WaPo columnist Richard Cohen gets "lynched" for dissing Stephen Colbert

[Cyrano]

"Liberal" columnist Richard Cohen didn't think Colbert was funny, but that's not the point. I read his article this morning and he received about 4000 emails cursing him out.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/08/AR2006050801323.html

He went on about blogger's "raw hatred" causing trouble for the Democrats and he compared those who emailed him to "a digital lynch mob." His mistake, however, was comparing us all to the "anti-war wing of the Democratic Party that helped elect Richard Nixon" (due to the Chicago riots of 1968.) Wrong!

He missed the point by a mile. As much as we hate the war, our rage is due to the presidency of Bush, the thugs around him, and the entire corrupt Republican machine. In missing this, he has no clue that he's part of the problem.

One of his biggest complaints was the venom and language in the emails, and I agree with him on this. I would request that if we're going to bombard a fool like him with emails, we at least do so politely, and explain why we believe him to be wrong.

[rodeodance]

1. This language worked well for Clarance Thomas!--

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

2. "Truth to tell, I peeked into only a few of the e-mails."

Journalist non-pareil.

[seabeyond]

3. except i was one of the 4000 and mine was not cussing, hatefillled

nasty or mean in anyway. i basically informed him his assessment that his emailers that support colbert were far left hatefilled people, and that i was a middle aged moderate mother sittin in the panhandle of texas and i disagreed with him on his interpretation of the colbert to do....

does anyone see any cussing or hatefilled far left ranting in that post

i dont think i believe he had 4000 hatefilled cussing far left emails. does this mean the man lies too for a story. me asking htis, does this make me now a hatefilled cussing far left extremist? i wonder.

[UTUSN]

4. Lynched? Not hardly. He's keeps coming back like Jason

I sent him one of the 4,000, but don't remember what all it said. I know I don't cuss out, though might be blistering. But nimsy little polite things would not have penetrated this dude's consciousness.

[Cyrano]

9. UTUSN and Seabeyond. I was relating what he has to say.

Although your emails might have been sane, polite and explanatory, when you receive 4000 emails, you just know that a couple of thousand are going to be calling him a piece of pig shit. No one is going to sit reading that stuff for long.

However, that was not the main thrust of what I was writing about. My post was to demonstrate that he's still living in 1968 and doesn't have a clue about what's going on around him today.

He really needs to be put out to pasture.

[NoPasaran]

5. Cohen's ego soars like the Hindenburg

Oh the humanity!

[Atman]

6. Vitriolic, cuss-filled e-mails have the opposite of the desired effect

I guarantee you, any time you send an e-mail calling the subject a "lying scum bag lackey to the bloodthirsty liars...blah blah blah" you might as well just e-mail to your trash can.

If the text doesn't get the e-mail filtered out before it is even opened, the recipient will more than likely be given reason to dig in his heels and think "See, I'm right...these people are nut bags who can't communicate on an adult level!"

It reminds me of when I was a teenager, and my brother got his first speeding ticket. "The cop said 'do you know how fast you were going?' and I told him to fuck off, because I know what the goddam speed limit is, and he's just a power hungry jerk who likes harassing teenagers!" He couldn't understand why he couldn't talk his way out of what would have been an otherwise minor infraction.

People, amazing as it seems, words are powerful, and well-constructed arguments using the right combination of sternness and politeness will go 100X further in proving your point than name calling and insults. It will show you are intelligent enough and reasonable enough to think through your position before firing off a nasty-gram...and it is far more likely to be taken seriously.

Cohen really is a raging douche-bag. But I'd never tell him that in a letter. No real raging douche-bag would really be able to comprehend his douche-bagginess that way, anyway. I'd compliment him first, stroke him for his success and the power he must be aware his words hold given the broad audience our great system of free press affords him. Blah blah blah. Then I'd subtly but sternly tell him how disappointed I was (douche-bags hate this...they hate it when you sound like their mommies) that he couldn't have used his awesome powers to reach a more reasonable conclusion.

It would get read, maybe even remembered, and you might even get a response back that you can save for when you run out of tp.

[lonestarnot]

8. cuss-filled XO*$&**(@? what's dat?

[5X]

11. Thanks for the lecture you (^(%(*%(^)_*&$&$##. n/t

[Cyrano]

13. Atman, I agree. Please see post #9 above.

[ShortnFiery]

15. Then how 'bout we play "nice nice" and foward him this for our atonement?

http://colbert.cf.huffingtonpost.com/ :evilgrin:

[Atman]

18. I watched that the other day...it's excellent!

I have a Flash cartoon burning in my belly soooo bad. I don't really have the time to do it without some way to eat in the meantime. Nice, catchy "Jib Jabby" type thing set to a Dandy Warhols tune. I hate watching those animations because they just point out to me how much I want to do one, too!

[ShortnFiery]

24. There's the weekend for you, I hope -

Don't neglect the family, but new product is always welcome by this consumer of - all things Re: Cobert! :P

[Clark2008]

26. Got to post so I can watch after work

(Bookmarking my own post. LOL)

[Canuckistanian]

7. What the Hell did he expect?

He waded right into the middle of the most talked about event in Washington and made a bunch of inflammatory statements.

And he expects to escape without even a few harsh emails?

Liberal critics recieve death threats on a regular basis, even when they're just reporting something unpopular to the wingnuts.

Suck it up, Cohen, you big baby.

[Cyrano]

12. Please see post #9 above.

[Mass]

10. Read William Pitt's answer to this editorial

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/050906R.shtml

[Cyrano]

14. Thank you. I missed William Pitt's reply. It's great.

[Atman]

17. Absolutely brilliant

One of Mr. Pitt's best. Totally spot-on.

[kath]

20. Wow, that piece by Pitt is AMAZING. Is there a thread about it here?

[Mass]

23. Here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1140540

[kath]

28. Thanks much.

I wasn't on DU much yesterday, and missed it.

[Little Star]

25. Wow!!! Just a great open letter!!! n/t

[Cha]

29. That was an Excellent letter

from Will Pitt to richard cohen..thanks to Will Pitt and you Mass for linking it.

With a history of calling it like this..richard cohen needs to rethink his processing of information.

"P.S. Another reason for the anger you have absorbed can be laid, frankly, at your own feet. There are enough of us around who can still remember your words from November of 2000: "Given the present bitterness, given the angry irresponsible charges being hurled by both camps, the nation will be in dire need of a conciliator, a likable guy who will make things better and not worse. That man is not Al Gore. That man is George W. Bush."

Oh yeah, he sure has foresight :sarcasm:

[GoneOffShore]

16. Mine wasn't hate filled

a litte bile maybe, but not hate.
Here's what I wrote.

George Bush was/is/has been a bully for the entirety of his life. Very few people have stood up to him. And yet, when a guy who is a comedian, not a newsman, points out the things about Bush that make him and his administration the biggest bullies for the last 30 years, he is called to task for his rudeness. I don't get it.

Perhaps Steven Colbert's barbs hit a little too close to your own comfortable place and that's why you disapprove of his remarks. Let us go back a year to the Whitehouse Correspondents Dinner and look at that video where Bush is running around the Oval Office looking for those "pesky Weapons of Mass Destruction." Did you call that performance inappropriate? Or were you content to watch and laugh?

I suspect that you, as someone inside the Beltway, is just a bit to worried about the sinecure of your cushy job at the Washington Post to care about being a real challenge and questioning this administration.

The real reason you are upset at Steven Colbert is that you are one of the pseudo journalists he called out at that dinner. Because you have not stood up to this administration. You have not asked them the hard questions.

[grasswire]

19. wah, wah, wah!

Let me list the WaPo people who have claimed to receive a barrage of poisonous hate mail from the left:

Len Downie, publisher
Dana Milbank, reporter
Howard Kurtz, media critic
Susan Schmidt, reporter (stenographer for Kenneth Starr)
Richard Cohen, opinion writer
George Will, opinion writer
David Broder, opinion writer

Do you see a trend? I believe this claim is bogus. I believe it's a strategy to keep down criticism.

Show us the e-mails, Cohen. Let us judge whether or not they are hate-filled.

[Cyrano]

22. I believe them from my own personal experience.

Back during the 2000 election, I wrote a ltte criticizing the tactics being used by Bush backers. When a ltte is printed, it includes your name and town.

I received about 70 letters. Eight of them agreed with me and complimented me for my position. The rest of them could have been written by Anne Coulter. I was evidently the worst piece of shit that ever lived, I was a liar who had crawled out of a sewer, and I deserved to die in pain and horror. Many were death threats against me and my family.

All I can say is, try doing it yourself sometime and see what happens.

And please don't believe that the left is any more incapable of writing hate mail than the right. When emotions are running high, anger, bile and threats are usually the result.

[grasswire]

27. I do believe the right is more hate-filled than the left.

I've monitored freerepublic.com for many years and I've also participated in liberal web sites for many years. The difference in commentary is like night and day. Those on the right engage in horrible tricks against those they disagree with. The dirty tricks engaged in on the right are legendary and many. The venom flows free. The violence is visible.

I've never seen anything like that from liberals. And I don't believe that liberals are writing violence and sewer talk to journalists and writers.

There's an easy solution for the complainers. Just print the letters.

Oh, and in the case of Len Downie and Susan Schmidt, I know from personal experience that their complaints are exaggerated. Letters that I wrote to them were characterized as "mean-spirited" and "sour" when they were nothing of the sort. They just believe themselves to be better than the "rabble."

[kenny blankenship]

21. Cohen is a worthless writer

a thriving but armless intestinal parasite of the One Party state, whose sole function in that polemarchic state is to provide the hallucinated image of the former Republic's freedoms of opinion, of the press, and universal franchise through certain toxic secretions he releases into its bloodstream. Since I welcome the collapse of this sclerotic Cyclops, which has feasted on the corpse of democracy for its strength, and I'd rather its obscene body rot above ground for all to remember, than to attempt "decent burial", so the bemired end of its various tapeworms and other parasites concerns me even less.

[Ms. Clio]

30. this is such an outrageous and offensive metaphor

Richard Cohen really is scum.