Here are statements from columns by Frank Rich in the last few months. Heed the metaphors and adjectives and catchwords.
• “On ABC’s ‘This Week,’ a frothing and filibustering Karl Rove all but lost it in a debate with the Obama strategist David Plouffe.” 3/28/10
• “. . . the perennially copper-faced Republican leader John Boehner revved up his ‘Hell no, you can’t!’ incantation . . . Boehner, having previously likened the health care bill to Armageddon, was now so apoplectic you had to wonder if he had just discovered one of its more obscure revenue-generating provisions, a tax on indoor tanning salons.” 3/28/10
• “How curious that a mob fond of likening President Obama to Hitler knows so little about history that it doesn’t recognize its own small-scale mimicry of Kristallnacht. The weapon of choice for vigilante violence at Congressional offices has been a brick hurled through a window. So far.” 3/28/10
• “. . . an unglued firestorm of homicidal rhetoric, from ‘Kill the bill!’ to Sarah Palin’s cry for her followers to ‘reload.’”3/28/10
• “If Congressional Republicans want to maintain a politburo-like homogeneity in opposition to the Democrats, that’s their right. . . . But they can’t emulate the 1995 G.O.P. by remaining silent as mass hysteria, some of it encompassing armed militias, runs amok in their own precincts.”3/28/10
• “How our current spike in neo-Confederate rebellion will end is unknown.”4/17/10
• “What is known is that the nearly all-white G.O.P. is so traumatized by race it has now morphed into a bizarre paragon of both liberal and conservative racial political correctness.”4/17/10
• “Former Bush propagandists will never lack for work in this climate.”4/10/10
• “Depending on where you stand—or the given day—he is either an overintellectual, professorial wuss or a ruthless Chicago machine pol rivaling the original Boss Daley.” 4/3/10
• “Last week, after I wrote about the role race plays in some of the apocalyptic right-wing hysteria about the health care bill, a friend who is a prominent liberal Obama supporter sent me an e-mail flipping my point.” 4/3/10
• “Now the revisionist floodgates have opened with the simultaneous arrival of Karl Rove’s memoir and Keep America Safe, a new right-wing noise machine invented by Dick Cheney’s daughter Liz and the inevitable William Kristol.”3/14/10
• “Could any of this non-reality-based shtick stick?” 3/14/10
• “Liz Cheney’s crackpot hit squad . . .”3/14/10
• “The Axis of the Obsessed and Deranged.” 2/27/10
• “The leaders embraced by the new grass-roots right are a different slate entirely: Glenn Beck, Ron Paul and Sarah Palin. . . . But these leaders do have a consistent ideology, and that ideology plays to the lock-and-load nutcases out there, not just to the peaceable (if riled up) populist conservatives also attracted to Tea Partyism.” 2/27/10
• “This G.O.P. populism is all bunk, of course.”’2/14/10
• “Shelby is so unashamedly addicted to earmarks that he used a senatorial ‘hold’ to halt confirmation votes on 70 Obama administration appointees until his costly shopping list of Alabama pork projects was granted.”2/14/10
• “Even the G.O.P./Tea Party heartthrob of the hour, Scott Brown, is not the barn-coat-wearing populist he purports to be.”2/14/10
• “The Republicans are so disciplined at claiming the fiscal-hawk high road that even Jenny Sanford, the wronged first lady of South Carolina, is still defending her husband, Mark, as an uncompromising defender of ‘hard-earned tax dollars’ in her new tell-all memoir, ‘Staying True.’ Though she gives us the skinny on her husband’s philandering, she never mentions the subsequent revelations that expenses for his trysts and other personal travel were billed to taxpayers.”2/14/10
• “John McCain, commandeering the spotlight as usual, did fulminate against the repeal of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’ But the press focus on McCain, the crazy man in Washington’s attic, was misleading. His yapping was an exception, not the rule.”2/6/10
• “Now that explicit anti-gay animus is an albatross, those who oppose gay civil rights are driven to invent ever loopier rationales for denying those rights, whether in the military or in marriage.”2/6/10
• “It’s in this political context that we can see that there may have been some method to Obama’s troublesome tardiness on gay issues after all. But as we learned about this White House and the Democratic Congress in the health-care debacle, they are perfectly capable of dropping the ball at any moment.”2/6/10
• “Now that we have finally arrived at the do-or-die moment for Obama’s signature issue, we face the alarming prospect that his presidency could be toast if he doesn’t make good on a year’s worth of false starts.”3/7/10
• “But the buck stops with the president, not his chief of staff. And if there’s one note that runs through many of the theories as to why Obama has disappointed in Year One, it cuts to the heart of what had been his major strength: his ability to communicate a compelling narrative. In the campaign, that narrative, of change and hope, was powerful—both about his own youth, biography and talent, and about a country that had gone wildly off track during the failed presidency of his predecessor.”3/7/10
For a moment, don’t consider whether Rich’s basic contentions are right or not. I actually agree with him on many of them, for instance, the spuriousness of GOP populism. Look, instead, at how many easy epithets, cut-rate colloquialisms, and dead metaphors pile up in a Rich column. We have bucks stopping, “toast,” “dropping the ball,” firestorms “unglued,” “wuss,” noise machines, high roads, people “losing it,” do-or-die moments . . . Note the puerile alliteration, too: “shtick stick,” “troublesome tardiness,” “frothing and filibustering.”
Perhaps the hack expressions are obscured by the psychodrama unfurled. We have “mass hysteria,” “lock-and-load nutcases,” apoplexy, mobs, trauma, right-wing hysteria, addiction, nutcases, a crazy man, “loopier rationales.”
Many liberals love Rich’s columns precisely because the raillery satisfies their frustrations and disgust with the extreme edge of the other side. But raillery is an art, and readers should beware of satisfactions this cheaply provided.
38 Responses to The Rhetoric of Frank Rich
marktropolis - April 22, 2010 at 1:34 pm
Wait, you’re cricizing Rich for his choice of rhetoric, but then you’re going to say things like “puerile alliteration” (shortly after you just engaged in one yourself with “cut-rate colloquialisms) and “psychodrama unfurled”? Don’t have a ruler on me, but it looks like you spent more than 80% of your space on a litany of Rich’s rhetoric. And I think you then have maybe five sentences that don’t include quotations from the already quoted material. If raillery is indeed an art, perhaps you should take some lessons. What’s curious to me is that you indicate you’re in agreement with “many” of his contentions. Which leads me to one conclusion: you’re actually a liberal, you just can’t stomach the rhetoric.
11313934 - April 23, 2010 at 8:43 am
I agree with Marktropolis above. Rich is the most astute and trenchant commentator out there. Bauerlein? What can I say?
rlpeterson - April 23, 2010 at 10:05 am
Don’t be so hard on Bauerlein for the lack of original prose or intelligent analysis in this piece. I have yet to read anything Bauerlein writes that couldn’t be summarized in two words:Liberals: BadI honestly don’t know why he doesn’t just turn in those two words each time and save himself and everyone else some trouble.
bertw - April 23, 2010 at 10:11 am
Vivid writing is to be discouraged? To what end?Eschewing the use of rhetorical devices may itself be one of the language arts, but it is hardly one that grips the reader or enlivens the exposition of political and policy delineations. Frank Rich is a far better writer and a deeper thinker than, say, David Brooks or Ross Doubthat, whose reliance on drab language does nothing to save them from their substitution of oatmeal for ideas. I don’t understand Bauerlein’s goal here, but I do appreciate his compendium of Rich’s recent greatest hits.
drtillie - April 23, 2010 at 10:11 am
I suppose you prefer Glenn Beck?
11328851 - April 23, 2010 at 10:49 am
Frank Rich’s type of “rhetoric” is exactly what is needed to balance the “discourse” initiated, promoted, and proudly displayed by the right. His commentary might be hyperbolic to some extent, but it is not distorted, or outright lying, as so much of the opposition’s is.I agree with all the responders above, especially bertw. Using vivid, populist linguistic devices makes clear the political and policy delineations needed to counterbalance the (often) corporate-sponsored right-wing rhetoric coming from way inside their “extreme edge” (as Bauerlein puts it).
markbauerlein - April 23, 2010 at 12:22 pm
You stretch things pretty far, marktropolis, when you compare “puerile” to the abundant cliches Rich relies on. And do you really think that all the “hysteria”-talk isn’t Rich creating a “psychodrama” of the Right?And 113 and bertw, you think these metaphors and catchwords are “astute” and “vivid”? C’mon. You’re letting your agreement with Rich’s points blind you to the laziness of the prose. And drtillie’s trivial point, “you prefer Glenn Beck?” is an awfully weak defense of Rich’s rhetoric.And rlpeterson, as I’ve written many times before, I agree with the liberal position on many social issues (gay marriage, the War on Drugs) and I’m a staunch environmentalist.
senecan - April 23, 2010 at 12:38 pm
Frank Rich is a newspaper columnist, not an academic writer or freshman comp instructor. Even so, his published writing is generally stronger and more precise than that in Bauerlein’s blog. And his main strength is that he supports his positions with evidence, often connecting generally forgotten past events to current situations in telling ways. I’m not sure what the point of this post is. Also, does MB know what the expression dead metaphor means?
markbauerlein - April 23, 2010 at 1:40 pm
Let’s not talk about how bad is academic writing by students and by professors. In fact, the stylistic standards for columnists are higher. The only way to consider Rich’s recent columns “vivid” and “precise” is to lower the bar nearly to the ground. A dead metaphor is one in which the literal side of the analogy has been forgotten because of overuse. That helps Rich, because if readers did keep them in mind, they would see just how erratic and imprecise the rhetoric is (eg, “albatross”).
senecan - April 23, 2010 at 4:10 pm
“Let’s not talk about how bad is academic writing by students and by professors.” I’m not sure why the usual subject-verb order is reversed in this sentence, but my point was that the expectations for opinion journalism are different from those for academic writing (which, yes, is done by students and professors), not that they are higher for one or the other.According to the Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, a dead metaphor is “a metaphor which has been used so often in common parlance that its force as a figure of speech is no longer felt and which, therefore, is used as a literal expression.” This is not the same as a hackneyed expression, which seems to be what MB is criticizing Frank Rich for using.Brevity is paramount in print journalism because of space limitations. Granted that “albatross” is not the freshest expression, can MB suggest another that would so fully communicate the same idea in so few letters?
jupiter125 - April 23, 2010 at 7:02 pm
Frank Rich is a classic example of someone reasonably if not outstandingly talented in one field (theater criticism), who is way out of his depth in another (political commentary). In his current role he trades on the shallow and obvious in standard put-downs and invective directed at anything right-wing. Bravo to Bauerlein for assembling this shoddy collection.
markbauerlein - April 24, 2010 at 11:45 am
Fair point, senecan, but let me explain the “albatross” problem. It’s a dead metaphor because the literal side of the figure is gone. Rich’s use makes it into, generally, any unpleasant burden. But remember the original context in Coleridge’s poem. The albatross has been killed by the mariner, and the other sailors hang it around his neck as a sign of his deed (instead of the cross). He has committed a crime against one of God’s creatures, impulsively and without reason. Does Rich’s usage match up?This is picky criticism, I grant you, but Rich commits enough similar usages that the example becomes symptomatic of a complacent mind and a lazy writer.Instead of “albatross,” Rich could have just written “unpopular” or “discredited.”
goxewu - April 24, 2010 at 1:08 pm
“cheaply provided”: We liberals will be the judge of that.”albatross”: F**k Coleridge, let’s dance. Which is to say, the albatross metaphor means what in means in everyday parlance and in newspaper op-ed writing, not what it means in the syllabus for a Seminar in English Poetry of the 18th and 19th Centuries. In general usage, “albatross” is indeed, “any unpleasant burden.” Sure, Rich could indeed have just written “unpopular” or “discredited”–and turned the juice of his point into dust.”symptomatic of a complacent mind and a lazy writer”: A mighty severe indictment, especially the “lazy mind” charge, based on a bunch of snippets. “Symptomatic” instead of “indicative” is, though, pretty sharp on Prof. Bauerlein’s part; it gets across patronizing attitude of an aloof physician who’s just diagnosing a disease, rather than that of just another conservative complaining about a liberal columnist’s political opinions.Re #11: Jupiter125 could just as well have said, “Mark Bauerlein is a classic example of someone reasonably if not outstandingly talented in one field (English literature), who is way out of his depth in another (political commentary).” Frank Rich may–as most partisan political columnists of any stripe do–trade in obvious and standard put-downs of anything right-wing (which are standard and obvious because the malfeasances to which they refer are, well, standard and obvious with the right wing), but his columns are also meaty, stuffed with telling quotations from the right, and filled with evidence (and extensive use of hyperlinks to direct the reader to sources). Glenn Beck (not a former theater critic, but instead a former “morning zoo” drive-time shock jock) may not be a fair comparison (or flattering to the right), but who else does the right have in the way of a national newspaper columnist with the evidentiary thoroughness and rhetorical incision of Frank Rich? David Brooks and the Pulitzer-Prize-winning Kathleen Park might be nominal conservatives, but they seem more like, if not liberals, at least middle-of-the-road independents each day. So, might we have a similar stylistic close reading by Prof. Bauerlein of, say newspaper pieces by Michelle Malkin, John Podhoretz, William Kristol, Michael Savage or Anne Coulter? I can hardly wait.
goxewu - April 24, 2010 at 1:13 pm
Sorry: Most partisan political columnists trade in standard and obvious put-downs, period. (“…of anything right-wing” would refer, of course, only to left-wing columnists.)And it’s Kathleen Parker.
markbauerlein - April 24, 2010 at 2:11 pm
No, by writing “discredited,” Rich could have avoided a tired term. And to call this “rhetorical incision” is, indeed, to apply a low standard of expression. Other columnists on the right: How about Dan Henninger, or Andrew Ferguson? Feel free to examine their rhetoric in recent months for the cheap and easy.Also, this post isn’t “political commentary,” but rhetorical listing/judging. (As I stated, I agree with some of Rich’s political opinions.) Finally, I haven’t done English literature in a long, long time. My last books were on Southern race relations a century back, the history of the NEA, youth mores in the digital age, and a glossary of literary terms.
goxewu - April 24, 2010 at 4:49 pm
By writing “discredited,” Rich could have dessicated his prose, and made it as leaden as, oh, “to apply a low standard of expression.” (I note no comeback on “albatross” commonly used to mean “unpleasant burden.”)Dan Henninger is a semi-good mention, but the WSJ’s op-ed page doesn’t have quite the traction with the general public as does The New York Times’s (albeit some of that traction indirect, i.e., other outlets referring to the Times’s columns). But Andrew Ferguson in The Weekly Standard is compared more reasonably to someone writing liberal opinion in The Nation, another partisan publication.Of course Prof. Bauerlein’s post is political commentary! Why else do we think he selected Frank Rich for his “rhetorical listing/judging”–because he’s been performing this analysis on all political columnists, has worked his way down to “R” on his list of them, but just hasn’t bothered to publish the rest? Please. Do I look like I just fell off the turnip truck? (Don’t answer that.)I stand corrected on Prof. Bauerlein’s “doing” English literature. I meant the term generically, as in teaching courses in literature in an English department. Prof. Bauerlein is a professor in an English department and his interests are listed on his faculty web page as 19th century American literature and critical theory. So, revised: “Jupiter125 could just as well have said, ‘Mark Bauerlein is a classic example of someone reasonably if not outstandingly talented in one field (being a professor of English), who is way out of his depth in another (political commentary).’”
markbauerlein - April 24, 2010 at 5:08 pm
Remember that Rich has a literary background–he should be more careful with his allusions, including “albatross,” which in intellectual circles often does retain its “culpability” meaning. And the WSj has a wider circulation than the Times, and if you examine its op-ed pages over the years I think you’ll find more influence on political and fiscal policy. I understand political commentary, too, to discuss policy matters and party developments, not columnists. Finally, a request: no “f-” words on this page.
goxewu - April 24, 2010 at 7:24 pm
OK, reasonable request about f-words. G****u promises he won’t do it again.Rich’s literary background bids him in no way to use metaphors in an academic-seminar-appropriate way. He’s a professional writer in a mass-circulation publication, and he uses metaphors in ways that he thinks will most effectively communicate his points to his readers. If Prof. Bauerlein’s citing Rich’s “literary background” means that Rich probably used the “albatross” metaphor the way he did deliberately. And I’ll buy that. The question then becomes, however, did Rich do it because a) his being a “complacent mind and a lazy writer” meant he could save a few keystrokes by using “albatross” instead of some longer metaphor, b) to thumb his nose at English professors, or c) to communicate his point more effectively to his readers? My guess is (c).But I’m still not buying that Prof. Bauerlein’s OP isn’t political commentary, that he somehow selected Frank Rich’s allegedly faulty rhetoric out of some nonpartisan concern for the English language in America. It’s funny-peculiar that when jupiter125 in #11 PRAISES Prof. Bauerlein’s obvious political commentary (“In his current role [Rich] trades on the shallow and obvious in standard put-downs and invective directed at anything right-wing. Bravo to Bauerlein for assembling this shoddy collection”), jupiter125 is not reprimanded for thinking that the post is political commentary. The WSJ does have a wider circulation that The New York Times. But the political columns in the Times have more clout with the general public than do those in the Journal. And of course the WSJ’s editorial pages have had over the years “more influence on political and fiscal policy” than the Times’s. And do we think this is because the Journal’s editorial pages, enjoying a wider circulation than the Times’s, have had more influence on voters reading those pages over their morning coffee, causing those voters to elect people to office whose political and fiscal policies agree with the Journal’s? Or do we think that the Journal’s opinions–it ain’t called The WALL STREET Journal for nothin,’ you know–are taken to heart by the fat cats who trundle in and out of the lobbyist/politician revolving door in Washington?
nordicexpat - April 25, 2010 at 5:31 am
Mark,First, a sincere question. How do you reconcile your research interests with your self-characterization as a “conservative educationalist?” If your own interests have drifted so far away from canonical literature, is it really surprising that the profession at large has done so?Now for my own picky criticism. I find the suggestion that your series of critiques of liberal journalist prose style is not, well, politically motivated as disingenuous as a liberal’s claim that John McWhorter’s analysis of Sarah Palin’s speech in The New Republic isn’t politically motivated (and for the record, I find that analysis and other critiques of Palin’s or Bush’s language to be completely off the mark). This particular piece may not be explicit “political commentary,” but the earlier installments of this series certainly have been.(Actually, I do think that the rhetoric of a lot of liberal columnists show that liberals really don’t know to how respond to populist movements on the right of the political spectrum, but that is a different story). A critique of journalist commentary with example from both the left and the right could pass as objective rhetorical analysis. Only selecting liberal commentators for rebuke can’t (would you accept such a rationale from one of your students?)I understand that you probably wrote your characterization of “dead metaphor” (and Coleridge’s poem) very quickly, but I still think you could have done a better job. Defining terms like “dead metaphor” is obviously difficult, but one way would be to say that the topic (e.g., “explicit anti-gay animus”) is referred to directly by a fixed and conventional meaning of the vehicle (“an albatross”). In an active metaphor, on the other hand, the topic is referred to indirectly, with no fixed conventional meaning or predicatability. Your complaint is that Rich’s (and the general public’s?) meaning of “albatross” is different from the conventional one found in intellectual circles. So your complaint is comparable to the complaint that people use “decimate” to refer to an extremely large reduction in number instead of just 10%(and I’ll just mention here that your reading of Coleridge’s poem is really reductive and simplistic: the moral isn’t at all clear, for a host of reasons.). Saying that such expresions are “tired” or “over-used” or ” a low standard” is hardly any better, since, like most people who complain about cliches, you simply single out phrases you have noticed and don’t like for contemptuous dismissal. How on earth did you decide one particular word or collocation was a “tired term” and other ones aren’t? Do you have any evidence that any of the “tired expression” you cite are used more frequently than they have been in the past or that they are used more frequently than they should be, other than the fact you don’t like them?
markbauerlein - April 25, 2010 at 7:28 am
Fair points, goxewu and nordicexpat. I’ll stick to the position that this is not political commentary, though. Sure, political (and moral, aesthetic, and other) motives are behind it, but we have to draw a stricter line around “the political.” Perhaps I think that because I was formed in a humanities setting suffused with complacent and intimidating phrases such as “everything is political” and “the personal is political.” As for the metaphor point, the problem lies precisely in the “fixed and conventional meaning of the vehicle,” as nordic says. Rich plays too easily with the lesser, lazy usages. One of the things humanities profs properly do is identify lax ones, and “decimate” is one of them. Let’s be more picky, I say. Eloquence and precision and freshness are under assault enough already without Rich joining in. Words and metaphors are always slipping into flat and tired expressions, and wordsmiths should resist.
rbannist - April 25, 2010 at 11:44 pm
Frank Rich is a dangerous figure who does little more than inflame the anger of those other than the choir to whom his sermons are directed. While there are surely voices on the right who are outrageous demogogues, bomb-throwers, and insult merchants (Glenn Beck — a total rube, Ann Coulter — insensitive, self-promoting ego-maniac, Michael Savage — beyond description for his insanity), pointing out such kinds of abuse by the other side does not justify it’s use. Like our moms used to tell us, two wrongs don’t make a right. It sure would help the national debate to eliminate the flame-throwers and listen to those who deal with concrete issues, facts and logic.
goxewu - April 26, 2010 at 7:16 am
Re #21:Here’s Prof. Bauerlein’s chance to prove his OP is nothing more than a politically neutral examination of the fact that “words and metaphors are always slipping into flat and tired expressions, and wordsmiths should resist,” by telling rbannist that the statement “Frank Rich is a dangerous figure who does little more than inflame the anger of those other than the choir to whom his sermons are directed” misreads the intent of his post.Politically speaking, however, rbannist’s statement is rather ridiculous. Rich is hardly “dangerous,” except to the self-esteem of the right, which doesn’t like all the evidence–for which he frequently provides hyperlinks–marshalled to buttress the rhetoric in his columns. That he “inflames the anger” of those readers who disagree with his politics is no different from what almost every political columnist–left, right or center–does. Ditto for preaching to the choir. And ditto for the columns being “sermons.” Rich’s rhetoric doesn’t begin to approach the demagoguery and blatant bigotry of Beck, Coulter or Savage. Prof. Bauerlein himself had to reach to Dan Henninger (whose name does not readily come to mind, I suspect, for most readers, as one of the most nationally prominent political columnists), and Andrew Ferguson of the partisan magazine, The Weekly Standard [circ. 60,000], to find an equivalent on the right. In fairness, I should point out that Ross Douthat’s recent columns in The New York Times have been pretty good; the Gray Lady may have at last found a viable (pace William Kristol) conservative columnist who isn’t, as David Brooks is, a closeted liberal trying valiantly to pretend otherwise.
markbauerlein - April 26, 2010 at 11:08 am
Given his recent speeches on the civility tour, goxewu, you would agree, I presume, that NEH Chairman Jim Leach would have to include Rich’s columns among his list of dangerous threats to our civic well-being. While rbannist does go beyond the point of my post, he’s right in that Rich only appeals to the choir, and his cliche-ridden rhetoric seems designed to do so.
johntoradze - April 26, 2010 at 12:11 pm
Mark, your quote piece fails because it does not contexualize Rich’s comments within the puerile, vicious, vacuousness of Sarah Palin, Glen Beck and the rest of the demagogue machine spitting venom into the body politic. That machine uses outrageous lies to whip up foolish people into a literal killing frenzy. (viz. militia arrests, and the year previous outcry against DHS’ report on a sudden rise in domestic terrorist groups by Napolitano.) Your article starts, Mark, by being stupidly written; as was immediately noted by marktropolis, you used exactly the same construction you decry. In terms of content, Mark, owhere did you analyze, point by point, whether or not Rich is accurate. (I did, and he is, with exact precision.) Instead you appeal to some supposed drawing room ideal of politeness, sans context. The fact is, when fighting back against a violent movement composed of lies, then calling things what they are is appropriate. To be a milquetoast in the face of evil is to do little or nothing and so to let it triumph. You Mark, are a character in the play “Rhinoceros” who turns upon the protagonist claiming rudeness while ignoring the rhinoceros rampaging down the street. Stupid, puerile and vapid (lacking in content) pretty much sums up this bit of drivel.
johntoradze - April 26, 2010 at 12:16 pm
“…nowhere did you analyze…”
markbauerlein - April 26, 2010 at 2:12 pm
Please give an example of the violence, domestic terrorism, and “killing frenzy” taking place.
goxewu - April 26, 2010 at 2:38 pm
Excuse me a second, I’ve got to adjust my nearly broken neck. It’s another case of Bauerlein Whiplash. Previously going hellbent in one direction (“The NEH Goes Off-Track”) to ridicule Jim Leach’s civility tour, Prof. Bauerlein now seems to tout Mr. Leach’s [probable] “would have to include [Frank] Rich’s columns among his list of dangerous threats to our civic well-being” as evidence of Rich’s overheated (in Prof. Bauerlein’s opinion) rhetoric’s untoward consequences. And Prof. Bauerlein executed this turnaround without even hitting the brakes. Amazing!Most, if not veritably all, political columnists appeal only to the choir, i.e., readers who a priori generally agree with them. And speaking of “cliché-ridden rhetoric,” Prof. Bauerlein appears to have no objection to “preaching/appealing to the choir.” (I don’t object to it either, but then again, I’m not tsk-tsking over Frank Rich’s rhetoric with the disingenuous cover of an apolitical fearing for the continued freshness of American English.)
markbauerlein - April 26, 2010 at 3:03 pm
It was a joke, goxewu. And remember, I don’t fault Rich for raillery or incivility–we need more good examples it in public life (his isn’t one).
goxewu - April 26, 2010 at 3:39 pm
Sorry, missed the joke. Yeah, I commented on “The NEH Goes Off-Track” thread, but just to take side-issue with a couple of other commenters. I was neither pro nor con about the “civility tour” (although it does sound a little silly on the face of it). I’ll make a guess that since a) I’m an admitted card-carrying, knee-jerk, parlour-pink liberal, and b) I commented on the Jim Leach thread, Prof. Bauerlein figures I’m caught in some kind of hypocrisy by 1) defending Rich’s “incivility.” while 2) supporting Mr. Leach’s civility tour. Alas, I don’t care one way or t’other about the civility tour.But as long as I’m being spoken to, would Prof. Bauerlein care to provide one of those “good examples” of “raillery or incivility” in public life against whom we might compare Frank Rich? (And, c’mon, somebody with a sizeable readership, and not some guy who writes the “Don’t Tread On Me” column for the Gwinnett County Libertarian Newsletter.)
markbauerlein - April 26, 2010 at 6:32 pm
No, no, I didn’t mean anything harsh–just a little aside.So, for good raillery today you could choose this by Anthony Lewis:http://www.nytimes.com/1999/07/06/opinion/abroad-at-home-back-to-a-republican-system.htmlOr this by Mark Steyn:http://article.nationalreview.com/401061/he-saidvip-said/mark-steyn
marktropolis - April 27, 2010 at 9:48 am
OK, so I stepped away from this for a couple of days. I haven’t attempted to digest the entire exchange above. However, I find it interesting, Mark, that you still seem to be attempting to dig yourself out of the hole you dug with the original post. And your last post (#30) doesn’t make anything any clearer – at least not for me. You’ve got access to Google and these are the two best examples you could come up with? You couldn’t find anything that might perhaps be more relevant to the subject that Rich was addressing?But back to your query in #7. Which appears to be another example of your making the case that somehow these liberal commentators are mischaracterizing the Tea Partiers. Rich is calling it “hysteria” which you in turn characterize as Rich generating “psychodrama”? Rich gets paid for his chose of words. Whether or not he comes from the “literary” tradition (which I have to assume means that at some point, he knew how to write the way you’d like him to). And you’re actually going to put him head-to-head with a Mark Steyn – like they even write for publications that are even close to being similar. The New York Times is a NEWSpaper. Whether their liberal or conservative depends on which side of the aisle you’re on. The National Review is a staunchly conservative political journal. At least use a more current Steyn piece (http://article.nationalreview.com/432436/not-too-hip-and-edgy-for-censorship/mark-steyn) which appears to this untrained eye (not being from the literary tradition myself) appears to be one long apologia for the ramped up rhetoric of Tea Partiers. But he does get one more chance to sling it at Clinton. Because, after all, when all’s said and done, it’s all Clinton’s fault. If we’d just kept Reagan/Bush in office, everything would be fine and 9/11 wouldn’t have happened. Or something like that.
senecan - April 27, 2010 at 4:38 pm
I stepped away for a few days myself.With regard to #12:Rich’s use of the word “albatross” suggests that he knows Coleridge’s poem and is more aware of the word’s resonance than MB realizes. An albatross is not merely something that is unpopular or discredited: it is a burden imposed because of an earlier transgression. The word says things about Rich’s view of anti-gay animus that “unpopular” and “discredited” don’t come near.Also, if one mocks Rich’s “unglued firestorm,” one should avoid writing “unfurled psychodrama.” Mark Bauerlein’s blog posts frequently tell us how or what students should read. His opinions would be more credible if he were himself a more careful reader and writer.
markbauerlein - April 28, 2010 at 1:34 pm
Wrong, senecan. People who bear an anti-gay animus do not feel they have committed an earlier transgression. Instead, they feel that the culture, or at least certain parts of it, has abandoned the proper values–that is, ‘unpopular’ and ‘discredited.’ And I think a pychodrama can, indeed, unfurl, but can a firestorm be “unglued”?I chose Anthony Lewis because his columns were solidly liberal and often berating, but they were also sober and precise–and Rich’s are not. Steyn writes for many newspapers, too. Did you find anything in the column I linked to that displayed the kind of cheap rhetoric found in the original piece?
marktropolis - April 28, 2010 at 1:48 pm
Mark, there’s a good chance I could find something by Rich that doesn’t employ what you’re criticizing him for. And clearly, there are a lot of opinion-writers out there to provide you with the soothing rhetoric you crave (“sober and precise”). Maybe George Will fits the bill? Obviously, Rich isn’t your bag. If not, read someone else (after all, when it comes to opinion-folks, we do tend to enjoy the folks we agree with). Also, I can’t believe that the discussion has boiled down to a debate about what an albatross does or does not mean. But I guess that’s what happens in English class. That said… Mark, I think you may be missing Rich’s point – Because these anti-gay folks don’t think they’re doing anything wrong, that albatross is going to get bigger and heavier. At least that’s how *I’d* read it.
markbauerlein - April 28, 2010 at 2:39 pm
If they don’t think they’re doing anything wrong, it’s not an albatross. And Lewis’ columns were not “soothing.”
senecan - April 29, 2010 at 5:19 pm
Re #33:This response makes no sense. Frank Rich’s word choices should reflect the beliefs of the people he writes about rather than his own? Mark Bauerlein is a brilliant reader, an elegant writer, and a formidable debater.
markbauerlein - April 30, 2010 at 1:24 pm
All I meant, senecan, is that the metaphor doesn’t fit the anti-gay folks if they don’t feel any guilt about their position.
senecan - April 30, 2010 at 3:13 pm
Right, of course! And since the anti-gay folks aren’t actually wearing gay people around their necks, “albatross” is an entirely inappropriate expression, and Rich should have written “discredited” or “unpopular.”