See if you can guess who wrote this without clicking:
Walking along the beach, I hear a cry of help. I look into the ocean and spy a woman thrashing about in the rough surf. I shuck my shoes and toss my sunglasses and dash toward the water. Suddenly, I hear a voice: “Do you have an exit strategy?”
[….]That stopped me cold. I could rip my bathing suit. True, I had bought it at Target in Boulder for something under $20, but these were tough times, and we had to make choices — hard choices, or so the cliché went, If I replaced the bathing suit, I might not be able to contribute to my favorite charity and some poor American kid would suffer in some way I didn’t dare to imagine. I had to be a realist. Yes, that was the term — realist. I could not save everyone. I had to act in concert with others. I had to consider the cost. I had to know who I was rescuing.
I stood, knee deep in the roiling surf, mulling all these considerations — unilateralism, no exit strategy, the precedent of having to rescue everyone, the sheer cost of it all and, of course, not knowing who I was rescuing — when the cries for help got dimmer and dimmer. “Help, help” and then, inevitably and feebly, “Glurb! Glurb !”
I turned back to the beach.What a relief. The crisis was over.
FlipYrWhig
I’m going to guess Richard Cohen.
Just Some Fuckhead
Christ, what a fucking idiot.
Zifnab
Fix’d!
Stooleo
Sully, or Bobo.
Surreal American
I’d guess, but I can’t concentrate: My cab driver just won’t shut up about his political observations.
Nicole
Complete this analogy: American soldiers are like $20 Target bathing suits because…
dianeb
The late, great Steve Gilliard once referenced Cohen by writing something to the effect that the last time anyone heard from Cohen he was d*ck-deep in Kati Marton. I miss Gilly.
FlipYrWhig
@Stooleo: Sullivan isn’t wearing bathing suits from Target. And if Brooks has ever worn a bathing suit it must have had a flannel waistcoat attached to it.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Nicole:
.. they are easily thrown away.
FlipYrWhig
@Just Some Fuckhead: They’re manufactured overseas.
Southern Beale
They have a Target in Boulder?
Elia
This man is living proof that, in America, nothing can stop a privileged white guy willing to say/do anything from achieving his dreams.
Seebach
So, when does Richard Cohen die? Can he not help with the Fukushima reactors or something?
Just Some Fuckhead
@Seebach:
We should drop him on Libya and see how much damage he does.
Hungry Joe
“Glurb! Glurb!”? I mean, come on, GLURB FUCKING GLURB??
Suffern ACE
@Just Some Fuckhead:
They are only on-the-shelf between March and August? They come in lots of colors and sizes? They are padded with 135 pounds of equipment? They are not appropriate attire for a state dinner?
I must be missing something…
FlipYrWhig
I’m actually rather appalled that I was able to guess it blindly. My wife said she knew she had been watching too much CNN in 2008 when she was able to recognize Gloria Borger — and she hated that her brain had to know that now. Similarly, I must have been reading way too much pundit nonsense.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Southern Beale: A big one. College town, after all.
The fact that this man got a Pulitzer after writing about the Iraq War as necessary “therapeutic violence” just confirms that there isn’t a corner, or a lane, or Thomas Kincaidian cottage in all the village of Broderton that hasn’t been left rotted and fetid by the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the Bush era.
BGinCHI
“His friends jumped off a bridge and so he did too.
So I told him he was a fucking idiot, but he didn’t listen.
I should have beat him more.”
— Richard Cohen’s mother
kdaug
@Hungry Joe: Glad you said it first.
Bob Loblaw
How much money do WaPo opinion writers make? Richard Cohen must be better at sucking editor dick than Sally Quinn.
Christ, I would expect a better argument from blackwaterdog…
Slim Tyranny
You got this from a high school newspaper, right?
Yutsano
Ten pounds of stupid in a five pound bag. And the worst part is he made more money writing this drivel than I do. My people are welcome to come rescue me from this hellhole at any time. But aliens aren’t exactly known for punctuality.
wasabi gasp
Little Dick: What’s my exit strategy?
Big Dick: I could rip my trunks.
Suffern ACE
@Bob Loblaw: They make enough that they aren’t buying $20 bathing suits at Target.
ruemara
I was about to wonder if that was the moustache of freedom, but in parody, then the good people above called out the name. Probably in paroxyism before one’s death by prose poisoning. I mourn you all and am happy to bypass this “richard cohen” disease. It is a rather stupid pestilence.
@Bob Loblaw Is there something you have personally against blackwaterdog why you have to bring her up? I had no idea she was a nationally published columnist who sways important opinions with poorly written essays.
Comrade DougJ
@FlipYrWhig:
Impressive.
Stooleo
@FlipYrWhig:
Shit, I didn’t even bother with reading the second paragraph, the first line was so BS, I automatically jumped to Sully or Bobo.
eemom
there was a review of Bobo’s “novel” in the WaPo yesterday. I stopped reading after the second sentence, in which the reviewer referred to him as a “public intellectual.”
Butch
@Hungry Joe: I had it down to Cohen or Friedman, but Hungry Joe you beat me to it on that one.
Zifnab
Somewhat OT, but generally relevant:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/us_keidanren
This guy needs to read some Ayn Rand and get his shit together. No wonder Japan’s economy is in shambles.
MattF
It’s a good thing that life, death, war, peace, etc. aren’t serious matters– otherwise Cohen’s column might be just a teensy-weensy-liddle-bit offensive.
b-psycho
My first thought was Maureen Dowd, but she doesn’t write about foreign policy AFAIK.
Didn’t even hover over the link even.
Bob Loblaw
@ruemara:
She has a reputation for vapidity. She’s to blogs what Richard Cohen is to mainstream press.
eemom
the other thing about this moronic quote is it’s not even original. Cohen is essentially plagiarizing that old cliche which is something to the effect of two guys standing on a beach looking at the washed up starfish and one of them says something like there’s so much tragedy in the world, too bad we can’t make a difference, and the other guy picks up a starfish and throws it back in the ocean and says “Made a difference to that one!” Booyah.
maya
If only he had mentioned the Neiman Marcus money belt he wore over his Target bathing suit it would have all made perfect sense.
Mike Goetz
I support what we are doing in Libya without reservation. But yes, the above is exceedingly feeble.
Maude
@eemom:
Does that make him a private idiot? The NYT review was good. It panned the book.
Poopyman
That ellipsis masks a lot more of the genius that is R. Cohen. E.g.
I smell Pulitzer.
Tonybrown74
Chunky Bobo?
Edit: Ah … I see it’s Richard Cohen. Hadn’t really heard from him in a bit (probably because I choose not to read WaPo much). However, just like Herpes outbreak, he always seems to pop up at the most in opportune time.
dmsilev
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I’m pretty sure that using Washington pundits as munitions violates the Geneva Convention.
Elia
@Poopyman: hahaha.
Kiril
I’m thinking David Brooks because of consistent awfulness, but something about “I had bought it at Target in Boulder for something under $20” makes my face itch, so…
Tom Friedman.
Comrade Javamanphil
It’s times like these I really miss theEditors at The Poorman Institute. Actually, every time is a time I miss them.
Egypt Steve
I’m resolutely not peaking at the link or even at the comments, and I am guessing David Brooks. Soon as I hit “submit” I’ll have a look at the comments and the links.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
It was the Boulder reference that threw me, because I just assumed it was a reference to Boulder, CO. Is there a Boulder MD or VA that I’m unfamiliar with? Or is he, as it just occurred to me, painting anti-interventionists as effete, out-of-touch, Whole Foods-shopping, Prius-driving, ski-weekending BoBo pansies who don’t understand about the prudent use of violence to bomb the middle east into Denmark?
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
No exit strategy? How about getting the fuck out of the water?
John PM
I am dumber for having read that. You know what the exit strategy is for saving a person from drowning? Pull them back onto the fucking beach! The only way this comparison would start to make any sense would be if Cohen were in a boat by himself far away from land, saw a person drowning and jumped out of his boat to rescue her, only to watch as his boat drifted away leaving him and the drowning person both stuck in the ocean
Left Coast Tom
I thought the first rule of rescue was to not put yourself in need of rescue. In other words, I’m pretty sure the average lifeguard _does_ have an “exit strategy” in mind before they’re even allowed to start their job.
lamh32
Ugghhh!!! So OT, but this really chaps my hide!
WTF is going on in Chicago!!!!!
Obama Featured On Chicago Anti-Abortion Billboards Targeting Black South Siders
The billboard says “every 21 minutes our next possible leader is aborted”…next to a profile of Obama.
Do this people think this will REALLY sway Black people on the south side of Chi-town? Home of not just Barack, but born and bred Michelle Obama.
Someone should make a companion billboard and say the every 21 minutes, the next possible Hitler or Dhamer or John Wayne Gacy…is aborter?
John PM
@Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937: I see you beat me by one minute.
middlewest
Ummm… This is happening with Firefox 4. Not sure what to make of it.
Comrade DougJ
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I was just in Boulder. It didn’t seem like a big swimming place to me but what do I know.
srv
Why read Cohen when we can get all that here?
I’ll note that the moral crowd over at Lang’s site are already rationalizing how a genocide against Kadaffi’s tribe would just be karma. Should that come to pass, we’ll see plenty of that on this blog too.
malraux
Look, if it were Friedman, it wouldn’t be in first person, it would be a story his sandwich artist at Jimmy Johns (R) told him, wouldn’t just be a bathing suit but a Speedo(r) bathing suit, and he would involve impenetrable metaphors “I stood, knee deep in the roiling surf, mulling all these considerations like a cow choosing between eating more grass or heading back to the barn…”
It clearly wasn’t Friedman.
Bill ORLY
@John PM: You mean like our strategies in Iraq and Afghanistan?
Mike E
I picked Cohen, too, because of the urge to take a tire iron to the author; Friedman just makes me reach for pie.@Comrade Javamanphil: Really, what happened to Teh Editors?
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
@Nicole: once you get em wet you can’t return them.
Dan
Cohen is basically doing an awful and very over-simplified rip-off of the pivotal scene in Camus’ The Fall. That is an incredible book that explores man’s responsibility to his fellow man at the person and global level. Of course Camus took a few hundred pages and probably months (years?) of writing, while Richard Cohen probably scribbled this nonsense on toilet paper while he was taking a shit yesterday.
Froley
I guessed Bobo, but it was a little too flippant for his writing style. I should have known it was WaPo’s resident self-proclaimed “funny man”.
Todd Pearson
Cohen is right, and “isn’t he stupid” is not an effective rebuttal.
This blog has lost me. It is now all about throwing red meat to the choir. It is a shame; I often felt that learned something after I visited here. Now, I just feel like I witnessed a silly episode on an elementary school playground.
Elvis Elvisberg
Wow, I was sure that was Friedman aftger the first paragraph. Then he mentioned a brand names in the second paragraph, and I wondered if it was Matt Taibbi parodying Friedman (“Friedman never forgets to name the company or the brand name; if he had written The Metamorphosis, Gregor Samsa would have awoken from uneasy dreams in a Sealy Posturepedic.”).
So, Cohen as a parody of Friedman? I can buy that.
sukabi
without clicking I’m guessing either Bobo or Friedman… but I think Bobo wins out with his > $20 swimming suit at Target… goes so well with his Applebee’s salad bar…
ok, so I was wrong… but really how can anyone tell? I’m betting there’s just one douche writing all the drivel that comes out of our “elite” opinion columns and they just rotate bylines and masks among the rotting corpse of the “elite” washington press.
Yutsano
@Todd Pearson: I was attempting a pithy reply to this, but I’d rather just say the universe is a lot bigger than just this blog, so have at it sunshine.
lofgren
Is this fool aware that a drowning person can easily injure or drown a rescuer, especially if the drowner is panicking and thrashing (rather than floating inert, which is what most drownings look like). Is he aware that a trained lifeguard therefore tends to have an exit strategy? That’s what that orange floaty thing they carry around is for.
This is just a bad analogy in so, so many ways.
different church-lady
The byline says Richard Cohen, but the picture is of David Letterman, so I’m a bit confused.
Dennis SGMM
@srv:
If Kadaffi’s tribe is threatened with genocide then the coalition will be morally obligated to bomb those rebels who threaten them – right? This could get very complicated very fast.
Mike E
@Todd Pearson: Dude, take a dip in the ocean, it’s very refreshing!
LongHairedWeirdo
I think this is a good point. I mean, acts of active warfare are so gentle and mild; it’s like handing out loaves of bread and sandwich makings to people who are hungry.
But I think the best part of this is how it illustrates thinking in this country.
What does every former Boy Scout know to do when someone is drowning? Reach, throw, row, go (i.e.: First, you see if you can extend something for them to grab while you’re well braced; then, you try throwing a life preserver or rope; then, you take a boat to them (you do *not* let them try to board! You tow them to shallow water (or the dock, etc.), and only if *none* of those possibilities exist, do you attempt a swimming rescue… *only* do so if you *can*, safely – a drowning person can panic and take you under, and now there’s two corpses, not one).
different church-lady
@Dan: Based on the writing, I think he might have used the toilet paper first.
ChristianPinko
It was Rich Cohen? Huh. I’d picked Nooners.
J. Michael Neal
@Comrade DougJ: This just goes to show that Cohen is more in touch with the out-of-touch than you are.
Oh, and I have a job interview this afternoon. It’s for a crappy temp position, but wish me luck anyway.
Dennis SGMM
@LongHairedWeirdo:
It’s a known fact that non-combatants who are killed by ordnance delivered for humanitarian reasons are far less dead than non-combatants killed by ordnance delivered for other reasons.
different church-lady
@Nicole:
…Richard Cohen mistakenly thinks he’s clever.
TheF79
@Yutsano:
I was hoping he would elaborate on how exactly an analogy of “unilaterally” saving someone from an Act of God when a bathing suit is on the line is an enlightening exercise in terms of how to think about intervening in a North African Civil War.
Yutsano
@J. Michael Neal: LUCK!!
And hopefully it will turn into something more down the road.
Dennis SGMM
@J. Michael Neal:
Luck! Luck! Luck! I’ll keep my eyes crossed for you.
J. Michael Neal
@Yutsano: That’s my hope. It is temp-to-hire, and I’m hoping I don’t frighten them off with my outstanding brilliance and unbeatable work ethic.
Ash Can
I was never aware of it having you in the first place.
gex
@middlewest: That FF4 is a very, very smart browser? I mean, it just flat out doesn’t trust WaPo.
Comrade Javamanphil
@Mike E: Dunno. Last post was in the summer of ’10 and it involved Rand Paul using the music of Rush. But Cohen clearly deserves a new Keyboard Kommando Komic for this tripe.
Comrade DougJ
@Todd Pearson:
We’re not that uniformly anti-intervention. Personally, I’m ambivalent. But Cohen’s argument is pathetic.
Yutsano
@Ash Can: I though about going the who the hell are you again route but decided it sounded needlessly mean. But yeah, love it when a first time commenter throws a snit like that.
@J. Michael Neal: In that case I’ll keep good thoughts and vibes headed your direction. :)
dmbeaster
Pearson
If you cant distinguish between a rescue metaphor, and going to war and killing people, then there is no point in your reading blogs to get educated.
The issue in deciding to go to war has to do with the following: are you able to stand in a room of the mothers of those killed for the war you advocate, and with emotional truth indicate that their sacrifice was worth it? It has nothing to do with some sort of valiant rescue exercise. Pretending that it does means you are utterly clueless about war.
Brachiator
@Dennis SGMM:
It’s also a known fact that non-combatants who are killed by ordnance delivered for humanitarian reasons are far more dead than non-combatants killed by the authoritarian rulers in their own country.
gex
@J. Michael Neal: Crappy job is better than no job. Good luck!
gex
@Comrade DougJ: I’m a “tie goes to Obama” person. Which probably makes me an Obot to some.
PanAmerican
I, uh.. imagine the usual suspects holed up in that Tripoli hotel with the western press. Like that horror show isn’t bad enough.
jinxtigr
Real men bomb the water away from that poor woman.
:P
Todd Pearson
dmbeaster:
A friend of our family lost a son in Afghanistan in the last month. I haven’t slept well since. Don’t lecture me you asshole.
Ash Can:
Some people opine only when they have something to say.
merrinc
@Suffern ACE:
Obviously you are not a Target shopper! Bathing suits have been on the rack since January 1st and will be likely sold out before August and not restocked. Target will put all remaining summer merchandise on sale beginning July 5.
@Bob Loblaw:
The “some people say” argument is so Fox News, as is your gratuitous meanness.
Will
Wow, I really thought that was Friedman. Well played, Richard Cohen.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
Got it in one. Considering what that says about both my reading habits and the state of American punditry, I’d call that losing rather than winning the game.
Left Coast Tom
@lofgren: There’s also the matter of knowing how to deal with rip currents (as part of the “exit strategy”).
twiffer
having worked as a lifeguard during my college years, the FIRST thing you make sure of before going to make a rescue is that it is safe for you to do so. cause otherwise, someone else is going to have to rescue both of you. charging in without “an exit strategy” means you wind up risking additional lives.
what a fucking stupid analogy.
Linnaeus
Someone on another blog responded to one of my comments – in which I said it would be good if we had a full accounting of why we go into some place instead of others – with a variant of this argument.
Calouste
@different church-lady: Probably didn’t use a pen either.
lovable liberal
@Left Coast Tom: Amen. You should never enter the water to save someone without knowing who’ll be coming along to save you if you need it.
Cohen can’t even get his metaphors right. I think it’s due to a lack of sufficient life experience – or at least memory of what life experience he does have.
The Other Chuck
I can’t believe people get paid for this. Pundits like Cohen are at the root of the anti-intellectual movement in America, because the average person on the street actually can lay claim to having equal or superior wisdom to these doorknobs who claim to be our thought leaders. Is it then any surprise that these Joe Averages turn this same scorn equally on outspoken people who actually do know their asses from their elbows?
soonergrunt
@Ash Can: maybe you missed it because we had him at hello.
calling all toasters
All I could come up with was Sully after having huge chunks of his brain removed or a collective of Bobo and Larry the Cable Guy. Hard to believe it was an actual person.
Plus, we all know Cohen would save the woman, if only to demand sex as a reward.
Howlin Wolfe
@Comrade Javamanphil: This.
Brachiator
@twiffer:
Does this mean that you ever let someone drown when you worked as a lifeguard?
Cohen’s analogy is faulty, but some of the criticisms seem equally off the mark.
FlipYrWhig
@ChristianPinko:
In her variant you don’t try to save the drowning person because you have faith that magic dolphins will do it for you.
Svensker
Who is Richard Cohen? Is he another public intellectual, like Bobo?
Why did he buy a bathing suit at the Target in Boulder CO which is about 800 miles from the beach?
Ramiah Ariya
There are several flaws in Cohen’s scenario. The more accurate allegory is this:
Let us say a bunch of families are living together. Family USA has just barged into another family’s (Iraq) house and blasted it, accusing the other family of having guns aimed at them. This claim was found to be a lie; and it seemed Family USA was really interested in the wealth of Family Iraq.
Then a fight breaks out in Family C’s home.
Would you rather have Family USA involved in any way in the new fight at Family C?
I will be interested in knowing Cohen’s answer.
shortstop
@FlipYrWhig: Also, sometimes you just have to keep swimming.
Vibrant Pantload, fka Studly Pantload
@J. Michael Neal:
Getting any interview in this job environment is no small feat. Knock their socks off! (I can empathize, having been in a terribly extended job hunt till just recently, myself.)
The Other Chuck
Lot of beaches in Boulder, are there Rich?
Geography fail.
FlipYrWhig
@shortstop: It is irresponsible not to.
Howlin Wolfe
@Todd Pearson: So do you care to defend your opinion as to why Richard “Dick” Cohen is right? Apparently not, as you are going to take your binky home and not play anymore. Aww. BJ commenters have opinions contrary to mine, and so I’m going to simultaneously and self-righteously make my first presence known (first time I’ve seen your name here) and exit in a huff. Don’t let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya.
Joel
Cohen is obscure enough that if you ignore him, he’ll go away. My recommendation, at least.
Nethead Jay
Ugghh, the stupidity. I’m mostly in favor of the intervention, but that is some horrendously written weak shit.
J. Michael Neal
The biggest problem with Cohen’s analogy is that it assumes we are capable of rescuing the drowning woman. The evidence to date suggests that we should be highly skeptical of that assumption, and that it’s worth considering the possibility that we’ll push a second woman under if we try.
I’m not saying that it’s the wrong thing to do to intervene in Libya. In addition to the direct consequences, there’s also the problem that it was the rest of NATO pressing for this one, and the US refusing to get involved after the history of the last decade would be problematic, at best. I kind of wish that France had balked at the idea.
Earl Butz
@dmbeaster: I don’t come here for self-righteous lectures, hippie.
Bob Loblaw
@J. Michael Neal:
What the fuck are you talking about?
The “drowning woman” was clearly saved. There can be no argument about the success of the humanitarian intervention vis a vis Benghazi and Tobruk.
The argument should have always been about the consequences of nation building afterwards.
Haiwei
Who’s Richard Cohen?
(You know, it is pretty easy to lead a full, rewarding life never wasting a second to read those shit-for-brains village media twits; they’ve long since surrendered any legitimate claim to be read.)
Redshift
@J. Michael Neal: My biggest problem with Cohen’s analogy is that the actual risk of saving a drowning person is that they may panic-grab you and end up drowning you both. But using that would acknowledge that there are valid concerns on both sides that ought to be addressed, so “I might rip my bathing suit” makes a much better straw man.
Cohen is always asinine. But I resent it when someone gets paid for writing and they can’t even construct a workable analogy.
Svensker
@Redshift:
Had that happen to me when I was a kid, trying to save a friend of mine. Thank god someone who knew what they were doing spotted us and came out to rescue her, because I was on the point of making the decision to let my friend drown to save myself. Not something I would have been happy to have with me the rest of my life.
MaximusNYC
@ToddPearson:
So you buy Cohen’s analogy without reservation — that dropping bombs on Libya is like saving a drowning person?
If we should have learned anything over the past 10 years, it’s that war is a very blunt instrument.
Cohen’s analogy would be more accurate if he described seeing a person threatened by sharks (not a “woman”, to evoke chivalry, but an unknown person — because we don’t really know who these Libyan rebels are)… and responded by throwing hand grenades into the water around her to try to kill the sharks… hopefully not killing any of the many other swimmers in the process.
That’s about what our “intervention” amounts to. I for one am extremely skeptical of anyone’s moral imperative to start bombing yet another country halfway around the world — whether it’s for oil, for “freedom”, or for any other reason. We do way too much of this, and as a result we have way too much blood, debt, and bad karma on our hands already.
At some point it’s time for us to step back from being the world’s policeman.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
@Todd Pearson: So, you’re losing sleep over our troops dying in Afghanistan, and anyone with anything to say about that is an asshole.
Except for Richard Cohen, who is “right” when he likens the violent deaths of young Americans to ripping a $20 pair of trunks. That’s not offensive at all, and is in fact a great analogy.
How about you take your bullshit and fuck yourself with it?
scarshapedstar
Peggy noonan?
Nope.
Just Some Fuckhead
If there’s a God, the last thing Cohen hears before he drowns is “Be strong Richard, NATO is on the way!”
Tony J
@Baron Jrod of Keeblershire:
I’d like to take the opportunity to thank the honourable member from Keeblershire for his clarity in this matter and move that the vote take place without further debate. Can I hear the Ayes?.
Duncan Dönitz (formerly Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
The quaking losers at the Post aren’t letting anybody else comment, it seems. They wouldn’t let me post anything, anyway, even after I was logged in.
So, lest my witless musings be lost forever into the ether, here are my thoughts [sic]:
$20 swimsuit, a soldier’s life, eh, who really gives a damn, right? If you tear your swimsuit, you can always buy another, and if some poor kid gets blown away, well, sucks to be him, but, hey, can’t make an omelette and all that crap, right? And anyway, he was most likely some poor nobody who never went to college (or at least not the best college) and doesn’t hang out at Sally Quinn’s parties, the way the important people do. Now if Richard Cohen got hurt in Lybia, that would be a tragedy. He has a column in the Washington Post. He knows important politicians. He makes a lot of money. He’s somebody worth worrying about. Our nameless soldier? Not so much.
There isn’t much that couls show any better what the so-called elites think of most Americans than this piece of trash: They’re worthless.
Well, now that I think it over, I think it isn’t so much that Cohen thinks they’re worthless, it’s that he doesn’t think about them at all. They aren’t really real to him, these nameless drones he’d so happily send to their deaths. He has no empathy, it seems, for those he doesn’t know, or at least those he can’t put a face to. He sees all the protesters in Libya getting beaten and killed; they have faces; we might even know their names sometimes. So they count. Hoe doesn’t see the soldiers. We don’t see their pictures as often lately, and when we do, they’re often wearing helmets, so there’s no way to see their faces, to see that they’re real. So they aren’t to a sociopath without any empathy for others. It’s awfully handy to blithely wave away so many lives, maybe, but it sure seems like it would be soul-killing. That’s Cohen’s problem, thankfully, not mine.
I don’t want thousands of ordinary Libyans–no different from me, after all–to get hurt or killed. I’d love to wave a wand and make it all stop, but we don’t have any wands to do that. It takes a boatload of lives. And there’s no way to know whether we can even help. We’ve been in Iraq for 8 years now, and I can’t say those people are any better off for our little adventure there than they would have been if Saddam were still running things. Some are, to be sure, but a whole lot are dead. Or maimed. Or refugees.
It isn’t heartless to stop and think about what we’re doing before we commit to something like an invasion of Libya. We can’t do everything. We have to be sure we can do what we want to do, and do it right for a change, before we take on something like this.
Cohen just wants to charge in and worry about the mess later. Maybe it makes him feel like a bold, fearless warrior. Maybe it makes him feel like a big man. But it seems clear that Cohen cares more about how American foreign policy makes him feel than he does about who might get hurt or killed. What are a few thousand dead nobodies, after all, if their deaths make you feel strong?
El Cid
“It was just before entering the water that I looked down and saw that there was only one set of footprints rather than two.
“And I asked God, why, why did you abandon me when you could have saved this poor woman instead of me?
“God replied, ‘What? You haven’t done shit. You never do shit. You always just stand there thinking about how awesome it will be when you write a column, this time on how if only if this guy to the left of you ran over and joined this guy on your right that this lady would already be saved.’
“The Lord added, ‘You’re god-damned lucky I don’t intervene directly like I used to in the old Flood-The-World days, ’cause you’re an annoying fucking prick’.”
Hungry Joe
@Tony J:
Aye.
Todd Pearson
This place has become a festering cesspool. Goodbye, my friends who think that talking louder than everyone else is the way to convince people that you are right.
I have to go fuck myself without letting the door hit me in the ass. I might have to practice that trick.
John, your site has been hijacked by assholes.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Todd Pearson:
Have you tried emailing him? He likes to hear from his readers!
FlipYrWhig
@Todd Pearson: That’s kind of like saying Louisiana was hijacked by swamps. It’s pretty much the ecosystem.
ed drone
@Dennis SGMM:
Kill them all and let Allah sort it out, maybe?
Ed
piratedan
well, what would Dick Cheney do? I’m surprised he didn’t ask himself that whilst dithering.
shep
Really? “Libya is just like Iraq. No, it’s just just like Yemen! No, it’s Bahrain!! Afghanistan!!! It’s all about the oil!!!! We should reveal our plans so everyone knows our exit strategy!
I swear the entire country has become so hysterical, Cohen is starting to sound sane.
twiffer
@Brachiator: no, it doesn’t. but it also doesn’t mean that i rescued people without thinking, analysing the situation and the attendent risks of intervention. it is not an unthinking act of heroism, as is implied in the analogy. it is a job that one is trained for and that requires thinking about what you have to do. now, granted, training reduces the amount of time it takes to react, because you know how to assess and analyze the situation.
moreover, the risk of going to rescue a thrashing, drowning person is not that your shorts will get ripped, but (as many have mentioned) that you will be drowned as well. which is why you are taught how to properly approach a drowing victim, as well as how to free yourself if they grab on to you and pull you under.
the analogy is that you shouldn’t stop to think before going to rescue someone. the truth is that if you don’t, you risk your own life, the life of others and wind up not rescuing anyone. thinking about the situation does not preclude action; instead, it is necessary to try and prevent the situation from getting worse.
it’s a stupid analogy.
BobS
I guessed Friedman after the first metaphor and quit reading. I’m probably richer for what I missed.
les
@Todd Pearson:
Oh please stay on! I’m sure if you made a point or an argument, I would be edified.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
@Todd Pearson: Yes, us awful ruffians have ruined what used to be a regular Algonquin table of reasoned discourse. If only we could be more like Richard Cohen!
Sure, to Cohen the death of a soldier is about as noteworthy as ripping a pair of shorts, but at least he’s polite! That’s the important part. Well, he’s polite to those he thinks of as people, which doesn’t include American soldiers, or poor Americans, or brown-skinned people who don’t provide a handy excuse to throw around some freedom bombs, but still! He’s way better than those hoodlums in the BJ comments!
Snowwy
@Todd Pearson:
Allow me to direct this to your attention, it being the point:
twiffer is full of win. And Mr. Pearson, you are not. Unless you’d care to actually make an argument, rather than pouting at the assembly. If you’ve been reading, you know this group has no more sympathy for hurt feelings here than those in D.C. So come off it and say something real.
Brachiator
@twiffer:
I agree that it’s a stupid analogy.
Your lifeguard response doesn’t quite work either. Another poster wrote,
So, for most of the Balloon Juice commentariat, the equivalent might be
The issue for most here is not that we should analyze the situation before attempting a rescue, it is that we should in general, let others drown without regard to the circumstances, because it ain’t our freaking business.
Or we just don’t know for sure who we are helping, whether the drowning person is really a “victim,” or other variations to rationalize immobility.
Mike M
What was the value of posting this argument? It is obviously a poor analogy and a weak argument for intervention. Does that mean that all people in favor of intervention in Libya also have poorly reasoned arguments?
If you want to have an honest debate on this topic, then post the arguments of the Obama administration. Gates and Clinton did the talk show circuit on Sunday, and the president will make his own speech on the topic this evening. There are many well-articulated foreign views as well. Both Cameron and Sarkozy have also made public addresses explaining their reasons for intervention. Each of the ambassadors sitting on the UN Security Council made their public arguments as well.
Trolling for a strawman argument on the web, then posting it here, contributes nothing but noise to the debate.
shortstop
@Just Some Fuckhead: Okay, that made me emit unladylike yowls of mirth.
jefft452
“I thought the first rule of rescue was to not put yourself in need of rescue. In other words, I’m pretty sure the average lifeguard does have an “exit strategy” in mind before they’re even allowed to start their job”
What? You mean lifeguards aren’t there to leap in and drown in solidarity?
Todd Pearson
You don’t hurt my feelings. I’m a big boy.
The comments section here used to have quality, regardless of opinions. It is now a name-calling arena, and non-conformers are at the top of the list. That is sad.
shortstop
“Shall I go?”
“Yes, let me go.”
(He does not move.)
Annamal
@Brachiator
A number of people die every year while “rescuing” others from surf(usually the original rescuee dies as well).
There is nothing wrong or shameful in assessing a situation and determining what the best approach is before going in.
Brachiator
@Annamal:
Irrelevant to my point. The analogy nannies who are flogging the inappropriate lifeguard situation ignore the number of posters whose attitude would be, “We can no longer be the world’s lifeguard. If you drown, tough cookies.”
They are not really interested in “assessing the situation.” They work from an a priori assumption that intervention is wrong. Which is OK, just be honest about it.
And I agree with poster Mike M that rather than crapping all over a silly pundit, we should be looking to those who are actually making the decisions and implementing policy:
Mocking Cohen is just picking the low hanging fruit.
Anne Laurie
@Tonybrown74:
DFH Libel!
Ross Doubthat made a mature, considered, faith-based decision never to appear in public wearing swim trunks some years ago. Possibly when ‘Chunky Reese Witherspoon’ offered him a bra for his walk
of shamehome.Todd Pearson
People keep asking me to make an “argument” when my point is that I accept Cohen’s argument. I’m supposed to make an “argument” to support his argument? It is called a concurrence, people.
shortstop
Police: We go! We go!
Major General: Yes, but you DON’T go!
Charity Froggenhall
You mean this is an actual column someone got paid money for writing, not a parody from Colbert or Jon Stewart’s blog? Fuck, we are all doomed.