Richard Cohen: "Just tell me one thing Barack Obama has done that you admire?"

[tannybogus]

Obama the Unknown

"Just tell me one thing Barack Obama has done that you admire," I asked a prominent Democrat. He paused and then said that he admired Obama's speech to the Democratic convention in 2004. I agreed. It was a hell of a speech, but it was just a speech.

On the other hand, I continued, I could cite four or five actions -- not speeches -- that John McCain has taken that elicit my admiration, even my awe. First, of course, is his decision as a Vietnam prisoner of war to refuse freedom out of concern that he would be exploited for propaganda purposes. To paraphrase what Kipling said about Gunga Din, John McCain is a better man than most.

But I would not stop there. I would include campaign finance reform, which infuriated so many in his own party; opposition to earmarks, which won him no friends; his politically imprudent opposition to the Medicare prescription drug bill (Medicare has about $35 trillion in unfunded obligations); and, last but not least, his very early call for additional troops in Iraq. His was a lonely position -- virtually suicidal for an all-but-certain presidential candidate and no help when his campaign nearly expired last summer. In all these cases, McCain stuck to his guns.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/28/AR2008072802464.html

The talking heads say Obama isn't further ahead because people don't know him?
True? If not, why isn't he further ahead of McCain?
:dem:

[kenny blankenship]

1. rawraow!

[Joe Bacon]

27. Lets remember Richard Cohen's prior peccadilloes

http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/people/columns/intelligencer/2601/

WASHINGTON POST’S OFFICE SHUFFLE

Here’s one story out of the Washington Post’s New York bureau that won’t make it into the paper: It’s about columnist Richard Cohen and why he’s just moved his office from the twelfth floor of the paper’s New York bureau to the twenty-second floor of the Newsweek building. The New York-bureau chief, Blaine Harden, passed along to management a complaint against Cohen made by Devon Spurgeon, a 23-year-old female special correspondent in the bureau. One Post insider says Harden and others in the bureau witnessed several instances in which Cohen made inappropriately sexual remarks to the young assistant. Management took the situation seriously enough to fly to New York to talk with Cohen on April 3, the insider continues, while Spurgeon was asked to take a paid leave of absence during the negotiations. Eventually, management decided that Cohen’s office would be moved. Cohen vehemently denies the charges. “There was, for want of a better term, a personality conflict,” he explains. “It didn’t involve sexual harassment -- it didn’t involve sex, it didn’t involve harassment -- and no disciplinary action was taken.” Neither a Washington Post spokeswoman nor deputy managing editor Milton Coleman would comment on personnel matters, and neither Harden, Spurgeon, nor managing editor Robert Kaiser returned calls.

[Uben]

2. What has Obama done?

For one, he has beaten every other democratic candidate in the primaries. That alone puts him atop the list. Secondly, he has energized a segment of American society that has in the past not participated wholey in national elections, ie. AA voters and young voters. Third, he has given the middle-class voters hope that we can change the destructive policies that the republicans have launched that are destroying the middle class and running up the national debt in epic proportions!

And, he is everything that Bush is not......intelligent, well-spoken, good looking, a statesman, and honest.

Bush does not deserve to lick the feet of someone of Obama's stature. He should be praying to his god that America and the rest of the world do not make him pay pennance for his atrocities. I personally hope they do hold him and his minions accountable and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law. His administration should be condemned for the rest of eternity as the worst and a model of what any president should not do!

He will eventually face his god, who is obviously Satan.

[still_one]

3. yeah mccain is a real prince. voted against having a day honoring Martin Luther King

was up to his ass with the keating 5 and the S&L collapse, spoke out against the GI bill, and either refused to show up, or voted against bills that supported our soldiers. Voted for the use of waterboarding by the CIA, supported the South Dakota bill which indicated no abortion, even in cases of rape, incest, or if the life of the Mother was at stake

I could go on, but all one needs to do is just look at his voting record

[stray cat]

4. Chose to work as a community organizer in Chicago instead of making big bucks

Ran an extremely competent campaign including grass roots organization as a complete underdog to win the dem nomination. Is considered more competent by the overseas leaders than the current president, had the judgement not to go into Iraq unlike almost the entire "experienced" government. Has judgement and policies that I generally agree with unlike McCain and Bush.

[bemildred]

5. Bemildred: "Just tell me one thing Richard Cohen has done that you admire?"

:puke:

[kestrel91316]

6. You need to find another forum for supporting McCain.

DU is for DEMOCRATS.

Enjoy your brief stay.

BTW, McCain has done NOTHING to earn my respect or admiration. Ever. Obama has, at the very least, NOT abandoned his wife and children to marry an heiress.

[tannybogus]

7. I didn't make myself clear..

I am a yellow dog Democrat and would vote for one

before any other party. I posed what I thought was a valid question at the end.

Even if nobody answers, I still worry about the election. By all measures I can think of,

Obama should win. For the sake of the country he better win. I was thinking out loud, and

trying to come up with answers that can be addressed before the election, I hope.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[tannybogus]

9. You'll have to do better than that.

I live in SC, and my car has been keyed, and my tires have

been slashed since I put an Obama sticker on my car. I get told to

eff off and more everyday. And that's just my family.

This isn't a pity party. Just the way it is. The level of your

discourse is breathtaking.:dem:

[endthewar]

17. Just ignore the haters

Anonymity on the internet encourages rude behavior. This is an interesting article, because it's going to be one of the main arguments used by the Republicans just like it was used during the primaries by Hillary Clinton.

[Name removed]

24. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Upfront]

13. Had the smarts

to vote against the Iraq war, and the guts to speak out against it.

[Cha]

15. First of all the corporatewhores are running the polls and the

corporatemediawhores are reporting on them while building mccain up and tearing Obama down. You can't see that?

[JTFrog]

21. Yet you couldn't think of a single thing so you had to pose your own question?

Yeah... you're concern is duly noted.

[justgamma]

10. He's everything Shrub is not.

Watch how he runs his campaign. That says a lot about how he will govern. ( I shudder to think how McCain would govern)

He convinced the police that camera's in the interrogation room was in their own best interest, even though they were adamantly against it. He's a consensus builder.

Ethics reform.

No lobbyist donations.

Millions of donations from ordinary people.

Organizational skills are amazing.

He has good judgment. Being against the war was a gamble in those days.

He gave up big money to help the people in Chicago who lost their jobs.

He understands what it is like to be poor.

This is the first election in a long while that people are excited about a candidate and not just voting against one.

Need I go on?

[Doctor_J]

11. Richard Cohen's already stated that because McCain was a POW,

1. he gets a pass on everything else he's done since then, and
2. until Obama is tortured by the NVA, nothing he says holds any water.

Cohen went on to say that he realizes McCain is guilty of adultery and dozens of lies, flip-flops, and unproven accusations, but that it's OK because he was tortured 40 years ago.

If the revolution comes soon, Cohen will be one of the casualties.

[Joe Bacon]

26. Cohen also kissed Bush's ass endlessly in 2000

This worthless piece of shit's endless GOP asskissing is documented in Bob Somerby's Daily Howler. Read Bob's archives at http://www.dailyhowler.com !

[Twitch14]

12. They've started a list of McCain flip-flops on the Post's comments..

...up to 71 as of a few minutes ago.

[Cha]

14. richard cohen sounds like a clueless idiot who

thinks others must be as stupid as he.

I admire the way Obama came out of nowhere and made it on his own..and had the good judgement to be against the War ON IRaq in 2002 when he was a State Senator in Illinois.

The community organizing he did on the South Side of Chicago has clearly helped him win the primary against the inevitable candidate who had all the big money, connections, and name recognition.

If he runs his presidency like their team won the primary..richard cohen will have a lot more to worry about than telling lies about mccain.

[depakid]

19. "others must be as stupid as he."

:rofl:

Nice call.

This is the same buffoon who wrote a column telling kids that they didn't need to learn algebra (he failed it you see, and so you don't need it either!):

Here's the thing, Gabriela: You will never need to know algebra. I have never once used it and never once even rued that I could not use it. You will never need to know -- never mind want to know -- how many boys it will take to mow a lawn if one of them quits halfway and two more show up later -- or something like that. Most of math can now be done by a computer or a calculator. On the other hand, no computer can write a column or even a thank-you note -- or reason even a little bit. If, say, the school asked you for another year of English or, God forbid, history, so that you actually had to know something about your world, I would be on its side. But algebra? Please.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/02/15/BL2006021501989.html

[Skittles]

16. "Obama the Unknown"

yet these same whores decry Obama going overseas to gain the publicity needed to make him "known". F*** 'em all.

[depakid]

18. Richard Cohen and the Post deserve each other

They're both laughingstocks and have no respect among their colleagues and peers.

[Wetzelbill]

20. instead of taking lucrative career opportunities

with an Ivy League Meal Ticket education, Obama chose to become a community organizer and then a professor and civil rights lawyer.

[boomerbust]

22. One letter that makes McCain unelectable

<<<<<<<<<<<<<< R

[Barrymores Ghost]

23. Copy and paste trash - nothing more.

The mods have been alerted.

[Skittles]

25. Obama defends his family when they are slimed

that's more than I can say for that piece of shit McCain