WaPo's Richard Cohen: I Don't Think Obama Has Questionable Views Of Farrakhan, But...
January 15, 2008 -- 2:36 PM EST // //
Everybody's already taken their whacks at today's reprehensible Richard Cohen column in The Washington Post recycling the latest smear of Obama. But I wanted to highlight one particular aspect of it.
Cohen notes that the minister of Obama's church, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, launched Trumpet Newsmagazine, which hailed Louis Farrakhan as a great man. This is supposed to raise questions about Obama, Cohen seems to suggest. Now take a look at Cohen's last graf...
I don't for a moment think that Obama shares Wright's views on Farrakhan. But the rap on Obama is that he is a fog of a man. We know little about him, and, for all my admiration of him, I wonder about his mettle. The New York Times recently reported on Obama's penchant while serving in the Illinois legislature for merely voting "present" when faced with some tough issues. Farrakhan, in a strictly political sense, may be a tough issue for him. This time, though, "present" will not do.This is really something. Cohen says that Obama is voting "present" on the question of whether he agrees with Wright's assessment of Farrakhan -- thus insinuating, without quite saying, that Obama has not taken a position on this.
But earlier in the very same column, Cohen actually quotes a top Obama adviser, David Axelrod, explicitly saying that Obama disagrees with Wright about Farrakhan. Presumably you are meant to forget this fact by the time you get to the end of the column. This suggests that Cohen doesn't think very much of his readers, wouldn't you say?
Maybe Cohen thinks that Axelrod's description of Obama's views doesn't count. Maybe what Cohen means is that until Obama climbs to the roof of the Apollo Theater and denounces Farrakhan with a bullhorn, he's voting "present" and refusing to share his real opinions of him. Whatever. If so, did Cohen even try to interview Obama for this column, so that he could, you know, ask Obama what he thinks? There's no indication that he did. I emailed Cohen to ask him whether he did this. We'll see if he answers.
Cohen says: "I don't for a moment think that Obama shares Wright's views on Farrakhan." Okay, so what's the problem, then? Why did Cohen write the column at all?
Anyone care to hazard a guess?
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