January 16, 2007 -- 9:21 AM EST // //
RICHARD COHEN: PLEASE, MR. MCCAIN, DON'T BE MAD AT ME...
This is pretty impressive, really. The Washington Post's Richard Cohen has managed to accomplish, all in a single column, the following:
(a) He rewrites the history of the Iraq war in such a way that those who argued against it have been expunged from the record; even as he
(b) Echoes the same views as those now-expunged critics by saying that we shouldn't be in Iraq...
(c) He reveals that he thinks John McCain is completely wrong about what to do about Iraq; even as he
(d) Also demonstrates that despite disagreeing with McCain on the most important global issue of the moment, he's nonetheless absolutely terrified of criticizing him.
First let's check out Cohen's erasing of early war critics from the record. Note the constant use of the word "we":
This war has lasted longer than we expected not just because we were inept or understaffed or fired the Baathists or discharged the army -- but because we don't understand the country...Even late in the game, we didn't see it coming.Similarly, we did not notice that in all the hoopla just before Hussein's statue in Baghdad's Firdaus Square came down in 2003, the crowd went silent after an American flag was draped over it. The crowd came to life only when the Iraqi flag replaced it. Had we noticed that, we might have learned something about Iraqi nationalism and the fleeting gratitude awarded to liberators. One minute you're a liberator, the next an occupier....
Now, of course, everyone looks like an idiot.
We? Who's we? Presumably it can't include all the people who warned at the outset of the very things that Cohen is holding up now as proof that "we" never understood what "we" were getting into. As for the claim that "everyone" now looks like an idiot, I guess we are now supposed to pretend that those who spelled out reasons for opposing the conflict at the outset simply never existed. That's convenient, isn't it?
Now check out what Cohen has to say about McCain:
I would like him -- because I do like him -- to consider whether the remedy for Iraq is not more American troops, as he insists, but fewer and fewer . . . and then none at all. Iraq is not Vietnam, but America is still America -- and we still don't know what in the world we're doing.
Please, Mr. McCain, don't be mad at me for disagreeing with you...I like you, I really do...
Recall that Cohen recently wrote that while McCain's move to the right was obviously politically motivated, "anyone who knows McCain appreciates that his call for more troops in Iraq is not, at bottom, part of any political strategy." Add that to today's simpering, fearful disagreement with McCain and it becomes clear that Cohen has completely lost any ability to assess the man in a dispassionate and rational way. When it comes to McCain, Cohen, like so many other pundits, is in intellectual captivity. He's McCain's prisoner, pure and simple. In a sane world, Cohen would recuse himself from writing about McCain, or if not, his editors would do it for him.
Let's be clear: Cohen disagrees dramatically with McCain about the single most important policy decision our nation faces today -- one that will impact thousands upon thousands of lives. Cohen occupies prized opinion-making real estate at the second most powerful newspaper in the country. Why is he tiptoeing so fearfully around a guy who holds views that -- given what the consequences of getting this one wrong are -- should draw extremely aggressive condemnation from him? What the heck is there to be afraid of?