Richard Cohen taunted posters at thankyoustephencolbert.com

[katinmn]

Why did Cohen receive 3,500 angry emails?

He forgot to mention in today's column "Digital lynch mob" that he was taunting the folks (now numbering more than 54,000) who wanted to give a "thank you" to Stephen Colbert at the website www.thankyoustephencolbert.org.

"Some people" might view that as a cheap way to get grist for his latest column taking potshots at "the angry left."

Here are his posts:

Name: Richard Cohen | IP: xx.x.xxx.x

Colbert was not just a failure as a comedian but rude. Rude is not the same as brash. It is not the same as brassy. It is not the same as gutsy or thinking outside the box. Rudeness means taking advantage of the other person’s sense of decorum or tradition or civility that keeps that other person from striking back or, worse, rising in a huff and leaving. The other night, that person was George W. Bush.

Richard Cohen, Columnist - Posted May 4, 10:00 AM

Name: Richard Cohen | IP: xx.x.xxx.x

In this country, anyone can insult the president of the United States. Colbert just did it, and he will not suffer any consequence at all. He knew that going in. He also knew that Bush would have to sit there and pretend to laugh at Colbert’s lame and insulting jokes. Bush himself plays off his reputation as a dunce and his penchant for mangling English. Self-mockery can be funny. Mockery that is insulting is not. The sort of stuff that would get you punched in a bar can be said on a dais with impunity. This is why Colbert was more than rude. He was a bully.

Richard Cohen, Washington Post Columnist - Posted May 4, 10:06 AM

Name: Richard Cohen | IP: xx.x.xxx.x

On television, Colbert is often funny. But on his own show he appeals to a self-selected audience that reminds him often of his greatness. In Washington he was playing to a different crowd, and he failed dismally in the funny person’s most solemn obligation: to use absurdity or contrast or hyperbole to elucidate — to make people see things a little bit differently. He had a chance to tell the president and much of important (and self-important) Washington things it would have been good for them to hear. But he was, like much of the blogosphere itself, telling like-minded people what they already know and alienating all the others. In this sense, he was a man for our times.

He also wasn’t funny.

Richard Cohen, Washington Post Columnist

[email protected] - Posted May 4, 10:31 AM

[BrklynLiberal]

1. Probably the most mail he ever got.

[BurtWorm]

2. You should retitle this, katinmn, so people will read it.

It needs to be seen to be believed! Call it something like, "Richard Cohen taunted posters at thankyoustephencolbert.com"

Just a suggestion.

[katinmn]

8. thanks.

[BurtWorm]

9. You're welcome.

[BurtWorm]

10. Doesn't seem to have had an effect yet.

[babylonsister]

3. A worthy candidate for conservative idiot! nt

[politicaholic]

4. "...to use absurdity or contrast or hyperbole to elucidate... "

What a friggin' tool. Go write a horrible poem about butterflies and leave the innovative writing to people who don't use the dictionary as a crutch to legitimize themselves.

[Ian David]

5. Richard Cohen is a godless typing machine that wants our printer toner.

Richard Cohen is not a writer, he's a typer. He types things down.

[BurtWorm]

6. He even included his e-mail address to make it as easy as possible

to be roasted.

[ComerPerro]

7. Colbert is a bully now?

Pathetic

[Ms. Clio]

11. was it really him? Anyone can leave a post there under any name

[BurtWorm]

12. It's his e-mail address, and his attitude.

I think it's him.

[Ms. Clio]

13. I wouldn't be surprised, but anybody can leave an e-mail address, too

It would be funny as hell if he WAS such a pathetic loser, though.

Oh wait.

He is.

[BurtWorm]

14. The attitude really is the clincher

[NYCGirl]

17. Whoever posted that used chunks of Cohen's article whole. I don't think

it was Cohen.

[BurtWorm]

19. Oooo.

That would explain the attitude.

Not to mention the blatant use of his e-mail.

:think:

[NYCGirl]

21. Yep, I think it was just someone (not Cohen) trying to be funny. NT

[BurtWorm]

22. I thought the "rant" sounded familiar.

:dunce:

[Julius Civitatus]

33. I doubt it's him. Those are quotes from his WaPo column

They are chunks of his latest column.

I think some punk copy-and-pasted that to be funny.

Plus, if you check the www.thankyoustephencolbert.org, the signatures are not secure. Anyone can post anything, email or not. You can sign as the queen of England there. Nobody cares.

Please people, use you head. Measure.

[Ms. Clio]

34. yes, that seems to be the case

Anybody can be anyone -- I've seen several people playing games with names there.

[blogslut]

15. You've got his logged IP?

Do a lookup on it and see if it comes from the DC area. You don't have to reveal the IP here. But if the IP comes from the DC area, it narrows the possibility that it's actually Cohen.

[gkhouston]

16. I'm amazed

that Cohen would go out and bait people to get those sort of responses. I always thought he invented them. Guess he's lazier than I thought.

[RandomKoolzip]

18. Hey Rich - So...Was Colbert funny?

I've read all his posts, and I STILL don't know how Cohen feels about this. :shrug:





:sarcasm:

[Hamlette]

20. he doesn't get it. . .

"He had a chance to tell the president and much of important (and self-important) Washington things it would have been good for them to hear. But he was, like much of the blogosphere itself, telling like-minded people what they already know and alienating all the others."

He agrees the "self important Washington" types need to hear the stuff Colbert told them but Colbert had to "use absurdity or contrast or hyperbole" to say those things.

Who is more absurd (in his performance) than Colbert?

Sounds like someone pushed Cohen's buttons...maybe it was the talk about fiction? Lick your wounds in private, bud. We don't want to hear how offended you that someone told you are not doing your job.

Point is, Colbert said stuff that needs to be talked about and guess what? People are talking about what he said. Not the role of a humorist? Yeah, it is YOUR role. You abdicated it to Colbert. He picked up the baton for you. You should be grateful.

[Catrina]

24. *LOL* Colbert's a comic. Telling DC what's what is Cohen's job, not

Colbert's. In fact he demonstrate's Colbert's point about the so-called press. We got 'it', too bad they didn't, or didn't want to. Maybe he's still confused that so many seem to have gotten what he still doesn't?

He sounds jealous. He only got 3500 emails, Colbert got over 54,000 messages ~ thanking him for doing Cohen's job. I can't believe he thinks that was the job of an entertainer, or that he doesn't get that Colbert actually did what he, Cohen, says he should have done.

[Polemicist]

23. I sent Mr. Cohen this email...

Mr. Cohen,

I'll be frank. I don't know your work. I don't know if you are a Dem or a Repub, a conservative or liberal. But I do want to comment, as a Progressive Liberal Democrat and participant in the netroots, that you have drawn some extremely broad conclusions in your recent article "Digital Lynch Mob".

Are all Washington Post columnists this angry as well? I've read articles by a number of them that seem to indicate that they share a disdain for liberal online activists. I guess by my experience, the Washington Post must just despise liberal bloggers and their readers.

Am I right in my conclusion? I doubt this is any more accurate than your conclusion that lefties angry with the media, will torpedo Democratic electoral prospects in the coming elections.

It's not about elections. It's about how the press behaves. You got toasted by liberals, because we know why you didn't like Cobert's comedy. It's not because he roasted the President and was unfunny.

It's because he roasted the National Press Corps and thus was "unfunny". And we see your hypocrisy shining through, bright and clear.

Or you hate internet progressives. Cause all Washington Post writers hate internet lefties. I can use your logic and extrapolate from a small sample, a behavior for an entire group.

Opps, that's what they say causes prejudices, isn't it?

Polemicist
Charleston, SC

PS. It's sometimes best not to take up the pen when angry.

[hfojvt]

25. I do not see any taunting

That sounds like something that was in his post-Colbert column. I am not sure how it taunts though.

Sense of decorum or tradition or civility? Yes, poor George, working so hard at the thankless task of doing what's best for the country and to have to listen to someone say that he's a liar and an idiot.

I have to wonder what kind of columns Cohen wrote in the Clinton era. Did he, for example, take Jay Leno to task for constantly making jokes about the Clenis? Leno even did an opening monologue skit where he imagined Clinton charging the stage and attacking him. Was Leno, doubtless seen many more times by more people than Colbert, ever chided for his rudeness by Cohen?

"Mockery that is insulting" is not funny? Tell that to Don Rickles. Doesn't that depend on whether you like the person being insulted, or not?

"He was a bully." Yes, it is typical for a person to bully a whole room. To say that Colbert will not suffer any consequence at all is not warranted. It could certainly either hurt or help his career. Did Joe Wilson suffer any consequences? Did Helen Thomas? If anybody has been a bully in the last six years, it is the Bush administration. Shirley, Cohen knows that.

As for this last part: "(Colbert) failed dismally in the funny person’s most solemn obligation: to use absurdity or contrast or hyperbole to elucidate — to make people see things a little bit differently. He had a chance to tell the president and much of important (and self-important) Washington things it would have been good for them to hear."

Perhaps Cohen is funny enough or creative enough to give a few examples of what Colbert should have said. What would be better than Colbert's message - Mr. President, you are a fool who is hurting this country and lickspittles of the press, you have been helping him do it. Perhaps you could even point to a column which is a good example of it. What did you just tell the President and the press in this column? Something like "your critics are a$$holes and idiots". How can you tell incompetents, shills and tyrants what they need to hear without alienating them?

[Gabi Hayes]

26. Really...what did this pissant have to say about Imus unbelievably

scabrous tirade back in 98, or whenever it was

somebody linked it recently in a column I read, and it's amazingly, incredibly mean spirited, on a VERY personal level, and not just to Clinton, but Rather, Jennings, Brokaw, and others. The media stuff was pretty funny, as was lots of the Clinton stuff, actually. That, of course, is a matter of OPINION, Cohen, you moran, NOT a matter of pronouncement from on high. How DARE he tell anyone what is, or is not funny. And, given his own demonstration of his OWN extremely lame sense of humor, I can't imagine a whole lot of people LESS qualified to judge on the relative humor of any sort of public presentation.

for a really good skewering of this pompous carbuncle, check out Greg Mitchell's recent column on Cohen's truly astounding Iraq War hypocrisy.


http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002275180

While America Slept
Richard Cohen, the Washington Post columnist, declared on Thursday that President Bush "wanted war" in Iraq, and the White House case for it was mainly false. Yet, three years ago, Cohen wrote that "only a fool" could doubt the president and the need for war.

By Greg Mitchell

(March 30, 2006) -- Richard Cohen, the longtime Washington Post columnist sometimes accused of being a “liberal,” produced a strong column today, titled “Bush Wanted War.” In it he said he had long been skeptical of this idea, but now had come to accept it. That’s all well and good, but where was Cohen a little more than three years ago, when this fact was as plain as the smirk on the president’s face, and the columnist agitated for war anyway?

If there was an “I’m sorry for being so stupid” embedded in Cohen’s column I didn’t spot it.


This is the man who, on Feb. 6, 2003, after Secretary of State Colin Powell’s deeply-flawed testimony in New York, wrote: “The evidence he presented to the United Nations -- some of it circumstantial, some of it absolutely bone-chilling in its detail -- had to prove to anyone that Iraq not only hasn't accounted for its weapons of mass destruction but without a doubt still retains them. Only a fool -- or possibly a Frenchman -- could conclude otherwise.”

Yet Cohen has the nerve to write today: “Colin Powell, you may recall, soiled his stellar reputation with a United Nations speech that is now just plain sad to read. Almost none of it is true.”

What about Cohen’s reputation?

[hfojvt]

29. I just had to google it

best I could get is Somerby

http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh050406.shtml

Apparently he did criticize Imus, but more about taste matters than about it being rude or unfunny. We cannot be sure if he would complain if Imus was not using "naughty" words.

[Mythsaje]

27. He obviously DOESN'T know this...

and don't call him Shirley.

:evilgrin:

[ComerPerro]

28. He probably calls that "research"

[brentspeak]

30. Uh, you don't really believe it was Richard Cohen posting on that site?

Nobody could be that (deleted non-profane adjective) to think it was really him.

[cascadiance]

31. He'd say David was the "bully" to Goliath I guess!

He's that blind!

[Gabi Hayes]

32. Richard Cohen is quite the creep, gals, it would seem

he got caught with Peter Jennings then-wife

he was accused of, well, read this, from New York Magazine:

‘The New York-bureau chief, Blaine Harden, passed along to management a complaint against Cohen made by Devon Spurgeon, a 23-year-old female special correspondent in the bureau. One Post insider says Harden and others in the bureau witnessed several instances in which Cohen made inappropriately sexual remarks to the young assistant.

Management took the situation seriously enough to fly to New York to talk with Cohen on April 3, the insider continues, while Spurgeon was asked to take a paid leave of absence during the negotiations. Eventually, management decided that Cohen’s office would be moved. Cohen vehemently denies the charges. “There was, for want of a better term, a personality conflict,” he explains. “It didn’t involve sexual harassment—it didn’t involve sex, it didn’t involve harassment—and no disciplinary action was taken.”’

>>>>he was very publicly accused of sexual harassment about five years back, and he was forced to move his office so he wouldn’t be in the vicinity of any young female reporters.

others here have posted some knowledge of his sleazy side, as well: these aren't the only instances.

while no expert on comedy, Cohen certainly seems to know quite a bit about rudeness, and, perhaps, bullying.