WP: Richard Cohen's MEA CULPA!

[Beetwasher]

I think Mr. Cohen has seen the light...

Blame, Blindness . . .

By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, February 3, 2004; Page A19

Now that President Bush, with all the enthusiasm of a dog going to the vet, has been yanked into naming a bipartisan commission to look into intelligence failures in Iraq, I'd like to see yet another commission established. This one would look into the real failure of intelligence -- not the CIA but America's political, social and intellectual leadership. No mere analyst at the CIA caused us to go to war for the wrong reasons.

--snip--

Why? No newspaper column could provide all the answers. But we were clearly unnerved by the events of Sept. 11, 2001, and the subsequent -- and now mostly overlooked -- anthrax attacks, which disproportionately affected the news media. Saddam Hussein provided us with a nifty and useful personification of evil -- not to mention spurious links to al Qaeda. He was something familiar, Hitler and Stalin all over again. There was an understandable urge to settle some scores. Finally, though, there was smugness -- the sort of American exceptionalism that so rankles non-Americans. No one better exemplified that than Bush himself. He proclaimed a divine right to unilateralism, oozed a smugness bred of incuriousness and an airy dismissal of dissent. He knew what he knew with such fiery certainty that even now he seems incapable of facing reality. He's like a kid who refuses to accept the fact that there is no Santa Claus.

--snip--

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7219-2004Feb2.html

Ouch! That's gotta hurt...

[demgrrrll]

1. Whoa. Lets see if the Kool Kids and the Heathers get on board with

this message.

[11cents]

2. Of course they won't

Taking responsibility? Seeing a REALITY behind their gotcha ha-ha rah-rah games? I'm sorry, does not compute. Their minds just don't work this way. They're not capable of these acts.

[Bunny]

3. That is astounding.

What was the quote about no one wanting to risk the wrath of Cheney? Very telling, indeed. It is so good to see this out in the mainstream.

[demgrrrll]

7. He writes about the 500 who were killed, but how about the wounded

that are being hidden at Walter Reed. What about those people who are going to have to live the rest of their lives with a disability because Bush wanted Oil and a big fake cowboy muscle flex.

[Stephanie]

17. How about the thousands of Iraqi civilians? n/t

.

[BigBigBear]

4. This has been the point all along, kids

Bush used a 9/11-sensitized (and legitimately sensitized) Congress to legitimize his war.

Congress' response to perceived threats to the US after 9/11 was not a failing on their part, but was manipulated by cynical and disengenuous politics by a White House catering to Bush's Saddam-envy.

[Palacsinta]

5. How did a buncha peons like us know then?

I mean, I'm nobody from nowhere.............why did I, and millions like me, have a feeling, from around August of 2002 onward, that the whole Iraq deal smelled to high heaven?

[onecitizen]

16. I've asked that question so many times........

I sound like a broken record. How the hell did I know, a middle aged white woman from WV, and the President and all his men, didn't know? They need to get out more I guess.:crazy:

[agingdem]

6. Don't you remember...

during the recount Cohen admitted to voting for Gore but wished he had voted for Bush because Bush showed such "class" . Love the self-flagellation but a big "I'M SORRY MR. GORE" would be a whole lot sweeter.

[demgrrrll]

8. Yes, and his columns on Clinton during the impeachment were not the

greatest. He hit a few bad notes during that mess too. Should be Mea Maxima Culpa.

[Stephanie]

9. They act like there were never MILLIONS of us marching in PROTEST

The LARGEST protests in history, WORLDWIDE, MILLIONS marching to stop the attack on Iraq.

Did I DREAM that I walked up Lexington Avenue in a SEA of people packed shoulder to shoulder, in the freezing cold, hundreds of thousands in NYC alone? People were TRAMPLED by police horses, people were DESPERATE to stop this war, and it's like it never happened.

[Stephanie]

10. p.s. - this is BS

What the hell is a "false fact"?

A consensus -- based on false facts, outright lies and exaggerated fears -- took over the nation.

And WHAT freaking "consensus" - WE DID NOT CONSENT.

This guy should drop the royal we and speak for himself.

[wellst0nev0ter]

12. We Weren't Protesting

We were "focusing" as in "focus groups", remember? :eyes:

[Mandate My Ass]

14. They're also acting like those "facts"

hadn't been publicly debunked in the press before the invasion and Shock and Awe started. This column was a piss-poor piece of journalism and a weasely rationalization for having enthusiastically jumped on the pre-emptive war bandwagon.

[wellst0nev0ter]

11. Paging Mr. O'Reilly. . .

"And I said on my program, if, if the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean, he has nothing, I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush Administration again, all right?"

-Good Morning America, March 18, 2003


I'm not holding my breath :eyes:

[Vadem]

13. Richard Cohen used to be a liberal in the 60s, 70s and 80s, ....

Since Dubya, he has turned into a damned Bush ass-kisser! I can't stand him! Although, I like his columns when his deceased Grandad visits him in the night and tells him what a hotshot columnist loser he is.

[grasswire]

15. write him

His email address is [e-mail]

Tell him there was no concensus except perhaps in the Beltway bewildered.

[Vadem]

18. "Beltway bewildered"....I love it!

Thanks, Grasswire. Perhaps I will write him and flay him with my anger at his denigrating of Clinton and his praise of Shrub and his blindness to the harm that Shrub has rained upon all of us patriotic Americans who see through Shrub and his hipocracy.