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You are here: Home / Fun while it lasts

Fun while it lasts

by DougJ|  December 22, 200911:33 am| 83 Comments

This post is in: Assholes, Good News For Conservatives

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I’m planning on curtailing my fixation with the Kaplan editorial page. It’s one of my New Year’s resolutions. But in the meantime I cant resist discussing Matt Yglesias’s list of top ten worst Washington Post columnists of the decade:

10. Michael Kelly

9. David Broder

8. Jim Hoagland

7. Robert Novak

6. Michael Gerson

5. Fred Hiatt

4. Robert Samuelson

3. George Will

2. Robert Kagan

1. Charles Krauthammer

Atrios rightly suggests replacing Michael Kelly with Richard Cohen. But I’d take this one step further: Cohen deserves to be number 1. His algebra and “better with the lights off” were probably the two worst columns I have ever read in my life.

Moreover, it’s too stacked against right-wingers. I’ll grant Gerson and Kagan, but Krauthammer is only marginally worse than David Brooks and not as bad as Bill Kristol (both of whom have had Times gigs). Likewise, George WIll is not as bad as John Tierney. And Hoagland is better than Tom Friedman. The list should focus on what is makes the WaPo editorial page bad compared with other papers so I propose a severe reshuffle with some new names

10. Charles Krauthammer
9. George Will
8. Anne Applebaum
7. David Broder
6. Michael Gerson
5. Jackson Diehl
4. Fred Hiatt
3. Robert Kagan
2. Robert Samuelson
1. Richard Cohen

Update. The idea is that Kristol and Palin haven’t written enough in WaPo yet to make the list. If we were to make a list of the worst irregular/one-off columnists, it would start

1. Palin
2. Kristol
3. Amity Shlaes
4. Steve Landsburg
5. Kevin Hassett

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Reader Interactions

83Comments

  1. 1.

    bailey

    December 22, 2009 at 11:37 am

    Krauthammer only marginally worse than Brooks? Insane. Krauthammer is pure evil, and Brooks is more just banal.

  2. 2.

    Emma

    December 22, 2009 at 11:40 am

    Jesus Christ. Looking at all the names in a row like that (either list) is absolutely obvious that the WaPo is heading for the trashcan of journalism history.

  3. 3.

    arguingwithsignposts

    December 22, 2009 at 11:40 am

    I’ll just leave a little smudge here.

    I did like the commenter who noted:

    The only conceivable reason not to include Richard Cohen on a list like this is that he is so transcendentally bad he cannot be included with others who are merely horrid on a temporal plane.

  4. 4.

    NobodySpecial

    December 22, 2009 at 11:40 am

    @bailey:

    Krauthammer at least in his latest column admits he’s a dope. Brooks is serious!

  5. 5.

    Scruffy McSnufflepuss

    December 22, 2009 at 11:40 am

    @bailey:

    Remember Hannah Arendt’s “Eichmann in Jerusalem,” though. The banality of evil is often more frightening and damaging than a purified distillation of sadistic evil.

  6. 6.

    mistermix

    December 22, 2009 at 11:42 am

    Cohen as #1 is richly deserved. He’s despicable personally and professionally, unlike Krauthammer.

  7. 7.

    Comrade Mary

    December 22, 2009 at 11:42 am

    @arguingwithsignposts: KITTEH!

    Right. Feel better now.

  8. 8.

    jeffreyw

    December 22, 2009 at 11:42 am

    @bailey: Brooks is Eddie fucking Haskell

  9. 9.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    December 22, 2009 at 11:42 am

    The scary things about that list is that in terms of professional habits (not ideology), pretty much everybody on the list would have been quite comfortable and successful working for Pravda.

  10. 10.

    Mike E

    December 22, 2009 at 11:42 am

    Technically not a column, but no Sarah Palin?

  11. 11.

    Sentient Puddle

    December 22, 2009 at 11:44 am

    @Mike E: Yglesias’s criteria for ranking was this:

    this is an award for the aggregate badness of one’s Washington Post columns

    By that yardstick, you’re right. I have no idea how Sarah Palin isn’t #1.

  12. 12.

    EdTheRed

    December 22, 2009 at 11:47 am

    That’s a better list than Yglesias’. Seriously, Cohen’s lights out column was perhaps the worst thing I’ve ever read by a regular WaPo columnist. His “let Roman Polanksi free, but first let me at him” column was epically failtastic, too.

    And let us not forget his belief that torture makes us safer.

    Or his classic Obama-Farrakhan concern troll column.

    And Applebaum makes the list on the strength of her Polanski-defending column where she failed to mention her Poland-sized conflict of interest alone. The rest of her body of “work” is just gravy.

  13. 13.

    arguingwithsignposts

    December 22, 2009 at 11:47 am

    @Sentient Puddle:

    have no idea how Sarah Palin isn’t #1.

    She’d have to *write* the column to qualify, which, you betcha.

  14. 14.

    Napoleon

    December 22, 2009 at 11:47 am

    I would take Gerson out and replace him with Cohen. Even though Kelly was only alive 3 years of the decade before being killed he was so odious as to make the list.

  15. 15.

    Kryptik

    December 22, 2009 at 11:51 am

    Too bad this is just the editorial page. Kurtz and Shalaigh Murray deserve some blame too. Same with ‘Ombudsman’ Andrew Alexander. You know, Mr. ‘Why are we letting Glenn Beck scoop us?!’

  16. 16.

    Mike E

    December 22, 2009 at 11:52 am

    @arguingwithsignposts:
    She’s channelling her inner Mr. Hanky

  17. 17.

    MikeJ

    December 22, 2009 at 11:53 am

    @Kryptik: Robin “Hillary has b00bz” Givhan if we’re dipping into the “news” side.

  18. 18.

    geg6

    December 22, 2009 at 11:55 am

    I am pretty much down to two pundits whom I will deign to read. My list does not include ANY WaPo pundits since I am boycotting everything to do with that piece of shit. I read Gail Collins because she has a sense of humor, something much lacking among pundits. And I read David Shribman, executive editor of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. He is almost always sensible and smart. I don’t always agree with him and I realize he is a parochial choice, but I like sensible and I care about local issues as much or even more than national ones. Shribman discusses both, often framing national issues for their effects on local ones. He’s a good read for me. The rest of these idiots can go pound salt, whether they are right or left. They are all wankers, though I grant some are bigger ones than others.

  19. 19.

    low-tech cyclist

    December 22, 2009 at 11:56 am

    George Will has to be in the top 3, at least. Not only does he have a track record (dating back to at least 1992) of lying about climate science, but in addition, most of his columns in recent years have been a random walk between right-wing talking points and unimaginative slams at liberals.

    He makes Broder and Samuelson look good by comparison, and that takes work. And he’s certainly got the biggest gap between reputation and actual quality: does anyone have ANY clue about why this guy is influential?

  20. 20.

    Tim F.

    December 22, 2009 at 11:56 am

    It’s his own fault that Ben Domenech did not make the list.

  21. 21.

    Zifnab

    December 22, 2009 at 11:57 am

    I don’t understand how Kristol fails to make the list. His incessant drum beat for war, anywhere and everywhere, no and forever, was possibly the core of the neo-conservative movement over the last decade. When the Cohens and the Broders and the George Wills waffled with public sentiment, Bill Kristol was like a staunch bastion of foreign genocide. I can’t think of anyone more proudly and defiantly pro-war.

    Also, the dude’s own magazine – the Weekly Standard – was forever on the wrong side of public opinion and common sense. The guy ran the flagship “We’re Always Wrong” operation, with only the National Review running a close second.

    :-p

  22. 22.

    EconWatcher

    December 22, 2009 at 11:59 am

    I think it has to be counted as unfair that George Will is on this list at all. Yes, he wanders off on evidence-free excursions (e.g., climate change). But the man has redeeming qualities. When he stands up, he stands up.

    Recent example: Will responds to Cheney’s accusation that Obama “dithered” on Afghanistan with the retort that maybe Cheney should have dithered a little more before invading Iraq. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/25/george-will-to-cheney-you_n_333036.html Snap! Perfect answer.

    Sorry, but that sort of thing should keep him off any “worst” list. It’s not an isolated example. (Note–I’m not nominating him for a “best” list. Just not the worst. Not by any stretch.)

  23. 23.

    Surreal American

    December 22, 2009 at 12:00 pm

    Was Bill Kristol fired by Wapost? Otherwise no worst list is complete without his inclusion.

  24. 24.

    Napoleon

    December 22, 2009 at 12:01 pm

    @Zifnab:

    Easy, Matt’s rules were the only thing that counts is what you have written for the WaPo. Virturally nothing you mention involves things Kristol wrote for the WaPo.

    (PS, has Kristol even been there a year? A guy on the list who has been dead 7 years, Kelly, has 3 times the period to have churned out trash the Kristol has for the WaPo).

  25. 25.

    dj spellchecka

    December 22, 2009 at 12:05 pm

    this is kinda like ranking which vat full of animal shit [cat, dog, donkey, elephant, gorilla, etc ] i’d rather use as a hottub, but you’re being way too kind to the kraut…his “israel should keep killing everything moving in gaza until the few people left alive finally turn on their leadership” column should have gotten him expelled from the human race

  26. 26.

    danimal

    December 22, 2009 at 12:06 pm

    Replace Applebaum with Kristol and move Dean Broder up a few notches and you’ve got the right list.

    Jeez, that’s a horrible stable filled with braying asses.

  27. 27.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    December 22, 2009 at 12:08 pm

    @low-tech cyclist:

    does anyone have ANY clue about why this guy is influential?

    He personally helped Reagan win the 1980 election. He was one of Reagan’s behind-the-scenes debate coaches helping the candidate to prepare for the upcoming debate, and then after the debate was over put on his “neutral, objective observer pundit” hat and pontificated widely about how well Reagan had done in the debate, without disclosing his own role in the debate prep. After that, Will was golden in the Village. He could read the DC telephone book to folks for the rest of his career and get paid handsomely to do it.

  28. 28.

    Zifnab

    December 22, 2009 at 12:13 pm

    @Napoleon:

    (PS, has Kristol even been there a year? A guy on the list who has been dead 7 years, Kelly, has 3 times the period to have churned out trash the Kristol has for the WaPo).

    Fair enough. I get a bunch of his NYTimes junk confused with whatever he’s done in the WaPo. Mostly, I keep remembering the “Republicans will triumph in 2008!” nonsense he kept spewing right up until the day of the election.

    I mean monsterous or not, Kristol has the supernatural ability to always be wrong. It’s humbling. That should count for something, no matter where he’s writing.

  29. 29.

    Stroszek

    December 22, 2009 at 12:14 pm

    It’s too stacked against right-wingers because WaPo is too stacked with right-wingers.

  30. 30.

    Brick Oven Bill

    December 22, 2009 at 12:14 pm

    For some reason I caught myself watching one of those Sunday shows with some of these guys and their Leftist counterparts. These people seem to be all on Prozac, or a similar drug. They are detached from reality.

    I doubt David Chase is on Prozac, as The Sopranos is a pretty accurate representation of life as my eyes observe it. ‘The Sopranos’ series made a lot of money. It is also a high quality product.

    If the Washington Post and other newspapers want to make money, they should demand that their writers stop taking Prozac.

  31. 31.

    Fwiffo

    December 22, 2009 at 12:17 pm

    Somehow, the “lights out” column reminded me of Ross Douthat’s “chunky Reese Witherspoon” column, which, while not qualified for this list, is another fine horror of right-wing punditry.

  32. 32.

    Noonan

    December 22, 2009 at 12:22 pm

    Moments like this are when the newspaper industry’s implosion seems obvious.

  33. 33.

    DougJ

    December 22, 2009 at 12:27 pm

    I think it has to be counted as unfair that George Will is on this list at all.

    Ultimately, it’s unfair to include him and Krauthammer, I should have probably made it a top 8 list. That said, he and Krauthammer have dabbled in anti-scientific nonsense far too much for a Princeton PhD and a Harvard MD. So their inclusion is not entirely undeserved.

  34. 34.

    jeffreyw

    December 22, 2009 at 12:28 pm

    Speaking of “fun while it lasts”, I just put two cornish hens into the oven. I may have to eat a sammich when I’m done picking those tiny bones clean.

  35. 35.

    Jim

    December 22, 2009 at 12:29 pm

    Cohen resigned from the human race when he said the Iraq war was justified by his need for therapeutic violence after 9/11. And if the word “wankery” did not exist, it would have been necessary to invent it for his column on Colbert. Next to those, his recent column on Obama (“a man whose life contains no significant achievement”, or something like that) is just garden variety beltway cocktail party chat.

    And I agree, with Bailey @1, Krauthammer is a raving lunatic, Brooks is pretty much a pompous boor.

  36. 36.

    Zifnab

    December 22, 2009 at 12:29 pm

    @Noonan: What’s sad is that the editorial section has almost become the newspaper. It’s like no one (especially the editorialists) read the god damn stories anymore. People just listen to the gossips and soothsayers, hoping for the answer to the riddle, “How did the DOW go up/down 300 points with a black man in office?”

  37. 37.

    Jim

    December 22, 2009 at 12:31 pm

    Update. The idea is that Kristol and Palin haven’t written enough in WaPo yet to make the list. If we were to make a list of the worst irregular/one-off columnists, it would start

    with Liz Cheney, and the tag-team of McCain, Graham and Lieberman

  38. 38.

    Kryptik

    December 22, 2009 at 12:32 pm

    @Zifnab:

    THat’s because the news section has pretty much become as bad as the editorial section.

    As for the edit at the top post: What? No Bolton? No Mr. ‘I can count on the WaPo to let me tell you every two months about why we need to glass Iran, right here, right now’?

  39. 39.

    arguingwithsignposts

    December 22, 2009 at 12:33 pm

    Even the dean Brooks has to bow before the smudge. sleeping on the blanket.

  40. 40.

    DougJ

    December 22, 2009 at 12:33 pm

    Even the dean Brooks has to bow before the smudge. sleeping on the blanket.

    How old is smudge?

  41. 41.

    Tim in SF

    December 22, 2009 at 12:33 pm

    Dude, show your work.

    Put a paragraph under each of them explaining the wankery.

  42. 42.

    Sentient Puddle

    December 22, 2009 at 12:36 pm

    @Tim in SF: Oh hells no. Reading Cohen’s algebra column made my brain come close to melting.

  43. 43.

    arguingwithsignposts

    December 22, 2009 at 12:36 pm

    @DougJ:

    9 weeks.

  44. 44.

    Malron

    December 22, 2009 at 12:38 pm

    Speaking of shitty, self-absorbed punditry…

    After saying this in the past

    Fox is not a news outlet, it’s an openly partisan opinion factory and the Democrats should not be legitimizing them (and allowing them to recruit Democratic viewers to propagandize to) by doing this.

    Jane Hamsher went on Fox & Friends this morning.

  45. 45.

    MattF

    December 22, 2009 at 12:39 pm

    I think Kelly belongs on the list– Maybe people have forgotten, but he was tremendously influential– and one of the people who set the pattern for crazed Clinton-hating in the 90’s.

  46. 46.

    Chuck Butcher

    December 22, 2009 at 12:47 pm

    Even with disputes over a couple people, a list of 15 including the amount of stupidity displayed by that list at one newspaper, any one newspaper, would be astonishing. I’m not sure I can even exempt the Moonies or Faux.

  47. 47.

    Barry

    December 22, 2009 at 12:49 pm

    Dougj: “His algebra and “better with the lights off” were probably the two worst columns I have ever read in my life.”

    To me, that second column was basically a recital of the “Anti-Apostle’s Creed” by somebody accepting Satanism. He specifically renounced the basic ethos of journalism.

  48. 48.

    David in NY

    December 22, 2009 at 12:50 pm

    Wow! Cohen’s “algebra” column is phenomenally bad. I was skeptical about putting him first, but I’m becoming a convert. The man cannot think. And furthermore, if he thinks that mathematicians can’t write, he ought to be locked in a room until he’s read Paul Lockhart’s, “A Mathematician’s Lament”.

  49. 49.

    Zifnab

    December 22, 2009 at 12:56 pm

    @Malron:

    Jane Hamsher went on Fox & Friends this morning.

    Wow. She just lost points in my book.

    Fox & Friends? I mean, really? At least when you’re up against Hannity or O’Reily or Beck, you can claim you’re marching into the Heart of Darkness. But Steve Doocy? There’s no excuse for that.

  50. 50.

    Mike E

    December 22, 2009 at 12:56 pm

    @EconWatcher:
    George Will=Oxymoron

  51. 51.

    Brachiator

    December 22, 2009 at 12:57 pm

    Atrios rightly suggests replacing Michael Kelly with Richard Cohen. But I’d take this one step further: Cohen deserves to be number 1. His algebra and “better with the lights off” were probably the two worst columns I have ever read in my life.

    The raging stoopidity of Cohen’s algebra column qualifies him to be one of the worst columnists of any decade.

  52. 52.

    Mumphrey

    December 22, 2009 at 12:58 pm

    I myself think that Cohen’s “I am a funny guy” is the worst column ever written.

    It floors me that anybody, even Cohen, could be so clueless about what makes somebody funny that he can write “I am a funny guy,” by way of stating his “credentials”. I never would have guessed that anybody could misunderstand what it means to be funny so badly. If you’re funny, you don’t have to state your funniness as a “credential”, like you’re a witness in court (“Your Honor, I’d like to enter into the record that this witness is funny. He has a certificate from Richard Cohen to that effect.”) If you’re funny, you don’t have to tell us; you show us by saying or doing something funny. How is that so hard to fathom?

  53. 53.

    gwangung

    December 22, 2009 at 12:59 pm

    If you’re funny, you don’t have to tell us; you show us by saying or doing something funny. How is that so hard to fathom?

    You ask this of an ideology that though An American Carol was a comedy?

  54. 54.

    Mike E

    December 22, 2009 at 1:00 pm

    George Will=Oxymoron

  55. 55.

    handy

    December 22, 2009 at 1:07 pm

    George Will=waste of Oxygen

    ftfy.

  56. 56.

    Annie

    December 22, 2009 at 1:08 pm

    @arguingwithsignposts:

    Best picture so far. She is quite long for such a little girl…

  57. 57.

    Batocchio

    December 22, 2009 at 1:14 pm

    I prefer the revised list, and the addition of the irregular list. I wrote over at Yglesias’s place that I had to vote for Cohen as well – Krauthammer at least puts some effort into crafting his BS.

  58. 58.

    Jim

    December 22, 2009 at 1:14 pm

    @Zifnab:

    Wow. She just lost points in my book.

    She got attention and they got somebody to bash Democrats.

  59. 59.

    Zuzu's Petals

    December 22, 2009 at 1:17 pm

    Liz Cheney.

    Regular or irregular, she’s invariably full of crap.

  60. 60.

    Zuzu's Petals

    December 22, 2009 at 1:32 pm

    @David in NY:

    Reading that column reminded me of my favorite Guindon cartoon:

    Writing is nature’s way of letting you know how sloppy your thinking is.

  61. 61.

    trollhattan

    December 22, 2009 at 1:38 pm

    I don’t know how George Will could not be on the list—he of the denim jihad a quarter century too late (all hail Herb Tarlek).

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/15/AR2009041502861.html

    That sort of column at least is laughable but his ill-informed climate screeds enable those who would doom us all in their pursuit of better quarterly P&Ls and teaching the DFHs a stern lesson. Screw him and the damn bowtie.

  62. 62.

    Geeno

    December 22, 2009 at 2:00 pm

    @Malron: Everyone’s gotta pay the bills

  63. 63.

    Mike in NC

    December 22, 2009 at 2:09 pm

    Will was golden in the Village. He could read the DC telephone book to folks for the rest of his career and get paid handsomely to do it.

    Will has a fancy house in Chevy Chase and is a darling of the Georgetown/Bethesda/Capitol Hill cocktail party circuit. His all-time worst column came out the day after the coup against Gorbachev (which quickly failed). He thought it was a great excuse to restart the Cold War, or maybe even kick off WWIII.

  64. 64.

    Woodrowfan

    December 22, 2009 at 2:11 pm

    Mike Kelly bought every rw nutso talking point about the Clintons, and then when he was killed, his buddies in the MSM wailed about what a great journalist had been lost. jackass.

  65. 65.

    Gus

    December 22, 2009 at 2:19 pm

    @Napoleon: No way. Gerson is the king of concern trolls. I’m not sure who I’d leave out, but Cohen should definitely be top 5 if not #1.

  66. 66.

    tripletee

    December 22, 2009 at 2:35 pm

    @low-tech cyclist:

    And he’s certainly got the biggest gap between reputation and actual quality: does anyone have ANY clue about why this guy is influential?

    Because morons confuse a hefty thesaurus and an ability to craft stultifying prose with actual intelligence?

  67. 67.

    asiangrrlMN

    December 22, 2009 at 3:02 pm

    @David in NY: Yeah. Holy shit. Just reading the excerpts made my jaw drop. If I didn’t know what a blithering idiot Cohen was, I would say he was writing satire.

    Looking at that list depresses me. I read KThug and a few others (NOT named Douthat or Brooks) over at NYT, but not so much recently.

    @arguingwithsignposts: Have I told you how much I’m loving the random Smudge posts? Such a doll!

  68. 68.

    bayville

    December 22, 2009 at 3:13 pm

    I think Eric Cantor belongs somewhere in that off-list, maybe as an alternate or replacing Kristol.

    But Michael Kelly was the worst columnist evah, in the history of daily newspaperdom.
    He had the unique talent of being a pompous, tedious writer, factually challenged coupled with a blinding anti-Arab rage that would make Friedman blush. He sucked, which is what it should have read on his tombstone.

  69. 69.

    Will

    December 22, 2009 at 3:25 pm

    Atrios rightly suggests replacing Michael Kelly with Richard Cohen.

    But Michael Kelly’s columns in the run-up to the war were so mendacious, so packed with lies and white-hot rhetoric against the handful of war critics…no, I’m sorry, he at least deserves to be in the top 10, if not #1.

    Richard Cohen is just a doofus. Kelly was downright dangerous. And Richard Cohen at least had the stones to climb down from his pro-war position and admit he was completely, hopelessly wrong on that score. Bill Kristol would back down from supporting the war before Michael Kelly would have.

    He was probably the most arrogant columnist of the last decade. At least he finally fulfilled his dream of playing soldier.

  70. 70.

    fledermaus

    December 22, 2009 at 3:51 pm

    Pick a Richard Cohen column, any one, and you will find the most oblivious self-congratulating crap ever written by anyone ever. For Example:

    In truth, I did not seek an exclusive interview with the president of the United States not only because I wanted to write something that would be noticed but also — actually mainly — because I feared that if I did get an exclusive interview I would be expected to ask him something about health-care reform, about which I know next to nothing.

    Kind of takes the breath away, don’t it? The lack of Cohen in the list is an unpardonable error.

  71. 71.

    Zifnab

    December 22, 2009 at 4:01 pm

    @Jim:

    She got attention and they got somebody to bash Democrats.

    I don’t care if she got laid.

    Steve Doocy. Game over. You lose.

  72. 72.

    J Price Vincenz

    December 22, 2009 at 4:07 pm

    With HCR so important this year, I can’t imagine why Betsy McCaughey didn’t make the list: she’s literally a pathological lair and/or lobbyist/corporatist tool. Most of the others are shady and nefarious; she is putrid and vile. The routes and distances her lies have taken make her inclusion mandatory, IMO.

    And, oh, God, those round Malcolm Forbes glasses that Richard Cohen wears are sufficient to put him on the most clumsy attempt at metrosexuality. I’m sure they giggle behind his back at his Safeway.

    And for the decade list, I would put those two go-to liberals from the Trilateral Commission, O’ Hanlon and whatever his name is… Thankfully, we don’t see them much anymore, but the wasted lives from the Iraqi invasion and occupation rest on their shoulders (note I didn’t say consciences).

  73. 73.

    Morgan

    December 22, 2009 at 4:30 pm

    @David in NY: What’s more, he seems to think pointing to deserts on a map is an exercise in reasoning.

  74. 74.

    Morgan

    December 22, 2009 at 4:35 pm

    @arguingwithsignposts: I’ll see your smudge and raise you a scamp.

  75. 75.

    Joel

    December 22, 2009 at 5:11 pm

    I think we need to expand this, to include the entire Kaplan umbrella (Slate, we’re looking at you!).

    A separate list needs to be prepared for Salon, and frankly (despite my liking it overall), the Atlantic.

  76. 76.

    Califlander

    December 22, 2009 at 6:04 pm

    You forgot Cohen’s homage to aerial bombardment as a form of therapy:

    If anything, I was encouraged in my belief by the offensive opposition to the war — silly arguments about oil or empire or, at bottom, the ineradicable and perpetual rottenness of America. On the contrary, I thought. We are a good country, attempting to do a good thing. In a post-Sept. 11 world, I thought the prudent use of violence could be therapeutic.

    Hannah Arendt captured Cohen’s spirit — I don’t think the word “soul” really applies — when she wrote about the banality of evil.

  77. 77.

    tom c

    December 22, 2009 at 6:24 pm

    David Brooks is a foundation of enlightenment and reason compared to Krauthammer. When I think about Brooks at his very worst he comes off as a well meaning shmoe. Krauthammer has always made me think of Doctor Strangelove, oddly enough, even before I ever heard about his being confined to a wheelchair. I agree about Cohen though. This is the first time I ever saw David Broder’s name in any context and thought he was being underrated.

  78. 78.

    lol chikinburd

    December 22, 2009 at 10:39 pm

    4. Steve Landsburg

    A shame. He was so good as Dietrich on Barney Miller.

  79. 79.

    Lex

    December 22, 2009 at 10:41 pm

    @bailey:

    Krauthammer is pure evil.

    Granted, this expands the boundaries of the contest beyond the area of printed work, but: FTW.

    I stumbled across that sick bastard on TV earlier tonight, complaining because we hadn’t gone to war against Iran already. I so badly want his paralyzed ass to wake up in a foxhole surrounded by corpses with no weapon, no comrades in sight, no way to move and the enemy advancing with bayonets fixed. If he wants blood that badly, let him drink his own.

  80. 80.

    mclaren

    December 23, 2009 at 1:41 am

    Low-tech cyclist remarked:

    George Will has to be in the top 3, at least.

    Yeah! C’mon, people, doesn’t anyone remember that brainfrying column in which George Will called the speeches of the former drunk-driving C student in the Oval Office “Lincolnian”?

    Comparing the incoherent babblings of a stuttering stumbling fumbling bumbling bungling idiot who spewed gibberish like “I know what it’s like to put food on my family” to the eloquence of Abraham Lincoln…holy crap. For sheer mindlessly dishonest butt-snorkeling and outright brazen lying in the face of a Himalayan mountain of evidence to the contrary, George Will’s demented brown-nosing horseshit and contrafactual jeremiads stand alone as a sinister monument to the brain-destroying effects of Reaganoid conservatism.

  81. 81.

    Sly

    December 23, 2009 at 6:18 am

    Michael Kelly stays on the fucking list.

    For what it’s worth, I could probably go through the BJ archives from the pre-Enlightenment era and find posts in praise of Kelly and his puerile horse shit. I understand a lot of people who advocated for the Iraq War considered him a “reasonable liberal” (formerly of the Liberal New Republic, no less). I never wished the man ill, nor did I ever achieve any satisfaction in knowing that he died covering a war he so smugly pimped in his writing.

    But that doesn’t mean that the three years of the decade that he wrote for the WaPo weren’t ten times worse than the near nine years of mealy-mouthed nonsense penned by Richard Cohen. Because they were.

  82. 82.

    Barry

    December 23, 2009 at 2:43 pm

    Re: Krauthammer

    “I so badly want his paralyzed ass to wake up in a foxhole surrounded by corpses with no weapon, no comrades in sight, no way to move and the enemy advancing with bayonets fixed. If he wants blood that badly, let him drink his own.”

    And the enemy knows what he’s done (say, he’s got Torture Corps insignia on his uniform), and has the leisure to make it loooooooooooooooooooooong aaaaaaaaannnnnd sloooooooooooooooooooow, no quick bayonetting.

    That man’s been a raving Dr. Strangelove for as long as I’ve been away of him. He’s like a press version of a vampire, who has to drink blood to live.

    He and Kelly are in the extreme category, where their editors should be punished right alongside of them.

Comments are closed.

Trackbacks

  1. Making A List, Checking It Twice, Finding Out Whose Naughty And Nice « Around The Sphere says:
    December 23, 2009 at 11:20 am

    […] Doug J.: Atrios rightly suggests replacing Michael Kelly with Richard Cohen. But I’d take this one step further: Cohen deserves to be number 1. His algebra and “better with the lights off” were probably the two worst columns I have ever read in my life. […]

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