Rich, Frank (Rich)

After reading Frank Rich's latest column from last Sunday, I felt as though I'd eaten an entire box of truffles all by myself. So full of irony, and wit, and painful gut blows, the piece should be read aloud to Senator Obama before any debate he has with McBush this fall. Here are some choice morsels:

Given that Mr. McCain has already used a refitted, hand-me-down Obama campaign slogan (“A Leader You Can Believe In”), it can’t be long before he takes up fist umps. They’ve become the rage among young (nonterrorist) American businessmen, according to USA Today.
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What was most striking about the Obama speech in Berlin was not anything he said so much as the alternative reality it fostered: many American children have never before seen huge crowds turn out abroad to wave American flags instead of burn them.
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[McCain's] grim-faced crusade to brand his opponent as a traitor who wants to “lose a war” isn’t even a competent impersonation of Joe McCarthy. Mr. McCain comes off instead like the ineffectual Mr. Wilson, the retired neighbor perpetually busting a gasket at the antics of pesky little Dennis the Menace.
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During Mr. McCain’s last two tours of the Middle East ... the only news he generated was his confusion of Sunni with Shia and his embarrassing stroll through a “safe” Baghdad market with helicopter cover. He should thank his stars that few TV viewers saw that he was even less at home when walking through a chaotic Pennsylvania supermarket last week. He inveighed against the price of milk while reading from a note card and felt the pain of a shopper planted by the local Republican Party.

I am salivating at the idea of watching McBush at the GOP convention, stumbling over the Teleprompter, making painfully bad jokes, and being overhandled by his handlers; of listening to the debates as Obama gently turns McBush on the spit over the flames that are the issues in this election; of watching as the old media press go to greater and greater lengths to parse each word uttered by Obama in their desperate attempt to poke holes in what to me is the impenetrable presence of the Democratic candidate (unless he picks the wrong VP, that is!).

He is the presumptive US president.