Cohen gots no reflection
I’ve been plagued all day by this gross smell that’s been, like, following me around, and then I remembered I read Richard Cohen’s column just before I left for work and I got some of it on my shoe:
When politicians and commentators detail all that the Bush administration did wrong, I wonder whether any of it really matters. Would things have turned out differently if we had done everything right? Was Iraq so “broken” we never could have fixed it? Was Hussein’s despotism an avoidable tragedy, or was it, instead, a tragic necessity? I wonder about all these things. I tend to think now we never could have made it work.
Now, of course, everyone looks like an idiot. Bremer was an idiot and Garner was an idiot and Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz and Cheney and all the generals, with the exception of Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, who called for lots and lots of troops and was sidelined. But these men are not really idiots. They were merely wrong, sometimes on account of arrogance, but they were doing what they thought was the right thing. They simply didn’t know what they didn’t know. They didn’t know a damned thing about Iraq.
Honestly. Sometimes I wonder if Richard Cohen goes around walking into door frames and sitting down in occupied chairs and getting startled when he sees locator maps that point out “you are here.” No self-awareness at all, man.
Richard Cohen: Quite possibly invisible
So was never starting this stupid war in the first place not an option?
Why in this modern age are morons paid so much money to say dumb things?
My thoughts exactly, Thers. Things certainly would have turned out differently if we’d never invaded, if assclowns like Richard Cohen hadn’t sat mute waiting for President Codpiece to ride to victory.
Simply wrong? How about dishonest, vicious, and corrupt? And the other posters are right: the WaPo editorial page was not only 100 percent wrong, they mocked and marginalized the people who were right. And continue to do so to this day…the McCain Lieberman escalation plan is described as *serious*, even though there are not enough troops available for it. Meanwhile, those who have been right, and say it*s time to face the facts and take the troops home are STILL described as *unserious*.
By ifthethunderdontgetya | Jan 16, 2007 7:45:42 AM | Request Removal
I like to be in touch with my inner Bob Somerby when reading the Washington Post. (Note that their commenting system doesn’t allow much fomatting…for instance, no single or double quote marks, or parenthesis.)
But these men are not really idiots. They were merely wrong, sometimes on account of arrogance, but they were doing what they thought was the right thing. They simply didn’t know what they didn’t know. They didn’t know a damned thing about Iraq.
Dick, come over hear and sit next to me; I’ve got something to tell you. Dont’ be shy. Just plop yourself someplace comfy. Settled? Can I get you some milk? Tea? A beer? No? Okay. I guess we’ll have to just cut to the chase.
YOU JUST DEFINED IDIOCY!!!ONE!!!ELEVEN!!!
Sorry, did I shout? I suppose I did. I just wanted to be extra sure you heard me. Now run along. And stop walking into door frames.
Asshat.
Hear? Hear?
Jesme. Who’s the asshat now?
A good definition of “idiot” is: “Someone who destroys thousands of lives by starting a war of the circumstances of which he “doesn’t know a damned thing.”
No wait, that’s a definition of “monstrous war criminal.”
An “idiot” is: Someone who, knowing not a damned thing about the circumstances of the war, supports & encouraghes the warmongers, doesn’t ask even such simple question as: “Have they ever read a book about Iraq? An encyclopedia article? Have I?”, & then having not thought of these questions nonethelerss concludes that a people & culture of whom he knows nothing is inherently unstable and vicious.
How the hell did he write “Now, of course, everyone looks like an idiot” without bursting into flames? Idiotic, idiotic flames?
Jeez. Normally nobody gets my blood pressure up like this except Cal Thomas. But that Cohen picture- the most self-important smirk this side of Surge Boy himself.
Oh, and Spokane Moderate:
Cohen is still the asshat. An IDIOTIC asshat.
You’re just a misspeller. Bennet above pretty much explained what comprises Today’s Idiocy.
If Cohen was locked in a room with brain eating zombies, they’d all starve.
The idiots Cohen described (and himself included) are wrong more often than Gary Ruppert. If they declared gravity was an attractive force, the entire fucking universe would invert instantly and make it a repulsive one.
Gary Ruppert….Gary Ruppert.
Sorry, just checking to see if it’s a Candyman, Biggie Smalls, or Beetlejuice type of thing.
…getting startled when he sees locator maps that point out “you are here.
Ahh shit. This happens to me all the time. Even if the map only shows major cities…
mikey
An “idiot� is: Someone who, knowing not a damned thing about the circumstances of the war, supports & encouraghes the warmongers, doesn’t ask even such simple question as: “Have they ever read a book about Iraq? An encyclopedia article? Have I?�, & then having not thought of these questions nonethelerss concludes that a people & culture of whom he knows nothing is inherently unstable and vicious.
Agreed, Bennett! I would further add that a Useful Idiot — like Dick ‘Teh Funny’ Cohen — is someone who divides the world into two neat categories: those people whom he has met, or at least hopes to someday meet, at cocktail parties; and all those other meat puppets & sword carriers who wouldn’t know a prestigious cocktail party if they invaded one with their vulgar needs and unsociable ideas. For the Dick Cohens, all human history not bounded by the laws of the Eternal DC/NY/LA Power Cocktail Party is “inherently unstable and vicious”… why else would its actors be so determined to ruin a perfectly nice party and then not even laugh at Dick Cohen’s well-known sense of humor? For Dick Cohen and his Useful Idiot cohort, civilization is a very exclusive gated community, and the Reality-Based Universe exists only as an ever-present rumble of fearsome noises & nasty rumors among his fellows within that gated community.
I’ll bet Dick Cohen read ‘The Masque of the Red Death’ back in high school, and he can probably still give you a fair synopsis if you catch him before his fourth cocktail. But if you were to suggest any parallels between Poe and Dick Cohen’s wonderful life… well, “unstable and vicious” is probably the best he could make of your worldview.
Hi Anne! I always thought there were two kinds of people in the world. Those that divide the people of the world into two kinds of people and those who don’t…
mikey
You might say that I was an “idiot” for shooting that Arab on the beach. That I didn’t have to. That he didn’t really pose any threat to me at all.
But hey, the sun was really bright and it was starting to piss me off, so what the hell, I pulled the trigger that fired the round that killed the Arab on the beach.
Yet who’s to say in this hi-tech modern world whether I was “wrong” to do so…
Right, Monsieur Cohen?
.
Plus, no one ever said Garner was an idiot. Garner was right about a lot
and then fired for his trouble.
But seriously: first Shelley the Republican, now this. Is this what they mean by “the Internet attains self-awareness”?
Richard Cohen: Stupidest Man Employed. And nominated twice, yes twice, for the coveted 2006 Purple Teardrop with Clutched Pearls Cluster Award. No small feat. But likely small feet.
I just read Shelley the Republican. Pair oh Dee!
Since this site seems to allow, even thrive, on terrible inappropriatness, I’m going to be serious, just for a moment. Not neocon ‘serious’ meaning I ignore dissenting opinion regardless of what it is, but the old fashioned ‘serious’ meaning I actually mean what I’m saying.
Okay. War is really, really bad. It’s awful. It involves destroying whole countries, destroying economies, cities, societies, living people. Especially living people. Wars take young men and turn them into mass murderers who are trained to perform almost random acts of slaugher against the enemy, plus the enemy’s wife, mother, grandmother and childrem. And that’s just what is asked of the good guys.
So the underlying problem here is that the Iraq war is morally indifensible. It always was. Pretty much everyone involved is a war criminal. The nation accepted the Bush/Cheney/Neocon argument that war was the safest policy option given the fact that security is uncertain. This is a major mind twerp, of the sort that allows the killing of children because they might grow up to be murderers. It’s been done before. But only by war criminals.
Richard Cohen is not capable of seeing the wise men he knows as war criminals, he’s not capable of seeing himself as an enabler of war criminals. He’s psychologicaly damaged, just like Friedman or Hitchens or anyone else who has rationalized away their conscience.
But are people really ready to accept that the U.S. has commited an atrocity of historical proportions for no good reason other than a love of bigger and better guns and a government that told them killing strangers and taking their land and oil is the same thing as freeing them from tyranny?
Sadly, no. They’d rather listen to Richard Cohen and Charles Krauthammer and even sadlier Kevin Drum tell them that there really was a legitimate argument for war, it just isn’t clear what it was.
NURSE COHEN:
Granted, Mr. Jones, the doctor removed your spleen instead of your appendix. But, really, would things have turned out differently if he had done everything right?
MR. JONES:
For one thing, I’d still have my spleen. For another, my appendix wouldn’t be even closer to splattering itself all over my intestines. The doctor is a complete idiot.
NURSE COHEN:
Oh, no, Mr. Jones. He’s not really an idiot. He just doesn’t know a damned thing about anatomy.
Bullsmith: Damn, that was just about perfect. I salute you!
What if Napoleon had B-52s at Waterloo?
It’s not the racism I have a problem with. It’s the grafitti.
Well the question is valid. Are the Neocons “idiots”? Surely no.
Are they pompous arrogent evil fucking douche bags without souls who will burn in Hell if God exists? Without quesion.
No, Francois, let that one go. She has spirit. Someday, she may be Vice-President.
Alouette, gentille Alouette . . .
Shit. I meant to post that last comment in the Shelly the Republican thread. It’s like the time I thought I was on the clown porn message board and I accidentally left a comment at Marie Jon . . . never mind.
Shorter Richard Cohen: If being wrong is being wrong with you, I don’t want to be right.
Not that I’m proud of it, but I (and pretty much everyone I know, not that my social circle’s representative of anything) was against invading Iraq because I wanted a) to see Afghanistan transformed into New Austin and b) revenge on the right people, both courtesy of our taxpayer-funded Universal Soldier program.
So I somehow managed to drink the neocon Kool-Aid and yet oppose this nonsense–do people like me get credit from these dickheads? I mean, we were right to be against it, but not for surfeit of thoughtfulness or lack of bloodlust (bloodlust=foreign policy seriousness and grownupitude).
And Drum is plumbing all-new depths of dipshittery. By his logic, we should all sew our sphincters shut–hey, you can’t prove that aliens don’t abduct people and probe them anally.
Had to get that off m’chest, but Ann really should’ve had the last word on this thread. Feel free to scrub me.
I’m expected to clean up my own mess, eh? Fine.
Ann Althouse said,
January 18, 2007 at 19:41
Shorter Richard Cohen: If being wrong is being wrong with you, I don’t want to be right.