<p class="quote"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: arial; font-size: 12px; line-height: 21px;">One of Jesse Walker's most interesting observations in his already-classic October piece on "<a href="http://reason.com/archives/2009/09/15/the-paranoid-center">The Paranoid Center</a>" is that, in a direct inversion of Richard Hofstadter's theory, the establishmentarians who try to scare us about the terribly dangerous fringe end up aping the tactics and even language of the people they so loathe.&#160;<em>New York Times</em>&#160;columnist Frank Rich, whose commentary about the political right this year has been among the&#160;<a href="http://reason.com/blog/2009/08/23/frank-rich-to-tom-coburn-stop">very stupidest</a>&#160;in a remarkably dull-witted season, manages to go one step further: In an&#160;<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/opinion/01rich.htm">op-ed on New York's Dictrict 23 congressional election</a>, Rich embodies Walker's observation&#160;<em>at the exact same time</em>&#160;as quoting Hofstadter's. Check it out:</span></p> Matt Welch | Reason hofstader, reason, matt welch, frank rich, stupid rhetotic the-feed 0 2009-11-02T09:41:54-05:00 <p>Frank Rich and "The Paranoid Center."</p> 5 6318 it-looks-like-we-ve-all-lost-it 2009-11-02T09:42:49-05:00 true false false false false It looks like we've all lost it 2009-11-02T09:42:49-05:00 http://reason.com/blog/2009/11/01/frank-rich-because-only-stalin 84 0