Richard Cohen Discovers The KosKidz
No kidding. In today’s Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen suddenly discovers “the left’s digital lynch mob.” Cohen critiqued Steve Colbert’s dismal, non-funny political rant at the White House correspondents dinner. What happened.
Here’s what Cohen writes:
Kapow! Within a day, I got more than 2,000 e-mails. A day later, I got 1,000 more. By the fourth day, the number had reached 3,499 — a figure that does not include the usual offers of nubile Russian women or loot from African dictators. The Colbert messages began with Patrick Manley (“You wouldn’t know funny if it slapped you in the face”) and ended with Ron (“Colbert ROCKS, you MURDER”) who was so proud of his thought that he copied countless others. Ron, you’re a genius.
Truth to tell, I peeked into only a few of the e-mails. I did this because I would sometimes recognize a name I thought I knew, which was almost always a mistake. When I guilelessly clicked on the name, I would get a bucket of raw, untreated and disease-laden sewage right in the face. I’d quickly delete the thing, like closing a manhole cover, and move on, trying to figure out how to peek into an e-mail without getting the full, ugly message. No way.
Heh. So to speak.
Richard Cohen, greet the KosKidz. They claim they are the new core of your contemporary Democratic Party.
Cohen is now an Internet pessimist (the medium gets a bit of a kick), but give him credit. He sees that the real problem is his own uncivil, irresponsible kooks.
Other grafs:
It seemed that most of my correspondents had been egged on to write me by various blogs. In response, they smartly assembled into a digital lynch mob and went roaring after me. If I did not like Colbert, I must like Bush. If I write for The Washington Post, I must be a mainstream media warmonger. If I was over a certain age — which I am — I am simply out of it, wherever “it” may be. All in all, I was — I am and, I guess, I remain — the worthy object of ignorant, false and downright idiotic vituperation.
What to make of all this? First, it’s not about Colbert. His show has an audience of about 1 million — not exactly “American Idol” numbers. Second, it marks the end of a silly pretense about interactive media: We give you our e-mail addresses and then, in theory, we have this nice chat. Forget about it. Not only is e-mail too often a kind of epistolary spitball, but there’s no way I can even read the 3,506 e-mails now backed up in my queue — seven more since I started writing this column.
But the message in this case truly is the medium. The e-mails pulse in my queue, emanating raw hatred. This spells trouble — not for Bush or, in 2008, the next GOP presidential candidate, but for Democrats. The anger festering on the Democratic left will be taken out on the Democratic middle. (Watch out Hillary!)
Good, so far. But of course Cohen has to blame America. “Hatred is back,” he writes. Pish. These unhinged leftish kooks have been spewing this bile for years– since roughly 1968. Arguably the bile has fossilized– but Cohen is just now noticing it.
Alas, he writes: “Institution after institution failed America — the presidency, Congress and the press. ”
Ridiculous. He sees the problem –the venomous, inexcuseable lack of civility and insistent demonization of opponents– but won’t really confront it. Instead, he partially excuses the phenomenon, with a cry of “the system’s failed!.” Utter pish.
The American left is where the American far right was in the 1950s– besotted with anger, boiling in conspiracy theories. There is a difference, however. “Opinion leaders” like Cohen have let the hard left take a large bite out of their own liberal “mainstream.” Cohen has just now discovered it, because his email box got jammed with garbage. It is a step toward enlightenment, however hesitant a step.
But read Cohen’s entire essay for yourself. Don’t snicker too harshly.
The boiling anger of the 50s, though, we have since discovered, was somewhat justified. We now discover that ‘commies’ *were* infiltrating our country, and that their influence reached higher (in government, in legal circles, and especially the media) than previously thought. So when you condemn the polarization of the past, don’t forget that it turns out McCarthy was much closer to the truth than anyone knew then, or cares to admit now.
Comment by x — 5/9/2006 @ 8:16 am
It’s far easier to be a Koz Kid than to learn how to think. Kozies are stuck in reflexive rage, it’s all they know. Here’s the problem: the school system that spews these Kids out is invulnerable. You can’t touch the Koz Kids factory. China and India are producing top rate scientists and engineers, and the western world is producing Koz Kids out the Kazoo.
Comment by Ron — 5/9/2006 @ 8:52 am
“the venomous, inexcuseable lack of civility and insistent demonization of opponents” Right. You nailed the charge, just attached it to the wrong crowd. How about instead: Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Neal Cavutto, Laura Ingram, Powerline, Captain’s Quarter’s, Tom deLay, Bill Frist, every blond woman on FoxNews, every panelist on Britt Hume’s Special Report, cetera cetera cetera
Comment by Buddy Saleeby — 5/9/2006 @ 8:59 am
I remember a few of Mr. Cohen’s columns where he sure was more than willing to dish out the rhetorical “chin music”. Guess he can dish it out, but he can’t take it. Not the first time that has happened.
Comment by HaroldHutchison — 5/9/2006 @ 9:03 am
In a very small way, Mr. Cohen has himself to blame. Why do I say so? Because he has contributed to the “party over principle” mentality that has been taken to such extremes by some on the left and the right. Once upon a time, I was a reader and admirer of Mr. Cohen. Even as my eyes opened and I moved from center-left to center-right, I continued to read him as a responsible voice of the center-left. But that all ended with the last Cohen column I will ever read: his Presidential electoral pick for 2000. That column consisted of: 1. Around a dozen paragraphs about why George Bush might no be so bad, and might even be good. 2. Two paragraphs about why Al Gore might not be so good, and was a weak choice for the Democrats. 3. A final paragraph in which he explained that he didn’t like the third party alternatives, so he was voting for Mr. Gore. There was no logic to that column. Mr. Cohen made a moderately strong case for Mr. Bush, and a moderately weak case against Mr. Gors. And then he endrsed Mr. Gore. The only possible “logic”, unstated as it was, was that Mr. Cohen would support Mr. Gore because Mr. Gore was a Democrat. No more logic was needed. Was he as extreme as today’s digital lynch mobs? Nope. But he planted a sign post along their path.
Comment by Martin L. Shoemaker — 5/9/2006 @ 9:10 am
Isn’t the Kos mantra something like “we paid for this party, we own it and we are taking it back!” Don’t Sen Kerry, Rep Pelosi and other Dem leaders post there? One day, liberals will wake up and realize that their party has disappeared out from under them.
Comment by Jim,MtnView,CA,USA — 5/9/2006 @ 9:14 am
Prediction: Two years or so from now, Cohen’s a newly-minted semi-conservative, Pace Kaus and Hitchens. You heard t here first.
Comment by Jim O'Sullivan — 5/9/2006 @ 9:14 am
Great analysis. If Cohen read your blog more often (or even mine
he might have a clue. It is not America that has the problem, it is the rabid left.
Comment by GM Roper — 5/9/2006 @ 9:18 am
I think the left truly does believe that “institution after institution as failed America.” They have failed America because they have gone Republican. (I would argue the point about the press having gone Republican, but they believe it). The left believes in the Marxist theory of the inevitability of history. However, the shift of the country to the right, i.e., to the Republicans, isn’t the way that history is supposed to move. Therefore all those institutions that have gone, or are perceived to have gone, Republican have “failed” since they are no longer following the “inevitable” path of history. IMO, this is at least part of the reason why the left is so apoplectic at losing power — it simply isn’t supposed to happen.
Comment by Atlanta Lawyer — 5/9/2006 @ 9:23 am
Richard Cohen often resembles the kind of liberal movies portray — reasonable, patriotic, anguished. He goes out of his way to be fair, but his columns are packed with ‘on the other hands’ that are just earnest and illogical attempts to retain his lefty moorings and ’surprisinglys’ that aren’t really surprising at all. He qualifies himself into a corner in every paragraph. There’s something almost heartbreaking about him because, as dopey as he is is much of the time, he’s honest and you wish he represented more than just a curious throwback in the Democratic party. ED NOTE: Great comment. Thanks.
Comment by Sluggo — 5/9/2006 @ 9:24 am
Ridiculous. He sees the problem –the venomous, inexcuseable lack of civility and insistent demonization of opponents C’mon Mr. Bay. Have you ever listened to Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Michell Malkin or Rush Limbaugh? Demonization of opponents is their specialty and they are the mainstream of the Republican Party. Give me a break. ED NOTE: During your break, go read the obscenity-laden drivel at Kos, etc. For Ann Coulter, there is a Molly Ivins. Coulter calls folks traitors, Ivins calls them racists. Coulter and Ivins are a matched pair and with them you may have a valid point– they both specialize in a form of name-calling and demonization, but their polemics at least avoid the obscenities. The thing is, they are media darlings, or at least Ivins was at one time. I think Coulter simply copied Ivins’ schtick and took it right instead of left, but that’s speculation. I think you can make the case the Coulter and Ivins do think their opponents are evil– Ivins despises Republicans and Coulter seems to think Democrats emerged froma satanic sewer. They’ve a saving grace, however, one missing from the Daily Kos: Coulter and Ivins are both very fine rhetoricians. They strike with wit instead of obscenity. As for the other people you mention? Nope, they are polemicists but ultimately respectful of others. It’s arguable that Al Franken is more disrespectful and uncivil than Rush Limbaugh. But Limbaugh and Franken are both guilty of calculated bombast, not rank obscenity. And they aren’t conspiracy theorists– they are entertainers. Their acts are tame compared to the lynch mobs Coehn suddenly discovered.
Comment by Pug — 5/9/2006 @ 9:25 am
[…] Richard Cohen Meets the Base Moonbats Posted on 05.09.06 by TC @ 11:27 am Austin Bay Blog » Richard Cohen Discovers The KosKidz The American left is where the American far right was i […]
Pingback by LeatherPenguin » Richard Cohen Meets the Base Moonbats — 5/9/2006 @ 9:29 am
You nailed it.
Comment by Pat Rand — 5/9/2006 @ 9:33 am
“The American left is where the American far right was in the 1950s…” To a large extent, the left and right are interchangeable, all according to which party is (perceived as being) in power. Remember how, just a decade ago, the right-wing tin-foil-hat crowd would foam at the mouth about fluoridation? Now it’s a left-wing issue. Different crowd, same foaming. Just as the right-wing loonies insisted Clinton was behind the Oklahoma City bombing, now the left-wing loonies claim Bush was behind 9/11, with the same sort of purported expert opinions to back up their tales. On the other hand, it’s disturbing to see such a large segment of the Democrat / “liberal” population subscribing to the luntic-fringe views.
Comment by Eric Wilner — 5/9/2006 @ 9:36 am
Don’t forget to watch for the “penance column”. Whenever Cohen writes something intelligent (which almost always means it strays from the approved talking points) his next column invariably hammers some hard-left theme, as if the godfather left him a horse’s head after the last one.
Comment by Stacy — 5/9/2006 @ 9:58 am
If he’s like so many other journalists then his ‘abject crawling apology’ column will follow shortly.
Comment by ZF — 5/9/2006 @ 10:06 am
Being a leftist himself, it is natural for Cohen to blame “the system” when bad things happen. He could never acknowledge that there is such a thing as “individual initiative” and these people knew exactly what they were writing. Nope, someone must have “made” them do it.
Comment by Teresa — 5/9/2006 @ 10:08 am
My old boss, a full eagle, once told me that these type of emails and such from computers exposed what he called “keyboard cowards” unable, unwilling or unmanly enough to do it face to face, mano a mano, etc. He may have been right!
Comment by Jack Lillywhite — 5/9/2006 @ 10:14 am
Richard Cohen on Democrats: “The hatred is back” This is a column I wouldn’t expect to see written by Cohen, who is generally considered to be a liberal on most issues: Two weeks ago I wrote about Al Gore’s new movie on global warming. I liked the film. In response, I instantly got more t…
Trackback by Sister Toldjah — 5/9/2006 @ 10:23 am
If I may disagree with you slightly, this rudeness goes back at least to the free speech movement of the early 1960’s.
Comment by David — 5/9/2006 @ 10:25 am
I am simply out of it, wherever “it’’ may be. All in all, I was — I am and, I guess, I remain — the worthy object of ignorant, false and downright idiotic vituperation. Well, Mr. Cohen, now you know how President Bush feels about your newspaper and all the other major newspapers in the country, not to mention most broadcast media.
Comment by Richard Fagin — 5/9/2006 @ 10:25 am
Spot on about the current left being angry like the right was in the 50s and 60s I believe too. Both groups were/are in serious need of a rethink and in denial that the old understanding of the world just isn’t working anymore. While I agree that anger on the left can be dated to 1968, it doesn’t explain how the much younger KosKidz have the same anger. In a word, ‘education.’ I suspect strongly that the youngsters have been taught their ideology by the ‘68 generation - it is all too familiar for someone like myself who lived through it.
Comment by Yankeewombat — 5/9/2006 @ 10:42 am
Go out and watch a rabid animal and see the analogy.
Comment by Sharpshooter — 5/9/2006 @ 11:06 am
Cohen always writes on essay out of ten that makes you think he may have half a clue but he always takes those other nine steps back - sometimes contradicting the thesis of the one sensible essay.
Comment by AGrad — 5/9/2006 @ 11:12 am
What goes around comes around. I wonder how members of the ’60s generation (which Cohen was one) were perceived at the time by their elders. “a bucket of raw, untreated and disease-laden sewage right in the face”? Probably so.
Comment by Jay — 5/9/2006 @ 11:30 am
You state that the “American left is where the American far right was in the 1950s-besotted with anger, boiling in conspiracy theories. There is a difference, however” Why do you have to go back to the 19502. What about the 1990s. Anyone remember Vince Foster or the Ron Brown theories? What about the vitriol of Pat Buchananan? Don’t forget your history.
Comment by Wade — 5/9/2006 @ 11:41 am
Martin, the reason for the structure of that Cohen column that endored Gore was that in the previous grafs he was analyzing the reasons to not go with his default position. He STARTED from the position that he would endorse Gore, and in the end he felt he hadn’t made a good enough case to switch to Bush or to go with any third party candidate. I don’t agree with his choice, but his column was not illogical.
Comment by John — 5/9/2006 @ 12:53 pm
…Neal Cavutto, Laura Ingram, Powerline, Captain’s Quarter’s, Tom deLay, Bill Frist, every blond woman … Hey, its great to see Koz kiddies read this site too. Can anybody imagine a less hatefilled guy than Neal Cavuto? How about that hating heart surgeon that gives his time free in Africa, the hatefilled Dr. Bill Frist..
Comment by red — 5/9/2006 @ 1:01 pm
First, let’s point out a huge difference from the 1950s to the 2000s. The KozKids?? (am I one, I don’t even read Daily Kos) are better traveled and better educated. A number of my peers have done the “liberal thing” after college (Peace Corps and Teach For America). I think we’re are more aware of what’s going on in the world than Fox News would give us credit for (obviously a lot of you disagree). Also I’d like to distinguish Ann Coulter from Molly Ivins. To my “don’t watch TV too much” eyes, I see Coulter on the tube a lot more than Ivins. Also Ivins doesn’t pretend to “footnote” to give her books validity (note that the criticisms of Coulter’s footnotes have made her abandon them in her last book. You’d think she’d learn how to properly footnote after her stint in law school (I sure did). A good example: her hatchet job on Max Cleland when she claimed that he lost his limbs to a grenade he dropped on himself. Any defense there to her misrepresentation of the facts? I’m not happy with any of the commentators out there but humor at least outweighs self-rightousness. Tell me who on the right wing is talking about the tragic comedy that’s our nation right now. OK, that’s my lunch break. I have to go check out the Intelligent Design Club with some of my students. They’re bringing in two avowed Christians who testified in the Kansas hearings. I want to hear the justification that science isn’t limited to the search for natural explanations of phenomena. And some of you wonder why India and China are producing more engineers and scientists…… BA Plan II BS Chemical Eng MS Genetics JD ED NOTE: Glad to have a Plan 2 grad putting up a comment. I’ve heard that Ivins has been ill. She is also a bit passe’, but if Coulter had trouble with footnotes, Ivins had at least two major “troubles” with plagirism — including ripping off the essays of a woman who used to write for National Review. Those are well documented cases, by the way. (The best her defenders could do was say Ivins was “sloppy.”) I recall reading at least one column (perhaps a letter to the editor?– seems like it was in the San Antonio Express-News) that said if Ivins had been a white male Republican columnist she would have been fired for the plagirism– but that was just one person’s opinion. The sloppiness continues. Ivins recently charged the Bush Administration with killing more Iraqis than Saddam. I understand she had to retract that (a google should find that faux pas). I mentioned this in a reply to an earlier commenter in this thread: I think Coulter has adapted Ivins’ act, much to Coulter’s professional advantage. During her heyday if you disagreed with Ivins you were instantly a racist, an ignorant bigot, etc. Today if you disagree with Coulter you are a traitor. Coulter drives Dems nuts, just like Ivins scadled Repubs. Both are over the top in terms of arrogance, but that arrogance only increases media interest. There are differences between their acts and the differences have something to do with their slightly different times and geography. Ivins adopted a “trashy” image, with a stroke or two of East Texas blue-collar country wise-ass. There was a hint of Janis Joplin in the act (and Joplin was in fact a blue collar girl from Port Arthur, Texas). Ivins was a Smith College grad and went to an elite private school in Houston. Her act hid her upscale background, and the “dressing down” element played well with the feminists and the still-thriving “Sixties counter culture.” Coulter goes in for spike heels, long legs, and a long blonde mane. She’s playing to “post-feminism” and the tv camera. Coulter is in the NY-DC-LA media swirl. I suspect Ivins would have a lot more air time if she lived in DC– but she lives in Texas.
Comment by Ben — 5/9/2006 @ 1:09 pm
For the life of me I don’t remember ever seeing Molly Ivins make “jokes” about assassinating a president, bombing a building or poisoning a Supreme Court Justice, even if she and Ann Coulter are a “matched pair”. I do remember, however, that just a few years back the Republican Party was the party of the “Angry White Male”. You don’t have to go all the way back to the 1950’s to see anger and hatred on the Right. Just go back to the day after Bill Clinton was elected president. There was plenty of hatred and vitriol that didn’t let up for eight years. There was no lack of crazy conspiriacy theories, either. Or have you already forgotten Vince Foster, Mena Airport, The Clinton Chronicles and the boys run over by the train in Arkansas? Remember the House committee chairman shooting watermelons in his back yard? This wasn’t just the fringe Right, either, it was the mainstream congressmen.
Comment by Pug — 5/9/2006 @ 2:14 pm
Wade, it is not just the silliness, it is the lack of ability to spell things correctly and the obscenity. It is calling people you disagree with whores, etc. These people are just nasty human beings.
Comment by David — 5/9/2006 @ 2:41 pm
Anyone remember Vince Foster or the Ron Brown theories? What about the vitriol of Pat Buchananan? Don’t forget your history. Sure, but those folks didn’t control the Republican Party. For if they had, Buchanan would have been the nominee in ‘96 rather than centrist Bob Dole. So don’t forget your history, or the meaning of it either.
Comment by Tim — 5/9/2006 @ 3:00 pm
Left eats its own Liberal columnist Richard Cohen discovers how hazardous it is to run afoul of his fellows on the Left who inhabit the Daily Kos. Cohen did not like Stephen Colbert’s White House correspondents dinner performance and said so, but finds himself…
Trackback by Pajamas Media — 5/9/2006 @ 3:09 pm
Hatred left unconfronted and apologized to is like evil unchallenged and appeased. Both have a history of coming to bad ends for the good guys. Lak of belief in self, in society, in culture makes serfs and slaves in complcit silence. What was the olde saw about evil succeeding when good will does nothing?
Comment by AndyJ — 5/9/2006 @ 3:54 pm
Anyone who doubts that the Left is consumed by hatred just isn’t paying attention. And this hatred is unprecedented in the recent history of the US. Well, at least since Nixon. Yes, there were Clinton haters, but their intensity and numbers pale in comparison to the Bush haters. These days, you can’t even have a conversation with a Democrat without getting spit on your jacket. The press will desperately rationalize this rage, but sooner or later it will break into the light, and constitute a major turn-off for Middle America.
Comment by godblogger — 5/9/2006 @ 4:09 pm
Pug writes:”Or have you already forgotten Vince Foster, Mena Airport, The Clinton Chronicles and the boys run over by the train in Arkansas? Remember the House committee chairman shooting watermelons in his back yard?” Does anyone have a clue what he is talking about? Vince Foster, yes. But that was fringe/kook silliness. But the rest of it… huh? Besides, can you imagine what the KosKids would say if a White House advisor suicided today? If Rove or Libby shot themselves in the head, alone, in D.C park?? The mind reels at the prospect.
Comment by godblogger — 5/9/2006 @ 4:16 pm
Maybe my judgement is lacking, or maybe I don’t see her often enough but I don’t have a problem with Ann Coulter. To me, she is a Right/Political version of Dave Barry. Mr Barry frequently starts his columns with “I am not making this up” and then piles absurdities on top of an outlier point of reality. Ann’s stuff seems to follow that format. Think of her as a humorist, speaking truth to tenured power. ED NOTE: Interesting comparison. I think my “Ivins model theory” for Coulter is more correct. But– if you are clued in to Coulter’s humor, which clearly most of her left-lib critics aren’t, you can see the Barry-esque twinkle in her eyes and the intentional bombast in her speech. Slight shift but ultimately relevant: My wife introduced Liz Carpenter today. (Carpenter was the speaker at my wife’s Rotary Club.) Carpenter was Lady Bird Johnson’s press secretary. Carpenter is a yellow dog Dem (but a Cadillac yellow dog Dem). Carpenter proceeded to tell the Rotarians that Republicans didn’t have a sense of humor. Except, but, ahem — she had received 85th birthday greetings from all living former presidents and George H. W. Bush was by far the funniest. Carpenter proceeded to read former President Bush’s letter and the crowd chuckled. Carpenter is a bit of a humorist and I’ve also thought of her as a possible model for Molly Ivins. That said, I’ve heard Liz Carpenter get on a partisan high horse several times in the past, and at one level she may well believe Repubs lack a sense of humor. She’s 85, alas, but I’ll go ahead and tell her. Liz– we’ve been laughing at you and at your expense for a long time. Since the late 1970s and Jimmy Carter’s stagflation the conservatives (nope, not all of them are Repubs) have had the humor edge. Limbaugh’s satires are priceless (perhaps he’ll play the “in a Yugo” tape tomorrow?). It seems most of Limbaugh’s targets, however, are too uptight and myopic–okay, too self-absorbed– to get it. P J O’Rourke’s Republican Party animal is no rarity. Down in Oz Tim Blair smacks the Aussie Left with an unstoppable humor combination day in and day out. Sometime during the Carter Administration the media-wing of the Dems became pessimists. That pessimism is on display — in trump cards– at the DaliKos, and the KosKidz are increasingly the media-wing of the Dems. That’s a huge problem, both in terms of winning elections and getting a real laugh.
Comment by Jim,MtnView,CA,USA — 5/9/2006 @ 5:13 pm