It is not simply a matter of stagecraft.  The mass adulation Barack Obama's international tour has received, Frank Rich argues in this week's column, is a matter of the power Illinois's junior senator has amassed to shape events, become must-see television, and set the agenda for what politics are discussed in this country.

What made this possible?  The title of Rich's column gives a hint: How Obama Became Acting President.

Wow, Frank Rich's Sunday NYT Op Ed column, It’s the Economic Stupidity, Stupid, just slams McCain! Despite a somewhat odd discussion towards the end about VP candidates, it's a thing of beauty, with this as the central point:

were voters forced to actually focus on Mr. McCain’s response to our spiraling economic crisis at home, the prospect of his ascension to the Oval Office could set off a panic that would make the IndyMac Bank bust in Pasadena look as merry as the Rose Bowl.

Is the MSM starting to get it?

That’s why the Bush White House’s corruption in the end surpasses Nixon’s. We can no longer take cold comfort in the Watergate maxim that the cover-up was worse than the crime. This time the crime is worse than the cover-up, and the punishment could rain down on us all.

Strong words.  The final words in a column appearing in tomorrow's New York Times by Frank Rich entitled The Real-Life ‘24’ of Summer 2008.  While the column title invokes Jack Bauer, the column is in fact an exploration of a new book by Jane Mayer of THe New Yorker entitled The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals.  Rich's discussion makes the book seem like a must read.  Of greater importance, what he describes from the book should lead us all to demand MEANINGFUL investigations by the Congress, NOW, even if that requires an impeachment investigation to accomplish.

I think it might. Has Obama's campaign become"small-bore and defensive" as Frank Rich suggested yesterday in the N.Y. Times.Citing the Senator's reaffirmation of his belief in faith-based initiative programs and his pull back on FISA.,Rich feels Obama's speeches of late have lacked passion, are mundane and "inadequate to the daunting size of the serious American crisis at hand" He compared it to Hillary Clintons "play it safe" campaign which led to her stunning defeats in the early primaries.

Wikipedia defines a "prevent defense" this way:  "Prevent defenses are geared almost exclusively towards stopping an extremely long pass. They are frequently used in obvious passing situations, such as a third-and-very-long situation, or to prevent a long score on the last play of a game}"

Obama advisor, David Axlerod,used to work for the Clintons. Some of you who follow my diaries know I have long called  for Obama to dump him.Here is what the legendary  N.F.L. Coach and Announcer, John Madden thinks about the prevent defense:"All a prevent defense does is prevent you from winning."

Frank Rich's Sunday column is, as usual, a worthy read.  It offers an interesting application of the new movie "Wall-E" to our contemporary political situation.  Its most relevant portion, however, comes near the end, where he addresses the malaise that currently appears to be infecting the Obama campaign.  

Rich's op ed today is entitled If Terrorists Rock the Vote in 2008  and focuses on how irrelevant the twin themes previously used by Karl Rove are now, the fear of terrorism and the fear of gays.  Obviously his title refers to the former, relevant to discuss now because of Charles Black's comments in Fortune that another terrorist attack would be to McCain's benefit.  But would it?  Would not it undercut ideas like "fighting them over there means we don't have to fight them here", or "if we leave Iraq the terrorists will follow us home" or "the policies of Bush have kept us safe" or any of that rot?  To me that has always been obvious, that another attack would equal failure of the Bush approach, and undercut support for Republicans.  Let's look how Rich demolishes this Rovian argument, one of several services he does for us as he serves as the little boy in the fable of the Emperor's new suit of clothes.

Frank Rich's column this week takes on John McCain adviser Charlie Black's comments that a terrorist attack would be a "big advantage" for the Republican candidate's campaign.  While much has been said about how Black's comments mirror ones McCain made last year (even though McCain repudiated Black's statement this week), Rich goes further to show how the McCain campaign's dependence on the fear of a terrorist attack is a structural part of the Republican campaign.  In this sense, Rich argues, McCain is relying (like all Republicans this century) upon the ideas and tactics of Karl Rove.

The last half of Sunday's Frank Rich column in the NYT deliciously goes after John McCain on the Iraq War.  Rich's is pretty much shooting fish in a barrel here, but he does it with such panache!

http://www.nytimes.com/...

The ludicrous idea that votes from Clinton supporters would somehow make up for McCain defectors is merely the latest fairy tale brought to you by those same Washington soothsayers who said Fred Thompson was the man to beat and that young people don’t turn up to vote.

So reads the final paragraph of Frank Rich's column this morning, entitled Angry Clinton Women ♥ McCain?.  It is worth reading, full of the cogent observations and pointed prose we have come to expect of Rich.  I will leave most of that for you to read on your own.  In this diary I want to explore the analysis he makes of the data from the poll itself.

Finally.

Someone is cutting through the BS media coddling of John McCain.

Frank Rich's column this week is a must read:

TEN years ago John McCain had to apologize for regaling a Republican audience with a crude sexual joke about Hillary and Chelsea Clinton and Janet Reno. Last year he had to explain why he didn’t so much as flinch when a supporter asked him on camera, “How do we beat the bitch?” But these days Mr. McCain just loves the women.

Awesome.

I will be brief (for once) because this is a call to action. I just noticed that Frank Rich's  New York Times op-ed "One Historic Night, Two Americas" is near the top of the Digg front page. Digging it up will increase the number of eyeballs that see gems such as this:

Mr. McCain only reminded voters that he, like Mrs. Clinton, thinks that change is nothing more than a marketing gimmick. He has no idea what it means. "No matter who wins this election, the direction of this country is going to change dramatically," he said on Tuesday. He then grimly regurgitated Goldwater and Reagan government-bashing talking points from the 1960s and ’70s even as he presumed to accuse Mr. Obama of looking "to the 1960s and ’70s for answers."

More samples below the fold...

I published a diary yesterday in which I acknowledged my respect for Senator Clinton.

I also  attempted to explain why I would never be able to trust her.I cautioned Obama supporters it would be counter-productive to put too much stock in her conciliatory concession speech Saturday.

The outrage my dairy touched off was surprising to me. I reflected on the reasons. I am definitely not sexist as my three incredible daughters and 16 grandchilren will attest. So what was it?

NYT columnist Frank Rich's Sunday column shows that it's possible for a long-running pundit to fundamentally understand Barack Obama and the changes his candidacy promises for the country.

The 'who could have known' defense

So, it goes like this...late last night, I read Frank Rich's article on McLellan. Filled with anger, I jump on the comments section and rattle off some thoughts. Despite my history of writing things there that are too filled with truth to get posted, imagine my excitement when I just clicked over and saw...TADA...my post is number 1...with 94 people recommending it. You can check it out here:
http://community.nytimes.com/...

But then...I get to the end, and my blood boils, my faith in democracy is once again crushed, and I start cursing like mad...

In today's NYT, Frank Rich engages a topic that has been on my mind a lot recently: why the tiny, seemingly inconsequential pebble of Scott McClellan's new book should be creating such a huge ripple effect.  After all, there is nothing new in this book, and it in fact is a far kinder rendering of Bush and especially McClellan than seems truthful or warranted.

What is the cause of the uproar that has kept McClellan in the news?  Rich concludes, basically, that it's the war, stupid--that Americans are unhappily fixated on not only the failure of the Iraq War, but particularly on its duplicitous beginnings, and therefore any new telling of that story captures our attention.  

To my thinking, Rich's analysis is incomplete.

We all know how badly John Kerry was affected by the flip-flopper title in 04.  In his Sunday Op-ed, Frank Rich only briefly mentions a point that should have decent traction come general election season:

Just 36 hours after the Mississippi debacle, Mr. McCain tried to distance himself from the administration by flip-flopping on his signature issue, Iraq, suddenly endorsing just the kind of timetable for withdrawal he has characterized as "surrender" when proposed by Democrats or Mitt Romney. (When Mr. McCain proposes it, he labels it "victory.")

While I think we all agree that allowing the appeasement angle to play itself out (and hopefully SECDEF Gates' appeasement statements get some MSM play), Mr. Rich has offered up a tool for usage in a few months: TV ads of McCain blasting Now Running Mate/Then Primary contender Romney for lobbying for a troop withdrawal timeline, followed up by Mr. McCain's 5/15 speech promising major troop withdrawals by 2013.  Maybe sprinkle in some 100 years footage while we are at it!  The flip-flopper thing works, let's use it!

The Frank Rich column in yesterdays NYT was, of course, the first coherent statement of the tension between reality and the media that was nagging me.

Leading off with the observation:

ANOTHER weekly do-or-die primary battle, another round of wildly predicted "game changers" that collapsed in the locker room.

Mr. Rich scratches the itch, the nagging feeling we have all had that everything we are hearing and reading about the Democratic Primary is just slightly off center.