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Frank Rich Rips MSNBC?

By Robert Stacy McCain on 5.9.10 @ 10:11AM

Perhaps no one is surprised to discover that New York Times columnist Frank Rich spends his Saturday nights watching MSNBC. What is surprising is that Rich excoriates the liberal network that failed to interrupt its White House Correspondents Dinner coverage for, you know, real news:

At 6:30 p.m. the abandoned Nissan Pathfinder was found smoking in Times Square. . . . Over the next hour and a half, several news organizations spread it as well while Times Square was evacuated. To clear the Broadway theater district at curtain time on Saturday night isn’t like emptying a high school; it’s a virtual military operation. . . . On MSNBC, which I was watching, it didn’t even merit a mention on a crawl. . . .
MSNBC was instead busy covering the correspondents dinner . . .
That MSNBC couldn’t be bothered to interrupt its two-hour coverage of these festivities to report on the attempted bombing was particularly embarrassing, given that the network’s headquarters are just blocks from Times Square. If NBC journalists in the Washington Hilton ballroom were too busy gawking at Justin Bieber to pounce on the bulletins moving through the BlackBerry-and-Twittersphere, you’d think someone back in New York would.
Apparently little short of King Kong climbing up 30 Rock could have grabbed the network’s attention. . . .

Perhaps even more surprising than Rich's criticism of MSNBC is his admission that we are "a country at war." It would have been nice if Rich had actually named the enemy, but let's not look a gift horse in the mouth.

View all comments (10) | Leave a comment

Bob the Engineer| 5.9.10 @ 12:40PM

Give ol' Frank a break! When a pig flies for the first time you don't fault him for not going very far.

Margie| 5.9.10 @ 2:59PM

Well, like all Liberals/Leftists~ when the issue is too close to home for comfort, then they start sqealing in fear. Otherwise it's the usual~ "Oh, what are you guys so afraid of? A dumb little kid with some firecrackers?"

Oldefarte| 5.9.10 @ 4:47PM

Guess it's a little like Bill Clinton debating Barack Obama over which one of them is/was THE FIRST ''''' BLACK'''''' PRESIDENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

bluecollarbytes| 5.9.10 @ 5:27PM

What's more important...reporting on some alleged terrorist, himself a victim of American capitalism, or focusing on the messiah's every utterance? If we stop 'learning' just how horrible we are, Barack H Obama can't organize us into feuding self-interests under the iron grip of Obamagenda. The terrorists will be with us for the remainder of our lives. We only have Obama till he's wrenched from us by the constitution, in 2012 (hopefully) , or god forbid 2016 .

jomo2009| 5.9.10 @ 7:31PM

I guess even a blind hog can occasionally find an acorn.

Lullaby's, Legends and Lies| 5.9.10 @ 9:17PM

Nate: "watching news on television", "it'll just rot your brain(s)."

I think you've just proved your hypothesis, if you think the News Hour is superb!! Oops!!,.. I've got to go, the deodorant commercial's over, and it's time for more yawping and blubbering on FOX!!

JeffT| 5.9.10 @ 9:44PM

If the TS attack had occurred in Des Moines, Iowa, Rich would have cared less. He is as parochial as any New Yorker.

oil painting| 5.10.10 @ 4:50AM

Photo to Art(Photo to Art)
Frame for 24x36 paintings(Frame)

ACynic| 5.10.10 @ 9:02AM

Unless some real tragedy perhaps may PERSONALLY affect a liberal progressive neo-communist, like Rich, they usually don't give a rat's anus what happens to other folks.
Typical liberal commie; as long as whatever I propose makes me feel superior, better, smarter, more sophisticated, AND does not affect me in any way, AND someone else has to do the dirty deed, I am all for it.