Well it appears that there is (mostly) a bipartisan consensus on at least one issue in the last week: the scheduling flap between the White House and the office of the Speaker of the House was a political mistake. “Speechgate” seems to have been calleda political disaster in the eyes right-of-center pundits, and last night the patron saint of liberal pundits, Frank Rich, joined in the chorus of boos towards this administration’s mishandling of the schedule during an appearance on Piers Morgan.

New York magazine’s Frank Rich stopped by Martin Bashir‘s MSNBC show to express his disappointment with President Obama, his expectation that the backlash against Rupert Murdoch in England will soon come to America and his general bewilderment with everything Sarah Palin. Bashir didn’t let Rich have all the “fun” though, as he compared the Tea Party to recalcitrant children who took control of their parents and wondered about Palin what her purpose might be if she doesn’t run for President?

Yesterday, we shared New York magazine writer Frank Rich‘s article chronicling his own and others’ experiences with what he referred to as “bullying” on the part of Rupert Murdoch‘s News Corp and its employees. Rich accused the company, which he referred to as a “media colossus,” as routinely resorting to intimidation in its continued attempts to maximize power and silence critics. Rich paid a visit to Joy Behar‘s HLN show to discuss his experiences further and to issue a warning that the “whole Murdoch culture” has spread to the United States.

New York magazine’s Frank Rich has offered an in-depth look at how Rupert Murdoch‘s News Corp. — currently deeply embroiled in a hacking scandal involving the company’s now-defunct UK newspaper News of the World — also had a hand in several less-than-aboveboard practices on this side of the pond.

In 1976, at the dawn of his career, Rich found himself working for the Post when the paper was sold to a then little-known (here in the States, at any rate) Murdoch. The crux of Rich’s piece lies not in bolstering the “us versus them” narrative espoused by many in the “mainstream media,” but on zeroing in on how the Murdoch empire systematically abuses power in order to further an agenda, even if this abuse should happen to break the law.

A huge hire for New York Magazine, and a big shake-up in the media world: Frank Rich, who has been writing for The New York Times since 1980, is leaving the paper for NY Mag.

Beginning in June, Rich will not only contribute essays for the magazine, he’ll also act as its editor at large, overseeing a “special monthly section anchored by his essay,” and posting regularly to nymag.com.

Frank Rich pulled no punches in his New York Times column this morning, lashing out at the Smithsonian Insitution for passive homophobia in their choice of art exhibits — and tapping into the larger silence on gay rights by many politicians.

In his Sunday column today, the New York Times’ Frank Rich compares President Obama’s relationship with Congressional Republicans to that of a hostage situation, with the Republicans cast as the captors and Obama as a victim of Stockholm Syndrome, constantly trying to appease his GOP captors.

Frank Rich tackles a hot topic in his column in the New York Times this Sunday: Sarah Palin‘s possible presidential run. And he contends that America should get ready — because Palin has what it takes to win, and her opponents in the Republican Party are afraid to stand up against her.

As another voice to the cacophony of pundits who have a problem with the Obama’s taking off for India. Frank Rich. Rich is not so much worried about the economics of the trip, or the President’s, er, “safety,” he just thinks it looks bad. Very bad.

Who has the most to lose from a Tea Party victory this Tuesday? Frank Rich thinks the Tea Partiers themselves might since they will immediately be confronted with the fact they have merely been puppets of the GOP establishment all along.

So what about all that change we were promised by Candidate Obama back in 2008? According to Frank Rich today, it’s not that the change hasn’t happened it’s just that apparently we haven’t been paying enough attention to it, or alternately, President Obama has utterly failed to successfully inform the country about it.

MSNBC host Ed Schultz is sticking his neck out in support of America’s unions in light of what he perceives to be a right-wing onslaught from the conservative media to discredit them. In speaking to Leo Gerard of the United Steelworkers of America, Schultz took the fight to Frank Rich of the New York Times, challenging him to cover his interview with Gerard and follow up on it.

Frank Rich is feeling disillusioned about the Internet. Specifically the Internet with regards to political discourse in this country. Just a few year ago, notes Rich in today’s column, the nation was filled with hope that all this access the online world provided would result in the sort of political transparency in Washington D.C. previous generations could only dream about. Not so much.

a href=”http://www.mediaite.com/power-grid/person/?q=Frank+Rich”>Frank Rich has belatedly jumped on the Christine O’Donnell media train. Says Rich: “Whatever her other talents, she’s more than willing to play the role of useful idiot for her party.”

Someone apparently designated this the weekend for liberal media types to come out against President Obama. And did they ever. And then there was Chris Matthews on Sunday questioning whether the President had been fiddling while Rome burned. Says Matthews: “He should have been focusing on the economy, instead he was focused on making history with health care.”

On Sunday Frank Rich speculated that the stoked up furor over the Lower Manhattan mosque could result in a threat to our national security. Apparently he may not be all that far off. NPR reports that in recent days the mosque debate has been the number one topic on the “jihadi chat rooms and frequent radical Islamic sites on the Web” and experts worry the debate is “playing right into the hands of radical extremists.”

Will the ginned-up furor over the Park51 Lower Manhattan mosque threaten the county’s national security in the long-term? Frank Rich seems to think so. In today’s column Rich focuses less on the First Amendment or property rights that have been predominant in the mosque debate, and instead goes straight for an angle that has received somewhat less coverage but was a top concern to the administration following 9/11, namely that this anti-mosque fervor may be putting both American troops in the Middle East, as well as our national security at home, at risk.

Frank Rich loves the gays. On opinion pages that are pro-gay to begin with, Rich’s writing about gay rights and same-sex marriage sets him apart from his peers for his ability to capture the essence of the message on gay issues and concerns of the LGBT community.

Who is Glenn Beck‘s liberal equivalent? On a number of occasions I have posited that Rachel Maddow occupies the same space on the left as Beck does on the right. But that has always been a tenuous comparison at best. Here’s a new one: Frank Rich.

Frank Rich is frustrated. He is clearly annoyed that the Wikileaks release of almost 92,000 pages of documents related to the war in Afghanistan has not become more of a rallying cry to end that military effort. Or more specifically, he is seeking to reassure those hoping it will ultimately have that impact, to be patient.

Past is prologue. Everything old is new again. These seem to be themes permeating this week’s Sunday Times op-ed page. Frank Rich draws further comparisons between the release of the Pentagon Papers in 1971 and this week’s WikiLeaks dump, right down to the White House (ish) wedding that a accompanied both.

Today’s New York Times op-ed pages are all fired up…in fact they’re almost bloggy. I was going to confine this post to Tom Friedman‘s assessment of CNN’s decision to fire Octavia Nasr, but how to resist Frank Rich who manages to connect Mel Gibson‘s abusive tirades with the current state of politics (and Fox News) in this country.

Broadly speaking, reaction to Faisal Shahzad’s attempt to car bomb Times Sq. appears to fall into two camps: The Eric Holder “this proves there is a constant threat and the terrorists want to do us lethal harm and we need to be on constant alert” camp, and the slightly more laissez-faire “Shahzad was an idiot [...]

Bill Maher’s guests the other night, which included New Yorker editor David Remnick and journalist Laura Flanders, appeared to concur with Frank Rich’s take on what’s motivating the movement, concluding from the poll results that the Partiers are actually not that upset about government involvement or taxing (they like their medicare; social security), but are worried and angry that we have a black president.

Frank Rich continues to not pull any punches when it comes to the Tea Party movement, the GOP and race. This week’s column is a long tirade against Virginia Governor Robert McDonnell’s botched attempt to make April ‘Confederate History Month’ and the recent claims that because the death threats and epithets (and spit) hurled at members of Congress were not captured on tape they were merely a “mirage.”