Dailykos: The Runaway Train That Hit Richard Cohen

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/19/22342/0807

by BarbinMD


Apparently having run out of full time Bush enablers to make the case for poor, put-upon Scooter Libby, today the Washington Post went to their own Richard Cohen for the "free Scooter" offering du jour.

Cohen begins by quoting Robert H. Jackson, who in 1940 said that federal prosecutors should only pursue cases "in which the offense is the most flagrant, the public harm the greatest." And according to Cohen, Libby was simply a victim of a "runaway train" in the form of Patrick Fitzgerald, who chose to ignore the sage words of Mr. Jackson. Never mind that the Bush appointed judge, Reggie Walton, said that:

...the evidence was overwhelming that Mr. Libby had obstructed justice and lied to a grand jury and F.B.I. agents investigating the disclosure of the identity of a Central Intelligence Agency operative, Valerie Wilson.

But to Cohen, the concerted effort by the Bush administration to out a covert CIA agent in an attempt to destroy a political adversary was nothing more than a "molehill." But credit where credit is due; Cohen does allow that:

This is not an entirely trivial matter since government officials should not lie to grand juries, but neither should they be called to account for practicing the dark art of politics. As with sex or real estate, it is often best to keep the lights off.

Interesting notion, Richard. Officials shouldn't lie, but if they do, they shouldn't be held accountable. As for the last line, we can only assume that that idea came from Mrs. Cohen.

...

But something tells me he was chanting "Rule of Law, rule of law".

nice one!

Had the ring of truth.

:shrug:

n/t

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/

Cohen -- in that special paragraph quoted above -- also manages to pack in multiple falsehoods in service of his Libby defense. He tells his readers, for instance, that a special prosecutor was appointed to investigate the Plame leak "at the urging of the liberal press," and later on in the column he pins the blame for Libby's terrible plight on "Antiwar sanctimony." So sayeth the individual who plays the role of "liberal columnist" at the Washington Post, whose script on the Libby case would seem notably zealous even if it were published in National Review.

The Libby prosecution clearly was the dirty work of the leftist anti-war movement in this country, just as Cohen describes. After all, the reason Patrick Fitzgerald was appointed to investigate this matter was because a left-wing government agency (known as the "Central Intelligence Agency") filed a criminal referral with the Justice Department, as the MoveOn-sympathizer CIA officials were apparently unhappy about the public unmasking of one of their covert agents.

In response, Bush's left-wing anti-war Attorney General, John Ashcroft, judged the matter serious enough to recuse himself, leading Bush's left-wing anti-war Deputy Attorney General, James Comey, to conclude that a Special Prosecutor was needed. In turn, Comey appointed Fitzgerald, the left-wing anti-war Republican Prosecutor and Bush appointee, who secured a conviction of Libby, in response to which left-wing anti-war Bush appointee Judge Reggie Walton imposed Libby's sentence.

from Cohen's article:
"This is not an entirely trivial matter (the fact that Libby lied) since government officials should not lie to grand juries, but neither should they be called to account for practicing the dark art of politics. As with sex or real estate, it is often best to keep the lights off."

Greenwald's comment after quoting the above:
"That really is the central belief of our Beltway press, captured so brilliantly by Cohen in this perfect nutshell. When it comes to the behavior of our highest and most powerful government officials, our Beltway media preaches, "it is often best to keep the lights off." If that isn't the perfect motto for our bold, intrepid, hard-nosed political press, then nothing is."

Cohen again:
"As any prosecutor knows -- and Martha Stewart can attest -- white-collar types tend to have a morbid fear of jail."

Greenwald:
"Indeed, it is so terribly unfair to investigate powerful government officials because, as "white-collar types," they have a "morbid fear of jail" -- in contrast, of course, to blue-collar types, and darker ones still, who really do not mind prison at all. Why would they? It's their natural habitat, where they belong. That is what prison is for.
That has been the real point here all along. The real injustice is that prison is simply not the place for the most powerful and entrenched members of the Beltway royal court, no matter how many crimes they commit. There is a grave indignity to watching our brave Republican elite be dragged before such lowly venues as a criminal court and be threatened with prison, as though they are common criminals or something. How disruptive and disrespectful and demeaning it all is."

If Cohen reads this critique, and if he has a shred of self-honesty, he'll go outside and bury himself under the hostas, out of embarrassment and to ponder his own unsuitability to be employed in the field of journalism.

The essence of every whiny faux-liberal inside-the-beltway column seems distilled in his column. It might be the worst thing Cohen's ever written. Or, as Greenwald would have it, the "best".

for reason of political payback, or any other malicious reason, this case is the worst of its rare kind. It is the most flagrant of its type, and there is great public harm in politicizing intelligence matters to the point where reprisals are visited upon family members.

How very republican.

Republicans don't miss a trick when it comes to underhandedness, so there is no doubt that there are many supposed high-profile "progressives" who are actually in the employ of the right-wing, whose job is to step in at the right time and defuse a damaging issue or act as apologists for some GOP miscarriage of justice. When they DO speak up, the rightwing media then trumpets their 'good sense' and 'honesty' and "concludes' that the conservative side must be right because, after all, even the "liberal" columnists see it their way.

for this idiotic screed. As far as I can tell, all negative. I'm on page 20 something.

Gee ... ya just never know where those runaway trains will show up, do ya? :eyes:

Walton's judicial appointments came from Reagan, Bush41, Rehnquist, Roberts, and Bush43.

One can imagine Mr. Cohen's "typical" day...hanging out at the "club" with his buddy Fred Kagan, hits lunch with Barbara Comstock, does cocktails with Fred Haitt and is off to snarf cocktail weinies and "dish" at some ritzy lobbyist's home or in some exclusive club. He's "vested" and so is Scooter...it must be part of their secret oath that they defend one of their own no matter how outrageous it looks to others. This is as much an exercize by Cohen to show his "cajnoes" to his fellow beltway elistist than it is an appeal to change minds...he's showing he's "one of them"...and not gonna let us "dirty, fuckin' hippies" and an "overzealous prosecutor" or little things like a jury verdict or the facts to mess up his full alligience to his "bretheren".

This is starting to be a "can you top this" game...each one more metaphorically obnoxious and more intellectually and morally bankrupt than the last. But surely Mr. Cohen's the hit of the Sauna today...will get all the buzz at tonight's party...he's "done good". Shameful!

here is another good take-down of Cohen's column by Robert Parry of Consortiumnews:

Is WP's Cohen Dumbest Columnist?

Granted it would be quite a competition, but is Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen the dumbest columnist ever?

In his June 19 op-ed, Cohen joined the latest Inside-the-Beltway craze, the neoconservative media riot over the 30-month jail sentence facing former White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby.

From reading the column, it does appear that Cohen has the skills at least to master and recite the litany of talking points that the neocons have compiled to make their case about the injustice of Libby going into the slammer for committing perjury and obstruction of justice.

Cohen accuses special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald of violating longstanding Justice Department guidelines on when to bring a case; he denounces the trial – over Libby’s lying about his role in unmasking covert CIA officer Valerie Plame – as “a mountain out of a molehill”; he asserts that there was no “underlying crime”; he even pokes fun at Americans who thought the invasion of Iraq might have been a bad idea.

“They thought – if ‘thought’ can be used in this context – that if the thread was pulled on who had leaked the identity of Valerie Plame to Robert D. Novak, the effort to snooker an entire nation into war would unravel and this would show . . . who knows? Something,” Cohen wrote.

more...

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/061907.html

They are the ones generating the GroupThink.

We buy into it -- with "lights off" -- at our (continuing) peril.

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