Richard Cohen Hates the Hate

Richard Cohen Photo WaPo’s Richard Cohen has “come to loathe the campaign.” Most notably:

I loathe above all the resurgence of racism — or maybe it is merely my appreciation of the fact that it is wider and deeper than I thought.

He’s shocked that people admit to race being a consideration in the Obama-Clinton campaign. Why a veteran observer of human events is surprised by this, I don’t know, but one understands at least his sadness over the fact.

The troubling thing, though, is that his “appreciation of facts” is weak pretty much across the board. He goes on to lament a whole series of developments that, like race as a factor in the human experience, should have been pretty obvious to him well before this campaign cycle.

These are the things that sadden Cohen:

  • Hillary Clinton’s “incessant exaggerations, the cheap shots, the flights into hallucinatory history” and the fact that she’s “managed to come across as a hungry hack, a Janus looking both forward and backward and seeming to stand for nothing except winning.”
  • Bill Clinton is Bill Clinton.
  • The press’ “incessant blogging and commenting and talking and yapping and hype.”
  • There’s some possibility that a Democrat won’t win the presidency.

Where has this man been?

FILED UNDER: 2008 Election, Media, The Presidency, , , , ,
James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. Bithead says:

    He and his were still working on the last chours of “KoomByYah”.

    But a look at his total output, reveals that Cohen, like most liberals, isn’t so much concerned about hate, and it’s ramifications as much as what is the subject of that hate… and isn’t honest enough to address that issue head on.

  2. DaveD says:

    It’s a puzzle I have been unable to solve. The folks who cry racism because someone WILL NOT vote for Mr. Obama simply because he is black have no problem with someone who WILL vote for him simply because he is black. The decision either way made on skin color with no knowledge of his position on any issue. I am sure Mr. Cohen would be quite forgiving of anyone voting for Mr. Obama simply because he is black.

  3. Bachbone says:

    Though not a frequent peruser of the WaPo, I’ve read a few of Mr. Cohen’s columns. Has he ever bothered, when fervently searching for hate, to look at what stares back at him in the mirror each morning? Or does he not want to look? Perhaps that’s why he has a beard?

    Always interesting that so many leftists claim to have ESP, and like the Shadow, know “…what lurks in the hearts of [other] men.”

  4. The fact that he looks like an aged Alfred E. Neuman is ironic I suppose. I don’t like to throw labels and epithets around, but if you look up knee-jerk liberal in the dictionary, this is the picture you’ll find.

  5. Evil Pundit says:

    I can’t believe that’s a picture of a real person. Someone made it in photoshop, right? … right?

  6. MJ says:

    Where has he been? The same place as the rest of the mainstream media. Toddling around with their heads firmly up their rear-ends.

    This Obama gives a nice sounding speech on television, but exhibits startlingly bad judgment at nearly every turn and comes across as fundamentally untrustworthy to most ordinary Americans.

    Yeah, ORDINARY Americans. You know — the unwashed masses that mainstream media journalists and anchors don’t like going near. They much prefer their ivy-league educated messiah who cites his appreciation for “arugula” and runs around telling middle America that they “cling to their guns and god” out of “bitterness”.

    No, Barack, they cling to those things to protect themselves from scary characters like Reverend Wright.