Cohen’s arguments in column fall apart

Richard Cohen’s Oct. 2 column would be so fatuous as to provoke laughter if it weren’t so mendacious in its “facts.” Cohen says, “McCarthyism consisted of slippery truths, unfounded allegations and wild accusations.” While Joseph McCarthy was an unsympathetic figure and an unlikeable man, he was absolutely correct in his contention that a large number of communists had infiltrated the U.S. government at the highest levels. The release of the Venona papers in 1995 made this irrefutably clear. Those unfamiliar with the Venona project can Google it.

Cohen, in defending Obamacare, refers to our health care system as the most dysfunctional in the Western world. Really? I wonder which country Mr. Cohen would choose to travel to if he had a serious medical condition.

Then Cohen invokes arguably the most egregiously ignorant member of the Senate, Barbara Boxer, to mount a critique of one if its most brilliant members, Ted Cruz. This is a woman who is so ignorant of military and congressional protocol that she rebuked a brigadier general for calling her “ma’am.” This is a woman who said, “Those who survived the San Francisco earthquake said, ‘Thank God, I’m still alive.’ But, of course, those who died, their lives will never be the same again.” In 2010, the left-leaning Los Angeles Times refused to endorse Boxer in the primary election, saying, “On the Democratic side, we find that we’re no fans of incumbent Barbara Boxer. She displays less intellectual firepower or leadership than she could.”

Cohen’s anti-Cruz rant shows that he, many liberals and many “moderate” Republicans are fearful of the honesty, courage and dedication to the Constitution of Ted Cruz.

Martin Robinson

Prospect Heights