More wisdom from Richard Cohen

[Gabi Hayes]

man, this is too easy:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/12/AR2005101202002.html

Let This Leak Go

By Richard Cohen

Thursday, October 13, 2005; Page A23

The best thing Patrick Fitzgerald could do for his country is get out of Washington, return to Chicago and prosecute some real criminals. As it is, all he has done so far is send Judith Miller of the New York Times to jail and repeatedly haul this or that administration high official before a grand jury, investigating a crime that probably wasn't one in the first place but that now, as is often the case, might have metastasized into some sort of coverup -- but, again, of nothing much. Go home, Pat.

The alleged crime involves the outing of Valerie Plame, a CIA operative whose husband, Joseph Wilson IV, had gone to Africa at the behest of the agency and therefore said he knew that the Bush administration -- no, actually, the president himself -- had later misstated (in the State of the Union address, yet) the case that Iraq had sought uranium in Niger.


Wilson made his case in a New York Times op-ed piece. This rocked the administration, which was already fighting to retain its credibility in the face of mounting and irrefutable evidence that the case it had made for war in Iraq -- weapons of mass destruction, above all -- was a fiction. So it set out to impeach Wilson's credibility, purportedly answering the important question of who had sent him to Africa in the first place: his wife. This was a clear case of nepotism, the leakers just as clearly implied.

.........

>>>>>some blah blah BS about Fitz and Judy Miller's abridged first amendment rights, then.....

This is why I want Fitzgerald to leave now. Do not bring trivial charges -- nothing about conspiracies, please -- and nothing about official secrets, most of which are known to hairdressers, mistresses and dog walkers all over town. Please, Mr. Fitzgerald, there's so much crime in Washington already. Don't commit another.

>>>>>>>

now the fun part, from Steve Gilliard:

''Well, coming from a man who once justified fucking Kati Marton while she was still married to Peter Jennings, anything is possible. Cohen is obtuse. He thinks Bill Bennett isn't a racist, now he thinks this has something to do with press freedom. Boy is he gonna look stupid when the indictments come down.

Wasn't much of a crime? Hmmm, I wonder when all those folks who dealt with Brewster-Jennings were running for their fucking lives, they said "gee this isn't a crime. But the state police want to kill me. I wonder why?"

Of nothing much? Funny, that doesn't seem to be the case here. It seems that a plan to smear two critics of the administration was hatched in the VP's office and the President might have attended. What is he, Officer Barbrady? ''Don't be a lookie loo, nothing to see here."

........

Judy Miller's own collegues don't believe this has to do with the press. Nor do any of the reporters who testified before the grand jury, including Bob Novak. This is about the security of the United States and those who help provide it. There is NOTHING trivial about a conspiracy based in the White House, especially one to expose a CIA officer who worked undercover. NO judge has objected to any of his requests is no small factor. A judge could have kept Judy Miller out of jail and didn't. She served 85 days for a reason. And lack the support of her collegues for a reason. And was called back to the Grand Jury for a reason. You ever ask yourself why Maureen Dowd never defended Judy Miller in print. Or Tom Friedman? Dowd is pretty much Miller's peer in terms of age and time at the DC Bureau. Yet, not one word about Miller. Hell, Keller had to order his staff to shut up about her to people like Arianna Huffington. Even your own paper thinks Miller's ethics are for shit.''

http://stevegilliard.blogspot.com/2005/10/let-her-go-patpretty-please.html

[AX10]

1. Cohen is a right wing bullshit artist.

[Gabi Hayes]

5. he actually used to be a journalist, and I don't know if I'd go as far as

to say he's right wing, but he's certainly an unprincipled bullshit artist.

a lowlife's lowlife, as it were

DUer long_green quoted Florence King, a right wing blowhard who fancies herself a modern day Dorothy Parker, as presenting this very apt bon mot about Cohen:
"the man every woman would least like to have with her if she met a mugger."

[Gabi Hayes]

2. this might even be better, courtesy of Greg Mitchell/Editor and Publisher

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002275180

While America Slept

Richard Cohen, the Washington Post columnist, declared on Thursday that President Bush "wanted war" in Iraq, and the White House case for it was mainly false. Yet, three years ago, Cohen wrote that "only a fool" could doubt the president and the need for war.

By Greg Mitchell

(March 30, 2006) -- Richard Cohen, the longtime Washington Post columnist sometimes accused of being a “liberal,” produced a strong column today, titled “Bush Wanted War.” In it he said he had long been skeptical of this idea, but now had come to accept it. That’s all well and good, but where was Cohen a little more than three years ago, when this fact was as plain as the smirk on the president’s face, and the columnist agitated for war anyway?

If there was an “I’m sorry for being so stupid” embedded in Cohen’s column I didn’t spot it.


This is the man who, on Feb. 6, 2003, after Secretary of State Colin Powell’s deeply-flawed testimony in New York, wrote: “The evidence he presented to the United Nations -- some of it circumstantial, some of it absolutely bone-chilling in its detail -- had to prove to anyone that Iraq not only hasn't accounted for its weapons of mass destruction but without a doubt still retains them. Only a fool -- or possibly a Frenchman -- could conclude otherwise.”

Yet Cohen has the nerve to write today: “Colin Powell, you may recall, soiled his stellar reputation with a United Nations speech that is now just plain sad to read. Almost none of it is true.”

What about Cohen’s reputation?

[Mandate My Ass]

3. ah yes the same sneering condescension

the same re-framing of the debate so that RW talking points are accepted as fact rather than opinion, the same flawed analysis that being sent to Niger was somehow a "perk" provided by his wife and nothing about how two others in the administration also came to the same conclusion Wilson did, but never spoke out against the 16 words in Bush's SOTU address. Oh and let's not overlook the bogus claim "everybody knew Plame was CIA" but ignore the fact that publishing that information terminated her career, and our ability to gather intelligence on WMD.

Cohen, so reliably lame you can set your watch by him.

[politicaholic]

4. I'm sure he had nothing to say about Whitewater...

and if he did he certainly didn't research it.

[Jacobin]

6. I agree. We must stamp out consensual sex FIRST

The Clinton investigation was of course a critical national issue.

Lying to obstruct an investigation of persons who outed a CIA operative in a time of war? Piddling.

This guy is an utter and complete idiot and must feel right at home at the Neo-ConPost

[Tactical Progressive]

7. Thank you Richard Cohen, for finally speaking the truth

Your perception of the Plame outing and what it means shows clearly that conventional perception can indeed be wrong.

For anyone who steps back and thinks beyond the conventional wisdom, the perception of you as a liberal has now been pretty much scotched.

With this fiercely held attitude you seem to have about the acceptability let alone crimelessness of the Plame outing, along with your earlier support of the excuses to attack Iraq, you've helped to demonstrate what a ludicrous term 'liberal media' really is.

Too many people still don't understand that American journalism has gradually become a shamelessly right-wing coddling and promotion operation. The Plame outing is not only horrible in and of itself, but represents a much broader, very ugly aspect of the lockdown-retribution behavior of Bush and his Republican Congress. It deserves the legal attack it is getting not just for what it is but for what it represents coming out of the administration. People recognize this. Your not recognizing it helps people understand a probably bigger issue, that mainstay journalism like WaPo no longer has a sense - even wants to have any sense - of Republican wrongdoing, even when it is extreme.

Now it will be: sure the Washington Post is liberal, just look at their token liberal Richard Cohen, who supported Bush's lies going into Iraq and was angry at people who were investigating Bush and Cheney's CIA outings. You've just helped split off alot more credibility from yourself, WaPo, and mainstream journalism in general.

That's a good thing. Thank you.