"A two bit no account movie critic is considered a relevant voice by the left? No one paid much attention to his movie reviews..."
You are obviously unaware of Mr. Rich's career. He was the NY Times theatre critic for many years, and I guess he was pretty severe since his nickname was "The Butcher of Broadway". I don't know too much about him, but he was certainly influential. The the Times "kicked him upstairs" for whatever reason, and there he sits today, writing pure tripe like this piece, a living breathing example of the ultimate truth of The Peter Principle.
Exactly. Rich was a lousy theater critic, so they took him off it and let him review movies. Then he proved to be a lousy movie critic, so they took him off that and let him pontificate about politics. Nothing to screw up their, no Hollywood moguls to offend, just angry Republicans.
But Rich doesn't write weekly Op-Ed columns, only sporadic ones. They only let this "attack poodle" out of the closet when they want a good laugh and they feel like watching him pee on Bush's shoe.
Why didn't they just fire him? Who knows. Probably he was somebody's boyfriend and they kept him on for old times sake, the same way Howell Raines kept Maureen Dowd on.