Frank Rich Finally Dishes on Why He's Really Leaving the Times, and His First Order of Business At NY Magazine

Longtime New York Times Columnist Frank Rich normally comments on the news, and makes fun of those dispensing it. Last week, however, he was the news, when he announced he’ll be leaving the Times next week, after 30 years, to write for New York Magazine.
 
Showing just how hip he is, Imus observed, “The last time I read New York Magazine, I was on the cover and Clay Felker was the editor.”
 
To Imus’s great disappointment, Rich refused to go after anybody at the Times, saying only that he felt, “I had done one thing enough.” He spoke to many different people—including the Times—about new opportunities, but decided on New York Magazine because of his relationship with its editor Adam Moss, formerly the editor of the Times Magazine, and because the weekly periodical had “the most exciting ideas” for him.
 
But, of course, Imus was still skeptical about Rich giving up the ability to write 1,500 words every week on the Op-Ed page of one of the most reputable publications in the world. “There has to be a back story,” he insisted. “You must hate them.”
 
Imus’s persuasive powers proved effective, as he finally broke his guest. “Oh god, yes,” Rich said. “They beat little children on the third floor, and I won’t even tell you about the dog ovens.”
 
In all seriousness, the Times, he said, has been wonderful to him. “I turned 60 a year-and-a-half ago, and that’s when I really started thinking—if I don’t do it now and have another act, when am I going to do it?” Rich said.
 
Though rumors have circulated that Rich, who also spent 14 years ruining lives as the Times’s theater critic, will take over directing duties for “Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark” from its beleaguered director Julie Taymor, he quashed those today, revealing that he has not seen the show, which has been in previews for months, because “life is too short.”
 
“What’s happening now is that the business is starting to fall,” he said. “At the beginning there was so much publicity, and it became a late night joke on television, and all those accidents—people wanted to go see a train wreck.”
 
Which might explain why so much attention has been paid to the hearings Rep. Peter King is holding today on Muslim extremism in the U.S. Rich thinks that King’s hearings will serve only to stir up passions, bother perfectly patriotic American Muslims, and slightly harass them.
 
“And then what’s going to come of it?” he asked. “At the end of these hearings, are we going to catch Osama Bin Laden? I don’t think so.”
 
King’s position is that American Muslims are notoriously uncooperative with law enforcement officials, and that a segment of them are aiding and abetting terrorists. The FBI, interestingly, will not testify at today’s hearings because, as King told Imus earlier this morning, they would insist Muslims in this country have been perfectly compliant in assisting with investigations.  
 
“Are we to take his word for it?” Rich wondered. He agreed with Imus’s point that it isn’t the worst idea to talk to American Muslims to find out what life is like in their communities, and to give people everywhere a better understanding of Islam, but cautioned that the onus is on King to frame the hearings in that manner.
 
Imus seemed sad at the thought that this Sunday’s column would be Rich’s last, but no matter: he’ll appear on the pages and website of New York Magazine come June.
 
“Online and in print, I’ll try to stir up enough trouble,” he pledged to the I-Man today. “And at the very least, try to get you fired. You’re my Julie Taymor.”
 
-Julie Kanfer