Frank Rich Overreaches Again in His Column, "You're Likable Enough, Gay People"

column by Frank Rich in the Dec. 28^th New York Times. After several weeks of fairly serious columns, he has reverted to his usual hyperbolic style. The main focus is on Obama's choice of Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration. Here are some excerpts:

Barack Obama has little in common with George W. Bush, thank God, his

obsessive workouts and message control notwithstanding.

As we saw during primary season, our president-elect is not free of his own brand of hubris and arrogance, and sometimes it comes before a fall: "You're likable enough, Hillary" was

the prelude to his defeat in New Hampshire.

He has hit this same note again by assigning the invocation at his inauguration to the Rev. Rick Warren, the Orange County, Calif., megachurch preacher who has likened committed gay relationships to incest, polygamy and "an older guy marrying a child."

Unlike Bush, Obama has been the vocal advocate of gay civil rights he claims to be. It is over the top to assert,

as a gay writer at Time did, that the president-elect is "a very tolerant, very rational-sounding sort of bigot."

Much more to the point is the astute criticism leveled by the gay Democratic congressman Barney Frank, who, in dissenting from the Warren choice,

said of Obama, "I think he overestimates his ability to get people to put aside fundamental differences." That's a polite way of describing the Obama cockiness. It will take more than the force of the new president's personality and eloquence to turn our nation into the United States of America he and we all want it to be.

You can't blame V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, the first openly gay Episcopal bishop and an early Obama booster, for feeling as if he'd been slapped in the face. "I'm all for Rick Warren being at the table," he

told The Times, but "we're talking about putting someone up front and center at what will be the most-watched inauguration in history, and asking his blessing on the nation. And the God that he's praying to is not the God that I know."

(end of excerpts)

Here is my reaction.

Obama tends to see the good side only, when it comes to ministers. Didn't his relationship with the Reverend Wright teach us this? To me this shows naiveté rather than cockiness. I hope this "one-sided vision" doesn't apply to heads of state. I'm glad he'll have Hillary as a buffer.

As for "you're likable enough Hillary", that has been way overblown. Watch the tape again. He was caught by surprise and had to say something. Maybe a bit sardonic, but not arrogant.

And "obsessive workouts"? Daily exercise is important, especially when one wants to relieve stress and stay in shape. With George W. Bush, on the contrary, it was clear that being a "physical trainer" was a more important role to him than being president.

As for Bishop Gene Robinson's comment that "the God that [Rick Warren] is praying to is not the God that I know." That statement is off the mark. I guess he meant "interpreting" rather than "praying to"

As for Warren's role at the inaugural, it bothers me too. I would have preferred a "Billy Graham" type, one who doesn't state that Jews don't go to Heaven, as Warren did when asked about it at an Aspen Ideas Festival.

To be precise, Warren answered "yes" when a woman proclaimed her Judaism and asked him if she was going to burn in Hell. Graham, on the other hand, once advised George W. Bush to "never play God" by ruling on who gets into heaven.

Barack Obama is only human, not divine. So let's all stay in the big tent and wait to see how he actually governs as president. We're really not sure, but most of the early signs are positive.