Cohen Tries to Make Sense

by emptywheel

I deliberately avoided Richard Cohen's latest nonsense of the other day. But then watertiger sent me a tidbit from Cohen's online chat today (dirty trick, watertiger), and I got sucked in. First, let me start with this passage:

Boston: If Bush felt he needed to respond to Wilson, why not do it openly, on-the-record, based on the merits?

Richard Cohen: Good question. I'm not sure Bush was involved in this at all, but in general I agree.

"I'm not sure Bush was involved in this at all." Well maybe, Cohen, that's why you shouldn't write about this case. Because you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. You see, evidence submitted at the trial made it clear that on June 9, Bush got involved. And later, on July 10, Condi passed on that "Bush is comfortable." Not to mention the fact that Dick Cheney claims to have asked Bush to declassify Plame's identity the NIE. If Cheney did, in fact, have Bush unilaterally declassify Plame's identity the NIE, I'd say that means he was involved.

Okay. Now that we've established Richard Cohen has no fucking clue what he's talking about (and therefore all his claims that there was no underlying crime appear to be based on him talkingouttahisarse), here's the bit watertiger sent me:

I don't quarrel with the jury. In fact, let me just say that my own reading of the trial was that he was guilty. I don't believe that he forgot. But I do believe that while it is impermissible for anyone to lie to a grand jury -- I'm not quarreling with that -- I'm just saying that when you get called before a grand jury and you are a target, there ought to be a crime involved. More than that, in this government, in our government, we ought to make sure that the basis of it is not a political disagreement.

Consider the logic here. Cohen is suggesting that nothing pertaining to political disagreement should ever go before a grand jury. Leak a CIA NOC's identity because you "disagree" with a political opponent? Shouldn't go before a grand jury. Steal the records from a political opponent's shrink's office? Shouldn't go before a grand jury. Kill you political opponent? Shouldn't go before a grand jury.

To be fair, Cohen's not making that argument--he does refer to Sirica sniffing out a cover-up in Watergate, so presumably he thought the burglary was worthy of grand jury investigation. But the point is--there's no clear line here. If you can't do the investigation to determine if there is a cover-up, how are you going to know if there's a set of plumbers behind the "political disagreement"? And for what it's worth, as Libby faces down 30 months we may yet find the plumbers in this case (in the form of Hohlt and Duberstein), so perhaps Cohen should either stop writing about something he knows nothing about, or allow justice to work.

Boy, I should never read Richard Cohen. Just not worth my time.

Comments

[Ishmael]

Two points for Mr. Cohen - if Cohen isn't sure that Bush was involved, why did Bush get his own (private) legal counsel that would allow him to avail himself of solicitor-client privilege, instead of relying on the White House Counsel? (OK, I know if my ass was on the line I might not want to rely on Gonzales' legal advice either, but I'm sure the lack of s/c privilege was the reason Bush went with private counsel). Second, Cohen seems to be bemoaning the setting of perjury traps as a political weapon - something I would agree was the case in the Clinton case, where not only was there no underlying crime, there was no underlying TORT! (the Paula Jones sexual harassment case was dismissed on summary judgment - there was no "there" there). In this case, not so much. The "no underlying crime" argument seems to be to have application beyond poor Scooter's case - in U.S. v. Nixon, one of the grounds for breaching "executive privilege" is the existence of a criminal case, and I think that the Watergate veteran Fred Fielding is thinking a couple of moves ahead here to protect the White House - if it is also a useful Libby talking point, that's a bonus, but not the real argument.

[Jodi]

emptywheel,

maybe you should take a break from this if it is causing you such distress.

And whether Cohen is correct or not, he has a right to his opinion, and the right to express it, just as any blogger has a right to do the same.

[John Forde]

Jodi! His opinion is not the issue. He does not know the facts and repeatedly misstates the facts.

[TeddySanFran]

Yeah, this was a really painful one-two punch: column, then chatz. Can't imagine what prompted the latter -- the column's one hundred and five pages of comments, about ten per page, maybe? The guy is hopelessly out of his depth. I've compared the column to the chat all day, and it just hurts how dumb he is.

[alabama]

More to the point, Jodi, he's a partisan of Libby's. And who are Libby's partisans? I have no trouble citing, once again, the very obvious name of Marc Rich, and all that it designates in the political sphere. In other words, I take Cohen's support for Libby as a sign that he's in bed with AIPAC, and I don't like AIPAC at all.

Do you?

[Bluetoe]

Marcy, spot on. OT but, I recently spoke to you about doing something at a local bookstore in Mason. I talked with the owner and she would be delighted if we could set something up. It's important that a wider audience is informed on the criminality of this Administration.

[carlos]

Exactly what I felt. I rarely write letters but late night Tuesday (one of the great things about living on the west coast is that the day's news comes early for us, like the evening before) I wrote the bastard basically what you posted: sadly irrelevant and not worth the time to even argue because he's so uninformed, even for a beltway pundit. Keep up the great work madam. You rock!

[Rayne]

Jodi, emptywheel is entitled to her dissenting opinion; you are not entitled to shut her down, however politely you think you tried to convey your STFU message.

And Cohen is absolutely NOT entitled to different facts. It's beyond propaganda, which his op-ed and commentary both attempt; propaganda merely skews facts to fit a particular message, which the Office of the Vice President and/or Libby's cohort are eager to promote.

Cohen's use of different facts (read: falsehoods) isn't just propaganda. It's lying. Can you refute it? Or are you merely going to continue to attack the blogger who's pointing out the truth?

[earlofhuntingdon]

Please don't let EW read the rest of Mr. Cohen's rant. He griped about answering a question from an "anonymous" questioner. (On his employer's website, which doesn't have a field for submitting a name with your question.) I guess that means Mr. Cohen feels courageous when, taking down a high six or seven-figure income and having the WaPoo to back him up, he signs his own name to his "work".

More fun than that was his bashing Fitz for besmirching the integrity of journalists and for making it harder for them to keep their sources secret. He forgets that Mr. Libby could have prevented Ms. Miller's enforced 85-day celibacy and sobriety by simply telling the truth to the grand jury.

Lil' Scoot and Big Dick used a willing press to cover up their own wrongdoing. They abused its ability to protect a source from unjust retaliation in order to keep their lies off the front page and their asses out of jail. Novacula and Ms. Miller were eager participants; they sold their integrity the same way the ladies pay the rent by selling theirs on 15th and M. Across the street, as it happens, from the WaPoo's main office.

At heart, I think Mr. Cohen is just scared that if EW and Jane H. keep this up for long, he'll have to get off his bar stool and learn to be a reporter again.

[Phoenix Woman]

Game, set and match to Emptywheel!

[Neil]

[E]vidence submitted at the trial made it clear that on June 9, Bush got involved. And later, on July 10, Condi passed on that "Bush is comfortable."

...Dick Cheney claims to have asked Bush to declassify Plame's identity the NIE. If Cheney did, in fact, have Bush unilaterally declassify Plame's identity the NIE, I'd say that means he was involved.

I don't think Jodi's up to debating these facts but maybe Tom Maguire will drop in for a little speculation...

[Neil]

EW, I'm glad you posted on Cohen just the same and I think your thesis on Curbing the Imperial Presidency is formidable analysis, and once again dead on.

I'm taken with Cohen's phrase "there ought to be a crime involved."

Cohen believes there was no crime. If he accepted [what I consider as fact because people who know have said so] Plame's identify was classified and she was in the employ of the CIA operating under non-official cover, then one would have to believe there was an underlying crime and that Fitzgerald chose - for good reason under the authority of prosecutorial discretion - to not charge the underlying crime. The most obvious reason for which is that Libby's lies concealed the facts.

Is that so hard? Why do people like Cohen and Jodi and Thompsen and Romney fail to understand the principles of federal prosecutors, grand jury secrecy, not discussing people not indicted and the reasons therefor?

[P J Evans]

Why do people like Cohen and Jodi and Thompsen and Romney fail to understand the principles of federal prosecutors, grand jury secrecy, not discussing people not indicted and the reasons therefor?

Cohen, Thompson and Romney are gossips and legal illiterates. They're totally clueless about the need for secrecy, and if they have, for some reason, gotten clearances, those should be revoked.

[flounder]

I think the most glaring omission from any of the Libby coverage that I have seen lately is the timeframe under which it occurred. These D.C. types seem to be completely oblivious of the fact that there was a Presidential election going on at the exact same time Libby et al. were trying to slow roll the investigative process. When you look at the context of Pat Roberts splitting the Intelligence Committee's pre-war intelligence report into smaller and smaller portions, and the Admin. leaning on the NYT to suppress a damaging story about warrantless spying, it is pretty clear that this crime wasn't just some goof up of politics that occurred in a vacuum like the talking heads make it out to be.

[*xyz]

OT - YearlyKos is coming up soon. I hope a lot of TNH commenters will be able to make it!

If you are still undecided, I strongly encourage you to go ahead and make your reservations now.

[JPL]

Concise and to the point. I tried to read his opinion piece yesterday several times and was still confused. Thanks for explaining it all..

[litigatormom]

I wrote on a comment on Cohen's column the night it went up on the web, I was so astonished by the ignorance. It was possibly even worse than David Broder's attempt to compare Harry Reid to Abu G. But the live chat yesterday was really beyond the pale. He doesn't know why Libby lied, but he's sure it was inadvertent? That sounds awfully like Abu G's "I don't know how the decisions were made, but I know they were not made for improper reasons." Hey, I'm just a columnist for one of the country's leading papers. Hey, I'm just the Attorney General. I don't need no stinkin' facts to know that me and my friends did nothing wrong!

The title of your next book, Marcy, ought to be "Willful Blindness, a/k/a 'Lying.'"

[desertwind]

Anyone else notice how Jodi's "voice" is in constant flux? Almost like three different personalities trying to get out...

[ab initio]

Why do people like Cohen and Jodi and Thompsen and Romney fail to understand the principles of federal prosecutors, grand jury secrecy, not discussing people not indicted and the reasons therefor?

Neil, they do understand. They however chose not to since it does not fit in with their propaganda and spin. Its always one way when it comes to their ilk but the exact same scenario with anyone else will have just the opposite response. So in the case of Clinton, perjury for a non-crime (the Paula Jones case was thrown out by a court) it is an impeachable offense. But when its Scooter and Shooter outing a CIA NOC and lying to a grand jury to prevent the investigation from proceeding and a jury convicting its all a miscarriage of justice.

Hypocrisy and shame? The wingnuts are full of one and feel none of the other.

[J. Thomason]

Gollum too had the trouble of multiple voices accompanying moral dissolution, he did though to his credit, try to keep up.

[Frank Probst]

Can anyone explain why Cohen thinks that Fitz was appointed because the lib-ruhls demanded it? Memo to Richard: Fitz was appointed because the FBI thought that Libby and Rove were lying to them. The FBI and the DOJ finally convinced Ashcroft to recuse himself from the case, and James Comey (also not a lib-ruhl) appointed Fitz. Speaking for the liberals, I can say that we're glad that Libby was brought to justice, but this has been a Republican show from start to finish. The only liberals or Democrats involved are Libby's lawyers.

[marksb]

To be fair, Cohen's not making that argument--he does refer to Sirica sniffing out a cover-up in Watergate, so presumably he thought the burglary was worthy of grand jury investigation.

I'm willing to bet a nice fat keg of Santa Barbara Blond that if the burglary happened today, there'd be a hue and cry among the DC weenie crowd that there was no actual crime committed, since it was obviously political and the Democrats were doing much the same thing (at some point, like in 1960 in Chicago or some other time in Cleveland, or in Louisiana or something else they'd pull out of their asses.) It’s easy to talk about Nixon ‘cause it makes them seem balanced, reasonable, and lawful---“IF this were an actual crime, like the Watergate burglary, of course that would be a different story and we’d support an investigation and indictment. But…” etc.

We think balance and honesty and the rule of law; they think whatever the fig they need to do---lie, cheat, steal, kill---to get the job done.

[masaccio]

I sent in a question, and I am just stunned he didn't take it. The questions he did take were pretty good (not as good as mine), but all you get is repetition of the points in his column. As noted, someone got him to admit that Libby is guilty, guilty, guilty, but he apparently doesn't know what Libby is guilty of. Apparently, he can't get his mind around the possibility that someone might know more about this case than he does. For that matter, he can't imagine that anyone might be able to offer a better idea about anything. What a tool.

[Susan S]

litigatormom,
I agree with your comment about the live chat. Cohen was arrogant AND ignorant beyond belief. And maybe this is unfair, but in over an hour, he was only able to answer about six questions. It was more like an essay test than a chat. Maybe his brain is REALLY SLOW and that explains his wankery.

[Susan S]

Frank,
That's exactly the question I submitted.