Shooting Fish In A Barrel

According to the WaPo's alleged liberal Richard Cohen Patrick Fitzgerald is a modern-day Stalin:

As Fitzgerald worked his wonders, threatening jail and going after government gossips with splendid pluck, many opponents of the Iraq war cheered. They thought -- if "thought" can be used in this context -- that if the thread was pulled on who had leaked the identity of Valerie Plame to Robert D. Novak, the effort to snooker an entire nation into war would unravel and this would show . . . who knows? Something. For some odd reason, the same people who were so appalled about government snooping, the USA Patriot Act and other such threats to civil liberties cheered as the special prosecutor weed-whacked the press, jailed a reporter and now will send a previously obscure government official to prison for 30 months.

This is precisely the sort of investigation that Jackson was warning about. It would not have been conducted if, say, the Iraq war had ended with 300 deaths and the mission had really been accomplished. An unpopular war produced the popular cry for scalps and, in Libby's case, the additional demand that he express contrition -- a vestigial Stalinist-era yearning for abasement. No one has yet explained, though, how Libby can express contrition and still appeal his conviction. No matter. Antiwar sanctimony excuses the inexplicable.

[...]

I don't expect George Bush to appreciate this. He is the privileged son of a privileged son, and he fears nothing except, probably, doubt. But the rest of us ought to consider what Fitzgerald has wrought and whether we are better off for his efforts. I have come to hate the war and I cannot approve of lying under oath -- not by Scooter, not by Bill Clinton, not by anybody. But the underlying crime is absent, the sentence is excessive and the investigation should not have been conducted in the first place. This is a mess. Should Libby be pardoned? Maybe. Should his sentence be commuted? Definitely.

I swear, the cocktail weenies in Georgetown must be drugged.

Anyway, this might very well be a new low for Cohen. Then again, he also wrote this:

On the contrary, I thought. We are a good country, attempting to do a good thing. In a post-Sept. 11 world, I thought the prudent use of violence could be therapeutic. The United States had the power to change things for the better, and those who would do the changing -- the fighting -- were, after all, volunteers. This mattered to me.

So regardless of the condition of Georgetown cocktail weenies this much is clear: Richard Cohen is seriously disturbed. I'd suggest he retire and take up woodworking as a hobby. Then again, he might accuse the drill-press of harboring Hitlerian fantiasies.

---

ADDED: Glenn Greenwald's take.

.

Comments

[Moe Dubreuil]

Scooter cannot be sprung without openly mocking the serious nature of sworn testimony.

Society does not owe Scooter.

He should apologize and serve his term, thereby salvaging something of his poor example.

[ozzie]

Maybe they're all smoking crack or something. I just don't get it. LOCK SCOOTER UP, NOW! He was convicted of obstruction of justice and perjury!!!

[JJF]

Cohen is so deluded on so many points it would be bad enough if he were just an exception. But his thinking perfectly represents the conventional wisdom of the beltway types. And to top it off, he's considered a liberal. What strange times we live in.

Then there's this: "I thought the prudent use of violence could be therapeutic." That's nothing if not sheer madness. People who say things like that get locked up and can't play with sharp objects. How did this guy get a column in one of the most influential papers in the country?

[Captain Goto]

[sigh]

[Alan in SF]

Perhaps the prudent use of violence upon Ric...no, I'm not gonna go there. But it's tempting.

[VictorLaszlo]

"How did this guy get a column in one of the most influential papers in the country?"

He keep the war going, and he shields those responsible.

Your question suggests that you're clinging to the notion that a 'newspaper' is supposed to deliver 'news' - true accounts of world events.

Cohen is a shill for the MIC. His job is to cover their asses. He does it well, and his masters are happy with his performance.

Telling the truth and informing the public are not in his job description. As long as you keep imagining otherwise, you'll keep wondering why he has a job.

[jussumbody]

The "prudent use of violence" is theraputic? Talk about Hitlerian. Someone should send him to Iraq or Lebanon, where he could get some violence therapy to dislodge his smug, amoral head from his fat, saggy ass.