"... (there’s even a hashtag,
#FireRichardCohen, for ease of expression). Cohen has long been derided for lame op-ed writing and general
'unreconstructed,' 'power-worshiping' bigotry. But many readers and critics, including my
Slate colleague Matthew Yglesias, apparently found
today’s piece — a familiar rehearsal of the resistance Chris Christie, a relative moderate, might encounter during a GOP presidential campaign in more socially conservative contests like Iowa and South Carolina — to be the final, actionable offense."
Good lord!
Liberals got themselves into a vortex.
I just wanted to say —
as I've said before...
That's WaPo columnist Richard Cohen, or as we call him around here: the never-slept-with-Althouse Richard Cohen.
UPDATE: I wrote another post on this topic,
here.
Posts
53 comments:
Ok, I confess to drinking two margaritas before reading this, but the structure of this post seems needlessly complex. What is your point?
I wish I had drunk two margaritas before attempting to read it.
I'm headed for the liquor cabinet now just as prophylaxis.
My gag reflex had to do with how everybody to the left jumped on this paragraph and thought it represented the end of the world when they didn't even understand its context. They never bother, as they'd rather work themselves into a blather and show how sensitive they are. whatever.
Poor Richard Cohen. Here he was, trying to phone in yet another conservatives-are-all-racists! column, and he's hoist by the fact that his fanbase is too stupid to realize that the attitudes most foul he's maligning others with are not ones he's admitting to harboring himself.
Sooo...the take away is, if you oppose any liberal idea, you are a racist, even if you don't realize it.
Did you read the Slate article?
Lowder, after pointing out that Cohen isn't be racist or a homophobe himself, then goes on to point out that Cohen REAL PROBLEM is that he's so silly as to think the Tea Partiers aren't racist. Of course they are! They gotta be, and he goes into detail breaking down how their language is just coded racism.
When I read lefty "false consciousness" claptrap from putzes like Lowder, I thank God that we (for now) have a 2nd amendment, because if guys like Lowder ever get into power, it will come to him or you.
As a conservative I LIKE Rich Cohen. Better a lame-o like Cohen then a persuasive, intelligent liberal who would score points against us.
Like Bill Kristol, I often wonder if he's throwing the game and getting paid off by the other side.
And of course, Dumb Liberals need a voice on the Op-ed page too.
Diversity.
Not sure if this is off topic but Cohen (and Iglesias?) call DiBlasio's wife a "former lesbian"
Say what?
That really set my head to spinning. I thought sexuality and sexual attraction were inborn and unalterable.
That is, although she may be married to a man, she is still a lesbian and can never be otherwise since it is in her DNA. I think that she must be, as the expression goes, "living a lie". A lesbian trying to live as a straight woman must be really screwed up in her head.
Unless sexual attraction is learned behavior (either partially or completely) and not innate.
Ann, you did well not to sleep with this Richard Cohen. He is some kind of strange puppy.
John Henry
Oops.
I don't know why I was thinking it was Iglesias who wrote about Cohen. It was Lowder.
Yes, I did read the column and have very little idea what it said. It seemed rather incoherent to me.
John Henry
I you have a problem with a program or idea that someone thinks might benefit people of color, you are a racist.
At least they are now coming out and saying it.
Lefties who love Trayvon's baby pictures and don't recognize the ingredients of Purple Drank or the significance of a locker full of burglary tools hate Cohen.
End of story.
P.S. What the hell is an "unreconstructed bigot?" Is that somebody who notices that young black males commit a hugely disproportionate amount of crime?
Stupid but I am more interested in the African American Program Analyst at my company who graduated from Harvard and makes 60k a year having two pairs of Channel eyeglasses.
How?
Cohen's crime is not seeing the Scots-Irish culture of America as an enemy. The liberals are calling that culture racist, which it is not. It is a stubborn and fair culture dedicated to family and fighting courageously. It freely admits all ethnic folks that want to join it on that basis.
But terrible Cohen appreciates that culture as embodied in Harry S Truman who was not one bit racist and not one bit anti-Semitic, as todays liberals are.
Dd you know Channel was a nazi sympathizer?
@Titus,
Dd you know Channel was a nazi sympathizer?
Yes, as was Taittinger, of champagne fame.
And one of the Olivetti family (of typewriter & later computer fame) was a big player in the development of the Fascist Party in Italy.
I, too, have never slept with Althouse.
I have a Channel watch with two huge "C"s on it but I will have to deal with the nazi shit. The huge C is more important to me than sympathizing with the nazis.
I feel terrible but...
Sorry...fashion first.
Its plain that the intelligentsia (self declared) will spend the next three years defining the political debate about homosexuals, inter racial marriage, war on women,and dozens of other issues that have no meaning.
NSA spies on the Pope?
The IRS has turned into the foot soldiers of the Democrat Party.
The new health insurance fiasco, move on nothing here to see, community organizers selling you personal information to the hightest bidder
And while beating non-stop on Obama for his ineptitude and blind radical idealolgy, the real concentration of differentiating between todays Democrat and todays conservative should be the systemic failure of Democrat controlled govt. Showcased by Obama care but fleshed out buy the weakest economic recovery since the last Democrat controlled recovery, the Great Depression.
Democrat Senators and Representatives should be forced to explain how creating laws they never read should be returned to office.
This is past a debate about policy, but rather the multitude of examples that show a systemic failure to govern.
REALLY!!!!! A mayors ex-homosexual wife????that gets serious time of discussion???
It's Chanel, not Channel.
That would be Chanel NOT Channel, you nincompoops. As in, Coco Chanel. I luv youse all, but yer nincompoops.
@BDNYC/Roughcoat,
Don't you two try to change the Channel!
That's the way the hand will play out. If you have any complaints about DeBlasio's mayoralty, then what you're really complaining about is his biracial marriage......Sex trumps most societal norms, and I don't think a biracial marriage is way out of the ordinary. His family looks to be solid, and good on him for that. Nonetheless, a honeymoon in Cuba and the wooing of a militant lesbian are more violations of common sense than societal norms......I believe in democracy. Maybe the electorate knows something I don't. Perhaps his curtailment of stop and frisk will not lead to an increase in gun crimes. Then he's right, and I'm wrong. But, if there's a spike in such crimes, I would hope that he would admit that stop and frisk is a lesser evil than a few dozen murdered kids.
The left, I suspect is furious because Obamacare is SUCH a bust, and they can't attack him for it, they can't defend him for it, and their anger has to go somewhere, and RC was the first available somewhere because, well, maybe he didn't slam Christie enough. I dunno.
Obama supports immigration reform which will result in even higher jobless rates among African-Americans.
Obama supports Planned Parenthood which has driven the African-American birthrate below replacement level.
Obama's lowering Defense spending which is mostly on personnel. Yet the Army is a route out of poverty and disarray for minorities.
When you talk about how policies have an unintended impact on minorities and how it is racist not to notice that impact - why not talk about Obama's immigration policies and Obama's Planned Parenthood support and the impact of these policies? and others like the drones? who are the drones killing? who did the Fast and the Furious kill?
Liberals, quit watching reruns of In the Heat of the Night. Or, while you watch, ask yourself who you would automatically blame, who you would automatically think was an uneducated fool if there was a problem. Would it be the passing Tea Party member? the evangelical Christian? Who did you immediately blame for Matthew Shephard's death? and who was really to blame? And who are you secretly yearning to blame for the Obamacare mess? - That mess, that unchecked incompetence is your fault for not having any standards, just attitudes.
I read the old Cohen who has not slept with Althouse thread and got caught up in the are women attracted to men by the books they read tangent. In my Match.com period the books she read section was the first thing I looked at if there was no picture. "The Secret" was a deal breaker.
When I read lefty "false consciousness" claptrap from putzes like Lowder, I thank God that we (for now) have a 2nd amendment, because if guys like Lowder ever get into power, it will come to him or you.
Yeah, when I got to the part about how anybody who is not a liberal democrat is ipso facto a racist, I started thinking that here I was, watching the birth of a modern-day Jacobin.
Paco Wové sums up the nonsense quite succinctly with this two sentence expose:
Poor Richard Cohen. Here he was, trying to phone in yet another conservatives-are-all-racists! column, and he's hoist by the fact that his fanbase is too stupid to realize that the attitudes most foul he's maligning others with are not ones he's admitting to harboring himself.
I would add one additional critique about the newspeak lyric-and-melody team of Lowder and Cohen. Here's Lowder:
Cohen ... warily eyes the trenchant, anti-modern (and politically costly) attitude that can emerge when a group of people perceive their “way of life under attack and they [fear] its loss.”
The odd word in this bladder of poison is "trenchant". Trenchant is a positive. It means vigorous, incisive, acute. But Lowder joins that word with the amorphous "anti-modern". This is an odd formulation. "Anti-modern" could mean anything. Even in aesthetics, with its modernism and post-modernism, I'm not sure what anti-modern might mean. But for Lowder that's an advantage. "Anti-modern" is a word of convenience, a way to paint the word "racist" with the broadest brush possible. He'll tell you what it means. Read further into the column and Lowder makes it clear than any politics other than his own is racist by definition.
Thus his negative use of the word "trenchant". The only way to avoid accusations of racism by J. Bryan Lowder if you're not the poor sap he deigns to defend, is to be prostrate. To be vigorous and incisive is to be threatening. Obey.
I Think This Will Make Sense.
From Hollywood Reporter:
In a new video from Posture Magazine, filmmaker Yeni Sleidi screened selected scenes from Blue (is the Warmest Color) for a group of gay women.
"I thought it was hot at the beginning, and then it got ridiculous when they kept switching sex positions every ten seconds," observes one viewer. "It started to feel like an infomercial for a kitchen product, where they try and showcase all the things it can do. 'It can chop, it can slice, it can dice, it can puree, it can eat out your asshole.' "
To Gov. Christie: You Can Wholeheartedly Eat Out Asshole But The Media Will Never Let You Forget That -- When the Time Comes -- You Were Only a Straight Guy Eating Out Asshole. You, a Republican, Didn't Do it Right.
Context: the Actresses in Blue (is the Warmest Color) are Straight, But French. And Already Vilified. For Being Hot.
Again: Context.
I Think This Is the Best Commentary I Have Had in Weeks: No Need to Revisit the Dylan Post.
When I was living in Washington (I left in 2004), Richard Cohen was the liberal columnist who might occasionally say something intelligent, or at least interesting. The column under discussion has some elements of the old Cohen, such as the acknowledgment that Republicans aren't all racists and that they are often motivated by concerns about the direction in which society is heading (that would be a pretty good description of a conservative, so that shouldn't be a big surprise).
But it appears that Cohen looked at those statements when he reviewed his first draft and realized that in this day and age you can't acknowledge that THE ENEMY has any motives other than pure evil, so he threw in a reference to the Dixiecrats (to suggest that Republicans are LIKE the racists, even though he says they aren't racists), and to Harry B calling the Tea Party racist, so that his liberal readers would understand that he was on the right side. And then, just to be sure, he accused Republicans of wanting to vomit at the mere thought of an interracial marriage and biracial children.
I really don't understand why it didn't work, and I suspect that Cohen doesn't understand either. Here's my guess: Cohen said that the people with the vomitous reaction to the De Blasio family were "conventional". That used to be one of the big liberal taunt words about the Right. But I guess it's now out of fashion on the Left, so the liberal gate-keepers detected a whiff of approval in Cohen's use of the word.
What damn' fools!
De Blasio is the communist NYC deserves but not the one it needs.
- James Gordon.
The Godfather wrote: Here's my guess: Cohen said that the people with the vomitous reaction to the De Blasio family were "conventional". That used to be one of the big liberal taunt words about the Right. But I guess it's now out of fashion on the Left...
I think that terminology problem is what caused Lowder to use the word "anti-modern". What Lowder wanted to write was "anti-conventional" or "anti-normal" but you can't reflexively use "normal" as a positive (and for quite good reason).
That put Lowder in a bind. His whole premise is that liberal boilerplate thinking is the only right way to think, that any other thinking is wrong thinking, but he has no word to express that concept without at once exposing himself as a charlatan.
Lesbian sex is only hot when done by non-Lesbians.
Liberal commentary is only smart when done by people not Richard Cohen.
Richard Cohen Lesbian linkage
So Betamax are you still in Seattle? Its November. You will not see the Sun for the next 4 months. Beware.
And by the way, who is having these gag reflexes?
I live in South Carolina. I eat a lot of breakfasts at our local Waffle House. It's generally not a tony crowd, and it's rare that there are not black people and white people eating there. Ordinary folks with jobs. Old fats like me. Marines from the base. Cops. EMTs. Families with little kids. Inter racial couples are not rare. It happens all the time. I've yet to see a gag reflex.
Maybe it's different in Washington D.C.
Sometimes I really wonder what world these people are living in.
Trenchant is a positive. It means vigorous, incisive, acute.
Lowder may think it means more or less the same thing as entrenched.
As for Cohen-- when you go around saying conservatives aren't racist, they just hate interracial marriage, naturally you're going to confuse a certain number of people.
P.S. What will it be, Clarence Thomas-- divorce, or impeachment?
I know we're not supposed to go after the kids of politicians. But I do hate that frickin' afro that kid has. And I am glad to see that President Obama is also disturbed. Yes, that afro is going backwards. That afro makes me think "Jimmy Carter" and "malaise."
I never understood that hair thing before. Who gets mad about hair? Now I feel like I got insights into the hair wars. Now I get it.
You know what that hair says? We're not going to cut our budget, that's what that hair says. Our budget is going to be wild and free and out of control and we have no idea how to cut anything. Ford is going to have to tell New York City to drop dead again. I'm telling you, this afro is a sign. And do not sit in front of me at the movie theater, kid, or their will be words.
The guy who fixes stuff at my house is not someone Mr. cohen would like. In fact when he heard his southern accent and saw his underclass clothing and tattoos and judged from this line o f work that he was an uneducated redneck he would conclude that like the rest of us down here he was a racist. He is a redneck all right. But he is married to a black woman.
Nice column. He strains awfully hard to come up with a non-offensive reading of Cohen's prose. And in the end, his defence amounts to, "Cohen's not a narrow-minded racist homophobe, he's just a shitty writer."
Well, then he's a keeper, isn't he?
Let's see--most people on welfare happen to be white. And yet, if you decry the fact that so many people are on welfare, then you must be racist against nonwhites, even if you make no mention of race, because you must be under the misconception that most people on welfare are nonwhites, and your complaints about welfare are secretly coded bird-whistles for other racists that are also under the misconception that it's mostly nonwhites on welfare. Even though this "bird-whistle" can clearly be decoded by everyone else besides your racist allies.
Just making sure I understand Lowder's line of thinking.
There must be another Richard Cohen the good Professor has slept with. Lucky guy.
"There must be another Richard Cohen the good Professor has slept with."
My first husband's name is Richard Cohen. For years — decades — I had to field the question, when I've said his name "The Washington Post columnist?" Sometimes I've anticipated it: "Richard Cohen, not the Washington Post columnist."
Originally this took the form of me saying that my husband is a novelist and people asking if he wrote "The Seduction of Joe Tynan," and I advanced to saying "He's a novelist, but not the one who wrote 'The Seduction of Joe Tynan.'"
But no one remembers "The Seduction of Joe Tynan" anymore. Do they?
See, this is what annoys me. That shows "Books by Richard Cohen," and everything there is by my ex-husband except the fucking seduction of Joe Tynan, which is actually more by Alan Alda than Richard Cohen.
"But no one remembers "The Seduction of Joe Tynan" anymore. Do they?"
Ha! I do. I was a sophisticated Washingtonian teenager who sneered at its rube-ish depiction of us inside the Beltway folk.
Regarding your relationship with Richard Cohen(s):
In interviews, women's tennis champion Billie Jean King will often say something along the lines of, " ... but my former husband, Larry King - no, not that Larry King ..."
Well, I guess your real Richard Cohen must be unlucky now (even though he was lucky way back when).
But no one remembers "The Seduction of Joe Tynan" anymore. Do they?
The Alan Alda movie? I didn't know it was a book first.
I think Lowder and all the other lamebrained liberals are being awfully niggardly in their understanding of Mr. Cohen's sly racism slurs on Republicans and the Tea Party--eh, Inka?
Yeah, you're ready for your closeup, you lunatic.
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