Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Richard Cohen Thinks That Maybe This "Dick Cheney" Character is On to Something



Hmmm... do I rise to the bait again? After all, Richard's on to all of us blogger types:

Blogger Alert: I have written a column in defense of Dick Cheney.


He certainly has! So at the risk of falling into Cohen's trap...

Fuck it. This is, significantly, Cohen's third column (here's the first, the second) in defense and even praise of torture. Once again, without any evidence whatsoever, he claims that torture "works," but this time with the added contention that it has prevented "the deaths of thousands." Really? How does he know that? Because Dick Cheney said so! On the TV!

So why is Cohen so hot for torture? When was the twig bent? Cohen provides the answer:

Back in my college days, there was much late-night discussion about the "free man" -- not politically free, mind you, but free of bourgeois cultural restraints. (The once-important writer Jean Genet, a former petty criminal and prostitute, was often cited.)


Ah, Genet. That explains a lot. Genet once said that, "Insofar as [the Left] perpetuates Judeo-Christian kinds of reasoning and morality, I find myself incapable of identifying with it."

OK, Cohen is right; that does sound a lot like Cheney. But Cheney was always the jailer, never the prisoner. With whom would St. Jean side?

Next week: Richard Cohen defends germ warfare by quoting passages from Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

4 comments:

Cheryl said...

Maddening! I think people who believe in torture should be tortured. Wouldn't that be nice?!

dguzman said...

I find the idea of Cohen sitting around in his college days, having such "late-night discussion" about the thoughts of people like Genet, hilariously unlikely. I'm thinking it was more like Cohen, half-drunk and puffing on a tiparillo, pontificating to his idiotic friends in some kind of crypto-gay late-night intellectual jerk-off session.

Anonymous said...

The Protocols of the Elders of CohenHere's to the Post's Richard Cohen
He's smarter than Miss Lindsay Lohan.
"Bring back the thumbscrews!"
Especially for Jews?
"That Cheney, I'd just love to blow 'im!"

Bartman said...

Your photo must be at least 10 years old. Currently he has long white hair streaked with that yucky yellow color that only very old men acquire. It probably smells.