Richard Cohen Bemoans Campaign Negativity He Helped Nurture Like a Rare Orchid

Oh, God, you'd think I'd have learned by now to stay away from the Washington Post on Tuesdays. But, sadly, I didn't, so it's Richard Cohen time again. Ew. And this time the urge to punch him in the face (with Photoshop!) surfaced instantly, midway through the first sentence:

Wherever I go -- from glittering dinner party to glittering dinner party -- the famous and powerful people I meet (for such is my life) tell me how lucky I am to be a journalist in this the greatest of all presidential contests. I tell them, for I am wont to please, that this campaign is indeed great when, as history will record, it is not. I have come to loathe the campaign.

This is called meta-irony: Cohen is kinda joking about the glittering dinner parties and famous and powerful people, but also kinda bragging about them at the same time. You can't have your glittering cake and eat it, too, Richard! But then, oh no, here we go:

I loathe above all the resurgence of racism -- or maybe it is merely my appreciation of the fact that it is wider and deeper than I thought.

He loathes the racism because he's so deep 'n' such, and his deep thoughts on the subject are even deeper than he, himself, imagined! Oh, really? And then the kicker:

I acknowledge that some people can find nonracial reasons to vote against Obama [...]

...immediately after which he mentions –wait for it– Louis Farrakhan! Again! Finally, though, at the end of his column, Cohen says something with which I wholeheartedly agee:

This is an ugly porridge that has been placed before us, turned rancid since the cold, pristine days of Iowa only five months ago.

Yes, a rancid porridge cooked, in part, by Richard Cohen. See? There's that meta-irony again!