Strange bedfellows, indeed. Here is Richard Cohen, arguing in 1996 (Oct 31st, for those with an appreciation of cosmic balance), that he is not a hatemonger. You’ll have to click to embiggen it, but decide for yourself, after his missives the last few years, whether or not he is a hatemonger:
I’m particularly fond of the phrase “I have been wrong at some times in my career.”
Yes. Yes you have. Dick.
(via a reader with more patience to delve into his archives than I have)
Trentrunner
You’d think a Jew would know better.
Omnes Omnibus
The TNC piece with the links was more than enough for me.
Phil Perspective
His hate actually goes back at least another 10 years:
http://www.nytimes.com/1986/10/06/us/post-offers-apology-to-blacks.html
Edited: I believe TNC included the link to this in the piece Omnes Omnibus talks about right above me.
Anya
@Phil Perspective: Isn’t it strange they apologized in 86 but now they’re doubling down.
Redshirt
You promised “The Last Word”.
And yet, here we are. More words.
Mike in NC
Cohen has been a scumbag fixture of the WaPo for quite a few years, but has been generally eclipsed by Krauthammer, Will, Gerson, Rubin, and the rest of the fascists hired by Hiatt.
centerfielddj
Good Lord, an African-American journalist criticized Cohen, and he called himself the victim of “…a virtual mugging…”. So, Richard’s syphilitic condition has been eating away at his brain for decades, then?
Omnes Omnibus
@Phil Perspective: The TNC piece was just devastating. Cohen and the WP can’t legitimately argue that the latest column was poorly worded or badly edited. The guy has been a troglodyte for more than 25 years. His “even the liberal” status really seems to rely on his take down pieces on Agnew back in the early 70s.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
But he fully understands black frustration and anger! Fully, I tells ya! His understanding must therefore be fuller than that of those shiftless, (intellectually) lazy blacks who simply can’t be trusted, bless their hearts, to know what’s good for them. If they would only listen to him, they wouldn’t be so angry!
Arclite
That title wins the internetz for today. Cracked me up.
centerfielddj
@Anya: Since 1986, the oligarchs and the news entertainment complex they own have decided that accountability is for suckers.
centerfielddj
@Omnes Omnibus: Yeah, criticizing Agnew really required the skills of a surgeon, such a beloved national figure was Spiro.
Omnes Omnibus
@centerfielddj: Hey, I was 7 or 8 at the time. Cohen doesn’t seem to have written anything that wasn’t conventional wisdom or defense of the establishment since then. Except, of course, for the appalling contrarian asshole pieces like the one in question.
NotMax
@Omes Omnibus
The establishment hires and rewards someone to promote and advance the establishment?
Shocked, shocked.
Cohen’s strident mediocrity is evidence that Roman Hruska lives.
Omnes Omnibus
@NotMax: So you don’t want your winnings?
Violet
From the column: “I fully understand black frustration and anger.” Uh huh.
Fuzzy
@Trentrunner: Aah but the downtrodden always have to stomp down on those beneath them and their legion of columnists and commentators shall never let us forget how racist “we” are.
Tom Q
I remember someone once writing that the key thing about Nixon was, he had to go on TV and deny he was a crook twice — in 1952 and 1973. If it keeps coming up like that, over years, you start to figure there’s something to it.
I hadn’t realized Cohen had been denying this racial thing so long or so often. Like with Nixon, it gets harder to grant him any benefit of doubt.
SatanicPanic
That guy’s picture always creeps me out. When he had long hair it was even worse.
At This Point I Am An Angry Black Woman
I wonder if Mr. Cohen would recognize this as racist? Or is this guy merely a conventional conservative?
https://twitter.com/ThePatriotGuard/status/400796530174472192
Omnes Omnibus
@At This Point I Am An Angry Black Woman: Is that a real thing? Jesus wept.
Felonius Monk
I think we all agree that Richard Cohen is and always has been a journalistic shit-stain, so let’s move on to other things that are worth discussing.
At This Point I Am An Angry Black Woman
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes it is. And it is always about race for them. Always.
Mark S.
@centerfielddj:
I once read that Nixon kept Agnew as VP because he didn’t think anyone would assassinate him as long as Spiro was next in line.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@At This Point I Am An Angry Black Woman:
I have to admit, my first thought was, Wait, that woman’s not even fat. But, of course, it’s not actually about her being too fat/unhealthy, is it? That’s just the attempt at misdirection: I didn’t say she shouldn’t get healthcare because she’s black — she shouldn’t get healthcare because she’s fat!
Nora Carrington
Further reflections on the “hurt feelings” defense.
Cohen like too many others to count before him seems to think being accused of being a racist is actually worse than racism. Certainly at-least-as-bad-and-possibly-worse-than being the target of racist thought word or deed. Why is it worse? Because of course it’s not true! Never!! No, really!
Which of course suggests the question, doesn’t that defense make racism “true” to Cohen? Not true in the sense of actually existing in the real world, true in the sense of accurately describing the person or people of color against whom it’s directed.
Which would seem to suggest Cohen is a racist, since he thinks — in contrast to the accusation that he is a racist, which is false — that racist ideology is true.
This was clearer in my head.
? Martin
@At This Point I Am An Angry Black Woman: Not racist. Just patriotically pointing out that black people are fat, lazy, drug users and want handouts. Nothing at all like this upstanding citizen.
mdblanche
@centerfielddj: His syphilis is clearly in the tertiary stage, so yes, one or two decades.
@NotMax: I’m pretty sure a guy with a name like Cohen isn’t what Hruska meant by “mediocre.”
SatanicPanic
@At This Point I Am An Angry Black Woman: Wow, and people are pretty willing to attach their own face to all the retweets. Yikes.
handsmile
@Omnes Omnibus:
Not so.
Richard Cohen has a knack for making venom-spewing enemies out of people who should be his allies.
Richard doesn’t reliably follow any political line. He also isn’t afraid to take on subjects where culture and politics and emotions overlap.
Or so says the first and last lines of WaPo reporter Paul Farhi’s defense of his colleague published Wednesday in the paper’s “Lifestyle” section.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/controversy-over-richard-cohens-comments-on-the-de-blasio-family/2013/11/12/3c37f900-4bda-11e3-ac54-aa84301ced81_print.html
It’s deemed axiomatic that hippie-punching or in this case, bravely taking the blows of the liberal blogosphere, earns one esteem among the Village illuminati. If true, then this “controversy” will only render Cohen’s sinecure at the Post all the more secure. Jennifer Rubin is still employed there after all. And Jeff Bezos must be grateful for the page views. I’ll be satisfied merely if I never have to read again Cohen described as a liberal.
Omnes Omnibus
@handsmile: I am not sure how anything you posted or linked disproves anything I said.
Someone pretends that Cohen is something other than he is? It doesn’t work.
Nutella
So his MO for 25 years has been:
1. Publish bigoted screed.
2. Critics point out that the screed is bigoted.
3. Shriek “They called me a racist! Waaahhhhhhhhh!”
Rinse and repeat.
Chris
@centerfielddj:
Weren’t the Nixonites the last big government Republican administration we had, and didn’t the whole Goldwater/Reagan wing of the party have serious beef with that? Color me, too, unimpressed at the idea that dissing Nixon (or Agnew) would grant an automatic “liberal” label.
Omnes Omnibus
@Chris: Agnew gave the Nixon admin its conservative cover. Nixon was seen as a vicious bastard who couldn’t give two shits about domestic politics as long as he could do what he wanted with foreign policy.
Chris
@Omnes Omnibus:
Kind of the opposite of LBJ, then. Since LBJ went along with Vietnam and all as cover for the domestic stuff he really cared about.
anthrosciguy
You know, when your writing forces you to write the words “I am not a ____”, you probably are.
srv
This shit isn’t going to stop until we boycott Amazon.
Some liberul websites should consider their connections.
handsmile
@Omnes Omnibus:
Ah, evidently my comment needed more vermouth. Meant as snark, my friend. Simply thought you might “enjoy” reading how one of his colleagues appraises Cohen’s contributions to political discourse. Rarely do I seek to “disprove” or for that matter “disapprove” anything you say.
Omnes Omnibus
@Chris: Not quite. I think LBJ believed that winning the VN War was necessary – if not possible. I don’t think that Nixon cared much about domestic policy by the time he was president. That is: I think Johnson found himself in a trap based on his beliefs – he failed, but he tried. Nixon didn’t care.
@handsmile: No prob. I wanted to make sure.
inventor
Howard University gets most of its funding from the Federal Government?
I call B.S.
mclaren
As a general rule of thumb, whenever someone repeatedly denies s/he is [fill in the blank], it’s because that person obviously is.
Viz. Nixon’s “I am not a crook.”
anthrosciguy
@centerfielddj:
Dad cut off Agnew’s limo going through Baltimore near one of the bridges back around the late sixties when he was gov. Too bad we didn’t finish him off right then and there.
“And this is the Agnew funeral.”. For all you who saw Putney Swipe.
Omnes Omnibus
The GOP is planning on impeaching Holder. Seriously.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
Holy freakin’ totebags, Batman!
Results? The Albums Everyone Can Love
I’d like to see the methodology used to achieve the results- though I’m doubting there was much method to it. I’m guessing the respondents are…Well, it’s an NPR thang, so…Older and white. No “Innervisions” or “Songs in the Key of Life”? No “1999”? Yeah, older and white.
mclaren
@Chris:
Not hardly. The Raygun maladministration was one of the very biggest of all big government Republican administrations — they just tried hard to conceal that fact in their anti-government rhetoric. But if you look at charts of inflation-adjusted per capita spending growth in government, you’ll find that the size and spending of the federal government grew by leaps and bounds under Bedtime For Bonzo’s co-star.
Nixon-Ford, Bedtime for Bonzo’s co-star, and the drunk-driving coke-snorting C-student all clocked in much higher inflation-adjusted per capita government spending than Jimmy “Worst Human Being In History” Carter, Bill “Must Impeach” Clinton and Barack “Kenyan Moslem Communist Fascist” Obama.
The reason for the much higher federal government spending under Republicans is of course obvious: the Republican presidents spend like drunken sailors on the American military and domestic social control Stasi-type homeland Schutzstafel organizations like the DHS (created under the drunk-driving coke-snorting C-student) and the DEA (created under Mr. “I am not a crook”).
I only make posts like these to pound home the persistent reality that Democrats have consistently stood for and delivered smaller government than Republicans since 1970. The pervasive myth that Democrats stand for and deliver “big government and big spending” is a total lie, a complete fabrication of disiniformation pushers like Faux News, but it’s such a pervasive Big Lie that now, in 2013, even liberals and progressives believe that crap.
Yet it remains a documented fact: if you want smaller government, elect a Democrat.
? Martin
@inventor: Matter of interpretation. Howard almost certainly receives a lot of their money by way of the federal financial aid system. Is it federal money? Sort of, but not really. More accurate to say that if not for that system, Howard would have much less money.
It’s part of an old adage that economic expansion is a bad thing if it lifts ‘less deserving’ people up and that the feds use it to force institutions to conform to socialist rules. Universities that receive federal aid must conform to all sorts of radical rules, like not discriminating.
piratedan
@Omnes Omnibus: if they’re bringing up Fast and Furious as one of their citations, then they have essentially nothing. More open political masturbation brought to you by the GOP. What would be nice to see, after this political act of malfeasance is foisted upon us, is to see a civil lawsuit brought against the GOP (purely as a showcase item) Congressional Congress citing the lack of job performance as they’ve passed virtually no legislation to deal with handling the nation’s business and have even attempted to default on their duties. Let’s let them “stand on the records”.
mclaren
@handsmile:
Oh, so Richard Cohen is an all-purpose hatemonger. He’s not exclusively anti-black, he’s also anti-Latino, anti-gay, anti-feminist, anti-Catholic, anti-poor, anti-intellectual, anti-Muslim, anti-[fill in the blank].
Once you learn how to decode this kind of journalistic doublespeak things become much clearer.
Mike G
“The war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan’s advantage” – Emperor Hirohito, announcing Japan’s surrender, August 1945
handsmile
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
That’s a pretty shabby totebag when 70% have never heard of Glenn Gould’s Goldberg Variations. I would have thought NPR’s “older and whiter” demographic would have that one down cold. Fugazi, yeah, not so much.
@Omnes Omnibus:
Far too late (for me anyways) to process this adequately. Later today, as this is totes FP material. But first flashes: Holder is the near-est the House Neo-Confederates can get to their real target; a shiny new object for the headlines. Signing off.
mclaren
@Omnes Omnibus:
Of course it’s a real thing. What the fuck country do you think you’re living in? The United Snakes of Amnesia is a country where one of our most beloved cinematic masterpieces, Birth of a Nation, depicts the Klu Klux Klan saving the Union in the Civil War. This is a country where upon his inauguration, Obama got treated a millions of pictures like this on Facebook.
And that was 2009.
Criminy. What bathysphere have you been living in for the last 4 years, guy?
mclaren
@Mike G:
Classic. You win this thread.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@handsmile:
I think the average totebagger is a lot less hip, adventurous and smart than s/he thinks s/he is.
Omnes Omnibus
@mclaren: I am a fucking ‘bot in your view so what the fuck do you care?
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@mclaren:
I wouldn’t exactly call The Birth of a Nation a “beloved cinematic masterpiece.” It’s never shown anymore, even in film school (and I went to film school 20-cough years ago). When they tried to do a scholarly screening of it a few years ago (complete with a scholarly panel that included Todd Boyd of USC), it had to be cancelled because of bomb threats against the theater.
It’s admired, but admired the way that The Triumph of the Will is admired — as a masterly piece of vomitous propaganda.
Now, if you want to argue that the equally propagandistic Gone With The Wind is still a beloved classic, you’ll be on much firmer ground.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
I hate that film. I recognize that it was well done, but, god, I hate it.
geg6
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yeah, me too. Disgusting film, disgusting book and disgusting author. And now that we have Twelve Years A Slave, I want a law that any showing of that piece of shit bit of neoconfederate propaganda MUST be preceded by Twelve Years. And if you don’t sit through Twelve Years, no Scarlett for you and no money back. In fact, I want the money to go to the jobless workers of ACORN.
LanceThruster
What got Howard Stern on the list?
SFAW
@LanceThruster:
Because “both sides do it.”
SFAW
@Violet:
“because some of my best friends are
niggersdarkiescoloredsthose people.” [Of course, in those days, he had an editor.]What I found even more – amusing? Ironic? Clueless? – was the idea that Newtie, the author of Language: A Key Mechanism of Control, is somehow not a hatemonger.
Another Holocene Human
@handsmile: As a former musician I am put out but also somewhat amused by social climbers who think they’re “supposed” to like classical music but panicked when someone below their station (as musicians generally are) knows way the fuck more about it than they do. They also hate the fact that I’m genuinely enthusiastic about certain composers and not, like, fronting.
If musicians called the shots at classical music stations it would be way less Baby Mozart and elevator music and way more weiiiiiiird shit.
Cris (without an H)
I’ll agree: he’s not a hatemonger. He’s a hate apologist. He’s a hate enabler. He helps hate stay alive, but he doesn’t mong it.
SFAW
@handsmile:
“Never heard” might be different from “never heard of,” by the way.
“Just sayin’ ” as the saying goes.
ETA: And considering the first commenter (at the NPR page), in an attempt to display his/her cred, in fact showed his/her own cluelessness (it’s NOT “Glen” Gould, moron), I am, shall we say, underwhelmed by them’s what thinks they’s got this music thing locked.
LanceThruster
@SFAW:
Aaahh. Thx.