Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Richard Cohen Explodes Hackiness Bomb All Over Newt Gingrich

I apologize in advance for any distress the above image may cause.

This is how Richard Cohen works: week after week he writes dumb, boring columns and gets paid wheelbarrows full of money by the Washington Post for being, as Pony Pal™ Alex Pareene puts it so well, completely inessential on any given topic, and it's easy to ignore him because... well, because he's so boring and dumb. And then, out of nowhere, he'll pen an opinion piece so hacky and idiotic that it's impossible to resist. Like today. Welcome back, Richard!

This time Richard levels his withering (or at least withered) gaze upon Newt Gingrich, and he's in full-on "cutesy ha-ha" mode. His very first sentence ("A Post feature — The Fact Checker — is possibly the most powerful force for good since Clark Kent encountered a phone booth.") is such a poorly handled metaphor that it's breathtaking (I'm pretty sure Clark Kent had superpowers long before he ever "encountered a phone booth"). He then spends two paragraphs –two whole paragraphs!– simultaneously defending and criticizing the New York Times' worst-ever film critic, Bosley Crowther, lazily using  examples picked right out of Wikipedia, before remembering that he was writing about Newt Gingrich and proceeding.

And then, of course, Cohen brings up Gingrich's adultery, because Cohen brings up adultery, one of the few subjects he knows anything about, every chance he gets, like clockwork,  because he just can't get over that one time he fooled around with Peter Jennings' wife and he, himself, was the subject of Washington gossip. Ah, the good old days.

Mostly, though, Cohen uses the column to point us to Glenn Kessler's writing on Gingrich, and really, we should be thankful that Richard is around to remind us that the Washington Post still employs at least one good writer. Because it sure isn't Richard Cohen.

9 comments:

Fran said...

That is pure photoshopped joy! Oh this is rich, rich rich!!

And I loved following the link to the video of Newt on CBN, but that is almost going off topic, so I better shut up and move along.

Back to the point, Richard Cohen - consistently redefining new lows in journalism!

Diane Griffin said...

The photoshop is both well done and creeepy. Cohen's forehead is so smoooooth.

There are so many more deserving writers. How does he keep his job?

Peteykins said...

That's always the big mystery, Diane.

I probably could have spent half-an-hour more to make the picture a lot better, but it serves its purpose.

Matthew Hubbard said...

Cohen's skin care regimen is better than Callista's. But with her, it's all about the hair, isn't it?

You are 100% correct about the Clark Kent metaphor. He could have gone with a Hal Jordan/Green Lantern metaphor which would have been so much better AND shown the young people he's "hip" to the new motion pictures playing at the kinescope.

Anonymous said...

This is actually an improvement on Callista's real looks. Now, can we do something about Newt?

Frank said...

Richard Cohen could only dream of looking like the geometric perfection that is Callista.

I still marvel that RICHARD COHEN was at the center of a "sexy" "scandal." How hard up was Peter Jennings' poor wife that he was the best she could do for adultery?

samael7 said...

He was the "other man" once? Wow. Humans. Go figure.

Glennis said...

This is so creepy and so good!

desertwind said...

Apology NOT accepted.

Even cutting Richard Calista-Cohen out of the photo wouldn't help restore my sanity!