly Frank Rich bitchslap:

Maybe the Yanks get their comeuppance this year, maybe not, but one thing management is doing right is the continuation of "God Bless America" being performed during the seventh-inning stretch at the Stadium. Times scold Frank Rich no doubt skips Yankees games on the tube—he's a busy fellow, monitoring the Fox Channel for even the slightest hint of jingoism—for if he'd see Ronan Tynan (or his subs) with a mostly hushed crowd maybe his May 29 column "Ground Zero Is So Over" would've been less cynical.

Rich takes advantage of George Pataki's unconscionable dithering on rebuilding at the site of the Towers to once against molest George Bush in print. He writes: "Bothered as New Yorkers may be by what Charles Schumer has termed the 'culture of inertia' surrounding ground zero, that stagnation may accurately reflect most of America's view about the war on terror that began with the slaughter of more than 2,700 at the World Trade Center almost four years ago. Though the vacant site is a poor memorial for those who died there, it's an all too apt symbol for a war on which the country is turning its back."

The invasion of Iraq was never popular, and Rich knows that. Nevertheless, the entertainment columnist's Democratic candidate lost to Bush six months ago, to his and the ghost of Pauline Kael's astonishment, and so the slug remains bitter. George Steinbrenner isn't everyone's favorite millionaire—although I prefer him to Warren Buffett and Teddy Kennedy—but at least he's not actively rooting for an American defeat in the Mideast.

Read it all.