In which The Gay Recluse offers a summary and score for selected opinion columns in The Times.

Frank Rich/Haven’t We Heard This Voice Before?

The Short Version: Hillary Clinton’s genuine moment in New Hampshire was not “the tears,” but in the debate when she made Barack Obama look like a condescending asshole jerk. By the time of her victory speech, however, she had relapsed into micro-niche wonkery that does not reflect the voters’ desire for Obama — and even more problematic for Democrats, McCain — styled “change.”

In his words: “In the nightmare scenario for their party, they could both fail or take each other out or self-destruct, inducing the public to settle for a Republican who can somehow persuade voters that he’s the change agent by default.”

Score: B+
This piece represents a return to form for Rich, who is strongest when he speaks in his most liberal voice (i.e., not the one who praised Huckabee and tried to meekly downplay it for the next month instead of apologizing as he should have). Although we have our doubts whether the debate-moment he discusses was as important as “the tears,” we admire any column that digs into the deeper psychology of the race, which is — unfortunately — where it will be won or lost. Bonus points to Rich for pointing out the danger of McCain, who despite being a hardcore social/Bush conservative nevertheless manages to appeal to a lot of deluded “independents.”

Roger Cohen/Lost Children, Lost Truths

The Short Version: Please tell me I didn’t fuck up these kids’ lives twenty years ago by exposing their adoptive parents as right-wing Nazis and having them shipped off to jail.

In his words: “For 20 years, I’ve believed I helped two Argentine children emerge from the savagery of dictatorship, find their true family and secure better lives. Now I wonder.”

The Score: B
In this piece, we learn that Cohen’s exposure — ten years after the fact — of a right-wing militiaman and his wife’s kidnapping of twin babies (whose mother was killed immediately after their birth) did not lead to a happy reunion between the twins and their “true” family, but with their being “raised” in a series of fractured and apathetic environments. Cohen seems shocked and saddened that these twins were not willing to meet with him (or any members of the press) and he expresses doubts about the ability of newspapers to present the many shades of reality that represent the truth of any given situation. (Really?) We were genuinely moved by this column to the extent that it represents an almost impossible trade-off between political justice and personal tragedy (particularly if we think of the children’s perspective), but we are perplexed that it has taken Cohen — who comes off as oddly naive for a reporter who has traveled the world for three decades — so many years to come to an understanding that strikes us as more obvious than revelatory. Still, better late than never, and we hope that Cohen going forward will view the world through a more pessimistic (and truthful) lens than we have previously seen from “Mr. International Trade Can Deliver the World from All Evils.”