NYT’s Rich's Silence On Pelosi

NY Times columnist Frank Rich has had a lot to say lately regarding members of the Bush administration who said waterboarding was permissible or knew of the CIA’s use of enhanced interrogation techniques and raised no objection.

Rich, a preening, angry, self-righteous partisan has until just this week been spewing stuff like the following with which he ended his April 26 column:

[Sen. Carl] Levin suggests — and I agree — that as additional fact-finding plays out, it’s time for the Justice Department to enlist a panel of two or three apolitical outsiders, perhaps retired federal judges, “to review the mass of material” we already have.

The fundamental truth is there, as it long has been. The panel can recommend a legal path that will insure accountability for this wholesale betrayal of American values.
President Obama can talk all he wants about not looking back, but this grotesque past is bigger than even he is. It won’t vanish into a memory hole any more than Andersonville, World War II internment camps or My Lai.

The White House, Congress and politicians of both parties should get out of the way. We don’t need another commission. We don’t need any Capitol Hill witch hunts.
What we must have are fair trials that at long last uphold and reclaim our nation’s commitment to the rule of law.

What Rich means by “fair trials” is expressed in the old, satiric line: “Let’s give him a fair fair trial and hang him in the morning.”

Rich has already convicted in his mind those he'd see put on trial. Were they found innocent, he'd scream, "Travesty!"

People who aren’t fooled by Rich’s preening blather about the need to “at long last uphold and reclaim our nation’s commitment to the rule of law” won’t be surprised to learn Rich has had nothing to say about recent revelations Speaker Nancy Pelosi, despite her previous denials, was briefed on enhanced interrogation techniques before the CIA used them.

If Pelosi were a Republican, Rich would now be howling for her resignation and trial.

One of the things I find most loathsome about Rich is his shameless invocation of Andersonville, World War II internment camps and My Lai to justify his vengeful partisanship.

Rich's April 26 column's here; his column today is here.