Richard Cohen Is Even More Morally Bankrupt Than I Thought

Good lord:

Now he is in American custody. What will happen? How do we get him to reveal his group's plans and the names of his colleagues? It will be hard. It will, in fact, be harder than it used to be. He can no longer be waterboarded. He knows this. He cannot be deprived of more than a set amount of sleep. He cannot be beaten or thrown up against even a soft wall. He cannot be threatened with shooting or even frightened by the prospect of an electric drill. Nothing really can be threatened against his relatives -- that they will be killed or sexually abused.

Well, I guess what might happen is that interrogators will have to use methods that actually, you know, work. Which might lead to actual, you know, good intelligence...with the added benefit that such proper interrogation is not illegal, unconstitutional, or morally bankrupt. Kind of a win/win, don't you think?

No one can possibly believe that America is now safer because of the new restrictions on enhanced interrogation and the subsequent appointment of a special prosecutor. The captured terrorist of my fertile imagination, assuming he had access to an Internet cafe, knows about the special prosecutor. He knows his interrogator is under scrutiny. What person under those circumstances is going to spill his beans?

Actually, Dick, I do. I believe that America is now safer now that we won't be torturing false answers out of people desperate to make the torture stop. I believe that America is now safer because our intelligence officers now know that they can no longer torture prisoners to death in ways that expose our own forces to torture and death in the event of their capture.

So, you know, there's one person for you. Why don't you go find another straw man to beat up, you sad, sad excuse for a pundit?

Richard Cohen "Earns" Another Paycheck

Oh joyous day, another Richard Cohen column in today's WaPo! Huzzah! Today, Richard turns to the (in-no-way-beaten-beyond-death) topic of race in the Democratic primary race. What insights await us? Well, his overall point is that the Clintons have been out of line (oh you think so, doctor?), but...wait for it...Obama is to blame, too! Silly man, he should have known better than to be born with an African father...that pesky dark skin is nothing but trouble in national campaigns!

Here's a gem:

The usual post-campaign books this time around may have a particularly interesting tale to tell. It will be how Hillary and Bill Clinton -- or is it Bill and Hillary Clinton? -- managed to turn Obama into the black candidate he never wanted to be. In South Carolina, Obama overwhelmingly lost the white vote.

Let's leave aside for a moment the fact that if post-campaign books "may have" a particular "tale to tell," it would be [your theory here], not "will be." FFS, you just said "may." That's neither here nor there, however. The real nugget here is the last sentence in the paragraph, which I have bolded for your convenience. Okay, let's look at the (oh-so-reliable in a state where the pre-election polls understated Obama's victory by 17% or so) exit poll data for white voters (all ages...Obama won the under 30 white vote, but Richard didn't get that analytical today): Clinton 36%, Obama 24%. Wow! what an old skewl butt-whuppin'! Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition! But wait...that only adds up to 60%...what about the remaining 40%? Must have been split between Dennis Kucinich and Jesse Jackson (as a write-in...I mean, Bill's got me convinced of Jesse's South Carolina electoral prowess), right? What's that, you say? John Edwards took 40% of the white vote? You mean, Hillary lost the white vote in South Carolina, too? But, but, but that could mean that a large segment of white voters, disturbed by Clinton's tactics, chose instead to vote for a different candidate (one who just happened to be a native son, and who won the 2004 South Carolina Democratic primary with 45% of the overall vote). I guess this didn't fit neatly into Cohen's theory of the day, so he ignored it. I've come to expect nothing less.

Moving on:

The turning point for Obama actually came in New Hampshire, when Hillary Clinton said that Martin Luther King's "dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964." This, of course, only reflected historical reality and was, moreover, a slap not at King, but at Johnson's predecessor, John F. Kennedy, to whom Obama is often compared. (Both Caroline Kennedy and her uncle, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, have since endorsed Obama.)

Okay, to the extent that this statement "only reflected historical reality," it also conveniently ignored the equally important historical reality that none of Johnson's political maneuvering on behalf of civil rights would have been possible without the work of Dr. King, and thousands of others who were on the front lines of the civil rights movement. Which is, of course, what got many people so upset. And does Cohen really, honestly believe that Hillary was taking "a slap" at JFK? Seriously? I mean, warranted or not, what Democratic candidate in their right mind would take a swipe at JFK during a contested primary season? Plus, Cohen seems to (surprise!) ignore the second sentence of Hillary's statement: “It took a president to get it done.” What, Richard, you mean JFK wasn't a president? How can a supposedly Serious OpEd columnist for a major newspaper read those two sentences and conclude that Hillary was taking a swipe not at Dr. King, but at John F. Kennedy?

Moving on yet again:

Possibly we shall someday learn that Hillary Clinton's remark was diabolically intended to offend blacks. I doubt it. Whatever the case, though, some important African-Americans quickly reacted -- and the Democratic primary campaign was never again the same. Not only did the Clintons not back off, but they seemed to savor the moment. As for Obama, instead of adroitly taking the sting out of what Hillary Clinton had said by shrugging it off, he called her comments "unfortunate" and "ill-advised."

In the words of Andy Dufresne, "How can you be so obtuse?" Hillary's remark wasn't "diabolically intended to offend blacks," it was calculated (diabolically or not) to make whites view Obama differently - to say to them, "no matter how inspirational a voice he may be, he's not a Serious [read: white] politician capable of bringing about meaningful change."

Jumping ahead a bit:

In South Carolina, the Democratic presidential race turned a corner. Hillary Clinton went virtually white; Obama went black. In Iowa, in a much larger field, Obama had gotten about one-third of the white vote. In South Carolina, in a three-way race, the figure dropped to 24 percent. By the end, Hillary Clinton's events were nearly all-white affairs, according to reports.

Richard, do you for one second believe that the history, demographics, and politics of South Carolina are identical to those of Iowa? Do you? Because here's a hint: one of them was a slave state that seceded from the Union, and the other wasn't. And that's just the beginning! There are other differences, too! I know, I didn't believe it either, but then I opened my freaking eyes. Sheesh.

Oops He Did It Again

Today Richard Cohen turns from "I don't believe he's a Farrakhan follower, but here's a column about it," to "Britney gets too much media coverage, and here's a column about it." I don't know if this is progress, but at least it's movement.

The column begins by citing a Portfolio article regarding Britney's worth, not just to herself, but to the various leeches that make money off of her (cue Chris Crocker!)...which is vaguely interesting, though hardly the sort of thing I expect to read about on the OpEd page of the Washington Post. I guess Richard felt the same way, because midway through the column, he tries to tie his Britney statistics to the current primary campaign, and, well, just takes a detour right into Crazy Town:

The Britney Industrial Complex is a handy tool to examine more than just Britney Spears. It also explains why Hillary Clinton's human backdrop changed from Iowa to New Hampshire. On election night in Des Moines, Clinton surrounded herself with familiar figures, some of them not so young anymore, while Barack Obama had a backdrop of youthful faces radiating pheromones. By New Hampshire, Clinton had younged-up her crowd, suggesting she was now, like Obama, an agent of change.

Now, I wouldn't be at all surprised if someone in Hillary's campaign actually did decide to get some younger folks on stage with her in New Hampshire (though where that fits into the whole "Aging Boomer Women Put Hillary Over The Top" meme is beyond me), but I seriously doubt they were thinking "Let's get ourselves some of that Britney-obsessed, TMZ-lovin' demographic!" when they made that call. Then again, what do I know, it's not like I'm a big shot columnist for the Washington Post, with numerous connections I could use to arrange an interview or two with insiders on this very subject. No, I'm left to idly speculate, without anything beyond anecdotal evidence that I collected while watching TV upon which to base my assumptions...before drifting back to the more important topic: the major role Britney plays in the 13.7 trillion U.S. economy.

Richard Cohen Remains an Idiot, or "The Stupid! It Burns!"

Good lord...how is it that this man continues to be employed as a columnist? He should be relegated to the fringes of the blogosphere currently inhabited by the likes of yours truly.

Here's a gem:

It's important to state right off that nothing in Obama's record suggests he harbors anti-Semitic views or agrees with Wright when it comes to Farrakhan. Instead, as Obama's top campaign aide, David Axelrod, points out, Obama often has said that he and his minister sometimes disagree. Farrakhan, Axelrod told me, is one of those instances.

Note the bolded text, which I emphasize because, well, this is in the column's third paragraph. One hundred and forty words into a 787-word column. Which, well, doesn't really count as "right off," especially coming on the heels of two lead paragraphs that seek to connect Barack Obama to Louis Farrakhan, and then highlight some of Farrakhan's nastier past statements.

There follow seven more paragraphs on the evils of Farrakhan himself and those who say nice things about him. But that's okay, because in the last paragraph, Cohen writes:

I don't for a moment think that Obama shares Wright's views on Farrakhan. But the rap on Obama is that he is a fog of a man. We know little about him, and, for all my admiration of him, I wonder about his mettle. The New York Times recently reported on Obama's penchant while serving in the Illinois legislature for merely voting "present" when faced with some tough issues. Farrakhan, in a strictly political sense, may be a tough issue for him. This time, though, "present" will not do.

You know something, Richard? If you don't for a moment think something, you shouldn't waste your column insinuating it. And if you don't for a moment think something is true, then why in the name of All That Which Does Not Suck should it be a "tough issue" for Obama? Because the only reason it would be an issue is if idiots like you, who "don't for a moment" think Obama "shares Wright's views on Farrakhan," write columns in major newspapers claiming that this is a "tough issue" where "'present' will not do" for a response.

Of course, it's important to state right off that nothing in Cohen's column suggests he harbors anti-Obama views.

Yet and still, Richard Cohen is an idiot...

This time, BarbinMD at Kos beats me to the Fisking.

How does Cohen still have a job? Seriously...I mean, doesn't he at least have, you know, an editor? Or at least a fact checker. Someone to maybe point out that starting out a column about candidates lying with a lie is, um, ironic...really ironic, too, not just "ironic" in an Alanis kinda way.

Richard Cohen is Still an Idiot

Richard Cohen hops on board the Free Scooter Libby Bandwagon today. Let's take a look!

With the sentencing of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Fitzgerald has apparently finished his work, which was, not to put too fine a point on it, to make a mountain out of a molehill. At the urging of the liberal press (especially the New York Times), he was appointed to look into a run-of-the-mill leak and wound up prosecuting not the leaker -- Richard Armitage of the State Department -- but Libby, convicted in the end of lying. This is not an entirely trivial matter since government officials should not lie to grand juries, but neither should they be called to account for practicing the dark art of politics. As with sex or real estate, it is often best to keep the lights off.

For the love of...does Richard Cohen not know that Fitzgerald began his investigation at the request of the CIA? Is it still 2004, where we can point fingers at the bogeymen in the "Liberal Press" whenever somebody does something we don't like? Maybe if the New York Times actually had the power to launch a criminal investigation...maybe then we'd actually get somewhere with torture, secret prisons, and the U.S. Attorney firings. Nice one, Dick.

And saying that obstructing a federal investigation is "not an entirely trivial matter" sure seems like an attempt to trivialize it...and why investigate it at all if it's just "the dark art of politics?" Oh, I don't know, maybe because politics isn't supposed to be a "dark art" in a democratic society? Maybe because in a constitutional democracy, the lights should be kept on, not off? Maybe because obstructing justice isn't supposed to be an acceptable political practice in a democracy? Then again, maybe Cohen is right...maybe we shouldn't have bothered investigating Watergate, either...I mean, after all, Nixon and his cronies were just "practicing the dark art of politics," and what's wrong with that?

Moving on, Cohen whines about Patrick Fitzgerald's bullying of poor Judy Miller and Matt Cooper...oh, pity the poor free press!

Much heroic braying turned into cries for mercy as the government bore down. As any prosecutor knows -- and Martha Stewart can attest -- white-collar types tend to have a morbid fear of jail.

Listen, Richard, I'd feel a lot worse for Judy Miller if she actually were a member of the press, but by 2003, she was barely recognizable as such. She was a mouthpiece for the administration. She printed their stories without questioning them, without performing the least bit of actual journalism to see if what she was printing might actually be true. If you want to be treated like a journalist, you have to behave like a journalist. Judy Miller's inappropriately cozy relationship with the administration is what put her into a situation that led to her incarceration.

Oh, and as for white-collar types "tend[ing] to have a morbid fear of jail," congratulations Richard, you win today's Otis Award! Because I'm sure Otis would agree that "real criminals" don't fear jail the same way that people who are "not what most people would, or should, think of as a criminal" do.

As Fitzgerald worked his wonders, threatening jail and going after government gossips with splendid pluck, many opponents of the Iraq war cheered. They thought -- if "thought" can be used in this context -- that if the thread was pulled on who had leaked the identity of Valerie Plame to Robert D. Novak, the effort to snooker an entire nation into war would unravel and this would show . . . who knows? Something. For some odd reason, the same people who were so appalled about government snooping, the USA Patriot Act and other such threats to civil liberties cheered as the special prosecutor weed-whacked the press, jailed a reporter and now will send a previously obscure government official to prison for 30 months.

Wow, I'm glad that you've got the guts to tell it like it is, Richard! Leaking the identity of a covert agent? Hey, that's just a little gossip! What's the harm in that? It's not like loose lips sink ships or anything like that.

And hey, I'll tell you what I "thought" might be revealed if the thread was pulled: nothing...because we already know that the administration lied the nation into the Iraq War, with a whole lot of help from "journalists" like Judy "WMD" Miller and her colleagues at the "liberal" New York Times.

I'm also glad to know that the top aide to the most powerful vice president in U.S. history is now a "previously obscure government official" to you, Richard. If you didn't know who Scooter Libby was before this case broke, I guess you don't pay much attention to things here in Washington, huh?

This is precisely the sort of investigation that Jackson was warning about. It would not have been conducted if, say, the Iraq war had ended with 300 deaths and the mission had really been accomplished. An unpopular war produced the popular cry for scalps and, in Libby's case, the additional demand that he express contrition -- a vestigial Stalinist-era yearning for abasement. No one has yet explained, though, how Libby can express contrition and still appeal his conviction. No matter. Antiwar sanctimony excuses the inexplicable.

You're right, Richard...if the war had ended with 300 deaths and the mission really accomplished, this wouldn't have happened...because the fucking administration wouldn't have felt compelled to leak a fucking covert agent's identity in an attempt to undermine the credibility of an outspoken critic of the war...but the mission wasn't fucking accomplished, was it, so they fucking leaked, and the C.I.A. asked for an investigation, and then Scooter Libby obstructed that investigation. What part of this don't you understand?

Oh, and there was never an "additional demand that [Libby] express contrition." It's common practice in our criminal justice system that an unrepentant convicted criminal can't expect as much leniency in sentencing as a convicted criminal who accepts responsibility for their acts. I guess Scooter didn't feel like he had to express any contrition, since he's got the whole cozy Beltway establishment (that includes you, Richard) lobbying the President for a pardon or a commuted sentence. The fact that you think that Libby should have gotten some kind of special treatment at sentencing and been granted leniency without accepting responsibility just because he obstructed justice while practicing the "dark art of politics" makes me want to vomit...there, I just threw up in my mouth. Thanks, Dick.

Accountability is one thing. By all means, let Congress investigate and conduct oversight hearings with relish and abandon. But a prosecution is a different matter. It entails the government at its most coercive -- a power so immense and sometimes so secretive that it poses much more of a threat to civil liberties, including freedom of the press, than anything in the interstices of the scary Patriot Act.

Wow. Um, Richard? Investigation and oversight hearings without the prosecution of subsequently uncovered illegal activities is not "accountability." The government investigating potentially illegal activity carried out by the government itself is NOT the government being coercive, and it does NOT pose a threat to civil liberties: it is a necessary function of a free democratic government. I'm going to repeat myself here: investigation and oversight hearings with the subsequent prosecution of subsequently uncovered illegal activities is not "accountability," and it does absolutely nothing to discourage a government that feels free to practice the "dark art of politics" in whatever ways they choose.

I don't expect George Bush to appreciate this. He is the privileged son of a privileged son, and he fears nothing except, probably, doubt. But the rest of us ought to consider what Fitzgerald has wrought and whether we are better off for his efforts. I have come to hate the war and I cannot approve of lying under oath -- not by Scooter, not by Bill Clinton, not by anybody. But the underlying crime is absent, the sentence is excessive and the investigation should not have been conducted in the first place. This is a mess. Should Libby be pardoned? Maybe. Should his sentence be commuted? Definitely.

Yeah, why would the privileged son of a privileged son appreciate the idea of not holding someone accountable for the consequences of his illegal activities? Maybe because Bush has lived his whole life with the appreciation of this concept.

I have considered what Fitzgerald has wrought, and I can tell you that I am personally genuinely better off for his efforts. So that's at least one person, Richard, in case you're actually counting.

And my god, Richard, can we stop with the whole "underlying crime is absent" shit? For starters, Plame actually was covert at the time of the leak. Now, Fitzgerald was unable to prosecute anyone for this...hmmmm...could that, maybe, have something to do with the fact that Scooter Libby lied to investigators and the grand jury, and obstructed justice? Are you suggesting, Richard, that if a person who obstructs justice does so successfully, they should not face any prison time, because there was no "underlying crime?" Or are you suggesting that it's okay to lie to federal investigators and grand juries, and it's okay to obstruct justice, as long as what you're lying to cover up isn't ever prosecuted? Because if that's what you're saying, well, you're an idiot.

Richard Cohen is an idiot

I'm not sure that this is even coherent enough to respond to...Richard Cohen has apparently decided that fear of perjuring yourself is an appropriate grounds for pleading the 5th Amendment. Wow.

Let's start here, shall we?

She knows that in Washington, free speech can cost you a fortune in legal fees.

Ummm, hate to break this to you, Richard, but she's paying those lawyers who told her to clam up plenty. You think Akin Gump drafts letters to Congressional Committees out of the goodness of their heart? Moving on:

More likely, Goodling's problem is probably not what she's done but what she might do. If she testifies before Congress, swears to tell the truth and all of that, she will produce a record -- a transcript -- that can be used against her. If a subsequent witness later on has a different memory of what transpired, then the bloodcurdling cry of "special prosecutor" will once again be heard in the land.

You know what? Cry me a freaking river all you want, but "fear of what she might do" simply is not an actual reason for pleading the 5th. "Oh, sorry, I can't testify because I might lie." What Irving Lewis Libby was convicted of was telling a bullshit story, telling it more than once, and persisting in it even though no one else was telling a similar story. He was convicted by a jury of his peers after a full and fair trial. Believe it or not, they actually took the "different memor[ies]" of "subsequent witnesses" into consideration, and decided that Irving was full of it. These were NOT minor inconsistencies that Irving was peddling under oath - the were bald-faced lies, and he was convicted of telling them. To repeat the lesson: fear of "what she might do" is not a valid reason not to testify. Moving on:

No lawyer is going to be thrilled about letting a client testify in today's political environment. Remember, please, that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was not convicted of the crime that the special prosecutor was appointed to find -- who leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame -- but of lying to a grand jury. In fact, the compulsively compulsive Patrick Fitzgerald not only knew early on who the leaker was but also that no law had been violated. No matter.

Richard? Bubby? Lying to a grand jury IS a crime. All by its lonesome little self. And you know what? Federal investigators don't like being lied to. It pisses them off, and proving that someone lied to you is relatively easy to prove, especially if the lie is particularly blatant. You can't lie to a Federal investigator and expect them to just ignore it. News flash for you, pal: Martha Stewart faced zero liability for insider trading in imclone stock - she wasn't an insider...but then she went and lied to investigators...and maybe after her little visit to prison, she now realizes that lying wasn't such a good idea. I'm not even going to go into the whole Clinton impeachment thing...

The fact remains that ordinary politics -- leaking, sniping, lying, cheating, exaggerating and other forms of PG entertainment -- have been so thoroughly criminalized that only a fool would appear before Congress without attempting to bargain for immunity by first invoking the Fifth Amendment. After all, it is a permissible exaggeration to say that in recent years more senior federal officials have had sit-downs with prosecutors than have members of the Gambino family.

I'm gonna type this slow, so you can understand it, Richard: leaking, sniping, lying, cheating and exaggerating are not "PG entertainment" when the person you're lying to or cheating happens to have you under oath. Go ahead and leak lies to the press all you want - woo-hoo! Hours of harmless fun! Watch as we leak and lie the nation into a foolish, unnecessary war! No matter, it's all PG entertainment! - but lie to investigators, including Congress, at your own risk. And what sit-downs with prosecutors are you referring to? Because there's been precious little in the way of investigations and oversight these past six years or so. Remember, Dick, that the Valerie Plame investigation was triggered by the CIA itself (who clearly believed that Ms. Plame was covert enough that exposing her identity was an actual crime), not by some gung-ho committee chairman on the Hill.

Sadly, that's all the time I have for now...maybe I'll update this later...or maybe Dick Cohen will give me a whole new set of material...