A lot of bloggers are writing about Richard Cohen these days.
Gene Lyons (in the link above) speculates he’s a crybaby. Atrios says the real problem is he’s gutless, and an enabler of the Bush Administration.
After nearly 30 years on various beats, I think they’re both wrong.
Richard Cohen sees his life under threat. He has spent a lifetime climbing a greasy pole of corporate intrigue to get where he has gotten. (There is no greasier pole in the journalism world than that of The Washington Post Co.) He has kissed more asses than Jenna Jameson and Ron Jeremy, combined.
Newspapers and chains hand out their coveted columnist slots only to those who know how to play the game. Very seldom do newspaper columnists emerge on merit. (Most of them find their own syndication deals or, like Lyons, eventually go freelance.) The game is pleasing the bosses, and since the names on the doors are constantly changing, this is not easy.
Cohen is not a great writer. He hasn’t been a reporter for decades. He is where he is for bureaucratic reasons, as are most "liberal" columnists. (The great majority of newspaper chain owners are, and always have been, conservative.)
The Bush Administration has taken advantage of this predeliction in order to get what it wanted. But what it wanted was wrong for the country. So Cohen feels under personal attack from "a mob" for what someone else did.
Well, he’s wrong. It’s not a mob. The quality of real journalism
performed today in the left blogopshere far exceeds — in quality and
quantity — anything being done at any news desk in America. The fact
is the profession has passed Cohen by.
It’s not about the greasy pole anymore. It’s about getting in there and
digging. It’s about doing your job, not preening in front of a camera.
And Richard Cohen is too old a dog to learn these new tricks. Just when
he thought he should be at the pinnacle of his career, he finds himself
being taken down because the industry changed underneath him.
In business we have no pity for such people. They’re crushed underfoot and we move on.
That’s all Cohen deserves.
