Articles filed under Cohen, Richard

• Symptoms of Benghazi Syndrome May 15, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Richard Cohen: In the end, it all comes down to an irrational and absolutely rabid dislike of Obama that so clouds judgment that utterly preposterous statements are uttered, usually within the precincts of the Fox News studios. This, as you might have guessed, is classic Benghazi Syndrome. There is no known cure.
  

   

• At a loss for words on Syria May 8, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Richard Cohen: It turns out that President Obama did not mean to say "red line" after all.
  

   

• Red lines as red herrings over Syria May 1, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Richard Cohen: President Obama is a latter-day Zeus. He throws these thunderbolts of diplomatic cease-and-desist orders with some regularity. He has called the use of chemical weapons by Syria a "red line," which is diplotalk for you'd better not. He said that if Damascus did use such weapons, it "would change (his) calculus." Months later, he calculated that Syria might not know what his calculus was, so he said WMD would be "totally unacceptable" and there would be, under such circumstances, "consequences."
  

   

• The serenity of George W. Bush Apr 24, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Richard Cohen: Maybe WMD will emerge from the Iraqi desert. Maybe all the economic data were wrong. In the meantime, George W. Bush is at ease with himself — always his gauge for right or wrong, smart or stupid. Among the many things he lacks is self-doubt. It is a gift.
  

   

• Congress’ gun solutions are missing the point Apr 16, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Richard Cohen: Washington is one big magic show. In black tie and tails, the Senate points to the bereaved parents of Newtown, Conn., where 20 children and six adults were shot to death. Then, while the audience is focused on the Newtown horror, senators vote to take up a bill that would do absolutely nothing to avoid such a tragedy.
  

   

• Rethinking the death penalty in America Apr 10, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Richard Cohen: When it comes to the death penalty, the only thing the United States can do is plead the insanity defense. The rest of the advanced world has moved on, but America resolutely remains among the top five executioners — behind China, Iran and Iraq, and just ahead of Pakistan. In Colorado, prosecutors are seeking the death of James Holmes, the clearly insane young man who dyed his hair a vivid orange, allegedly killed 12 people at a midnight showing of “The Dark Knight Rises” and made no effort to escape. “Justice is death,” declared the prosecutor. The Taliban, I tell you, are among us.
  

   

• Our sordid history on gay marriage Apr 3, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Richard Cohen: We have all become political hacks. We are all engaged in the back and forth of politics, the jot or tittle of the process, the meaningless cable chatter of it all, the sameness of it all, be it conservative or liberal, so we lose sight of principle and of right and wrong. This is how we hardly noticed that basically all of American politics acquiesced in the demonization of gays and lesbians.
  

   

• The GOP’s primary problem Mar 27, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Richard Cohen: "The problem with the Republican Party is Republicans." This quote is taken not from the recent report of a Republican task force but from the mind of yours truly. It is, however, the message of the 97-page "Growth & Opportunity Project" report, which urges the party to get with the program (the 21st century) on gays, immigration, corporate greed and even same-sex marriage. The report was written by five important moderate Republicans who would like the GOP to be more like themselves. It ain't going to happen.
  

   

• Needed: A U.S. policy on Syria Mar 19, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Richard Cohen: The Obama administration's fear of blowback in Syria — weapons falling into the hands of jihadists and other bad guys — can be avoided in only one sure way: Throw America's support behind Bashar al-Assad, the vile dictator the White House wants gone.
  

   

• FDR’s moral failure Mar 12, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Richard Cohen: Back in 1945, my mother thought a god had died. We know now he was just a man, not so great as he once appeared. Increasingly and deservingly, his reputation is being consumed by the very Holocaust he ignored.
  

   

• Water cooler springs innovation Mar 6, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Richard Cohen: We can assume that the data-driven Marissa Mayer studied the data and algorithmed everything in sight — before deciding that Yahoo employees would henceforth cease telecommuting and report to the office.
  

   

• When doing nothing is a policy Feb 27, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Richard Cohen: In the movie "Lawrence of Arabia," the attempt to unite the Arabs comes apart in Damascus. Lawrence bangs on his desk with the butt of his gun to bring the assembly to order, but to no avail. Chaos erupts. Now something similar is happening in Syria.
  

   

• Love, alas, is all around us Feb 20, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Richard Cohen: I say goodbye and they pucker up. No! This is reserved for love and by love I mean real love, not the silly xoxo stuff that clutters the Internet with false, saccharine intimacy and emotion.
  

   

• The price of forsaking Syria Feb 12, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Richard Cohen: We finally have an Obama Doctrine: In a pinch, look the other way.
  

   

• Courage of their convictions Feb 6, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Richard Cohen: Imagine six former directors of the CIA talking with a distinguished filmmaker and confessing to the murder of two terrorism suspects, ordering the assassination of others, alleging a lack of real leadership by the president and stating to the camera and the entire world that the war in Afghanistan is an unconscionable botch — a bloody, daily slog without end or justification. This, of course, could never happen in the United States. It did, though, in Israel.
  

   

• On torture, a debate we need Jan 31, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Richard Cohen: A foggy position of confusion and ambiguityabout the use of torture has been largely missing from the debate over the film "Zero Dark Thirty." Everyone seems so sure of everything.
  

   

• The necessity to act in Syria Jan 22, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Richard Cohen: Wars can change over time. The one in Syria certainly has. It has gone from a war of choice to a war of necessity that President Obama did not choose to fight. A mountain of dead testifies to his mistake.
  

   

• The debacle of the gun control debate Jan 17, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Richard Cohen: The Second Amendment is more strictly interpreted than even the First. (You can't yell fire in a crowded theater, but you can bring a gun into it.) The guy who thought armed Jews could have prevented the Holocaust is the fringe no longer. Now, it's the rest of us.
  

   

• The tarring of Chuck Hagel Jan 9, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Richard Cohen: There is nothing nominee Churck Hagel has said about Israel that is not routinely said in the Israeli press on a daily basis. Trust me: By The Wall Street Journal's standards, Israeli media would be deeply anti-Semitic.
  

   

• Republicans adrift Jan 6, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Richard Cohen: Now, it is conservatism that is both intellectually exhausted and nearly indefensible. It is the movement of the ideologically ossified, of gun zealots and homophobes, of the immigrant-phobic and the adamantly selfish. It insists that government must be small (an impossibility!), education must be local (a stupidity), and that debt, no matter what the reason, is immoral and reckless.