Richard Cohen is the dumbest motherfucker alive. After spending the first half of his column excoriating Obama for his rejection of public financing (again - a decision which, in our Elite Pundit world, was an utterly monumental blow to his credibility and for the people that are actually going to determine the next president was barely a blip on the radar), Cohen then lapses into some sort of ritualized he-man worship which I’m sure included references to sweat-soaked fatigues and a rainy night in the sexiest barracks ever in the original version.
In some recent magazine articles, I and certain of my colleagues have been accused of being soft on McCain, forgiving him his flips, his flops and his mostly conservative ideology. I do not plead guilty to this charge, because, over the years, the man’s imperfections have not escaped my keen eye. But, for the record, let’s recapitulate: McCain has either reversed himself or significantly amended his positions on immigration, tax cuts for the wealthy, campaign spending (as it applies to use of his wife’s corporate airplane) and, most recently, offshore drilling. In the more distant past, he has denounced then embraced certain ministers of medieval views and changed his mind about the Confederate flag, which flies by state sanction in South Carolina only, I suspect, to provide Republican candidates with a chance to choose tradition over common decency. There, I’ve said it all.
No, actually, you haven’t. Declaring yourself correct before you actually make your point is generally considered bad form, even worse when you sloppily toss together a shitty case and fling it at nameless, faceless accusers.