This is how Rich conclude his Veterans Day column in a piece that combines Musharraf and Mukasey with little to connect them in the real world but Rich's mental health issues:
We are a people in clinical depression. Americans know that the ideals that once set our nation apart from the world have been vandalized, and no matter which party they belong to, they do not see a restoration anytime soon.
Who's this "we", Kemosabe?
Why the Times readers should be held hostage while their film critic works through his personal mental health issues is beyond me.
That's all I have to say about his piece. Fisking it would be a waste of energy better spent reading TV Guide.
All I know for sure is that when the likes of Frank Rich are depressed about America, I'm giddy as can be.
UPDATE: Lileks comments:
If there’s one conviction that afflicts the keenest mind as it ages, it’s the belief that Things Were Better Then, and Things Are Horrible Now, usually because no one has learned the lessons of your own generation and insisted on experiencing the world for themselves. (Frank Rich provided a neat example of this a few days ago, when he diagnosed Americans as “clinically depressed” and unable to capture the glories of his demographic, which Took It To the Streets, Man. And blew up a few buildings while they were at it, but you can’t make an omelette without breaking into a farmer’s coop, stealing his chickens, setting fire to the coop and running off with the eggs, all of which you later misplaced because you were high.)
And this was just an offhand comment. He then goes on to really hammer Garrison Keillor.
Good times ... Good times ...
