PrintMarch 15, 2011
A liberal comes to terms with Obama's failure
Richard Cohen is a left-leaning columnist for the Washington Post and other newspapers. Mr. Cohen's daughter and 258 other daughters and son and parents and children were murdered by Moammar Gadhafi, who ordered the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.
Only now, when it is possible for the United States to assist in toppling Gadhafi and in bringing about a well-deserved hangman's justice for the thousands of his murder victims, does Cohen discover that Barak Obama is a "muddle puddle" of weakness.
Disgusted as he is with Obama, Mr. Cohen, a journalist and commentator who urged America to make the feeble and indecisive Obama Commander-in-Chief, cannot come to grips with his own culpability. Justice will be denied his daughter and Gadhafi's other victims because Obama is president. The moment Cohen has been years waiting for will not come.
Reading this, aside from my sorrow at learning of a man's loss of a child, something else struck me.
A liberal will only say "kill the son-of-a-bitch" when his own child is the victim of murder.
A conservative will say "kill the son-of-a-bitch" when anyone's child is the victim of murder.
Update from Cliff Thier:
I am mistaken. Columnist Richard Cohen was not Theodora Cohen's father.
Reading Richard Cohen's column on Gadhafi and the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, I concluded that he was.
An American Thinker reader has set the record straight. I apologize to readers for have given them the wrong information.
Since then, I have read and reread Richard Cohen's column and am greatly perplexed why he would imply that she was his daughter. And imply, he does.
He does this three times.
On Dec. 21, 1988, Moammar Gadhafi killed Theodora Cohen. That's one way of putting it.
Obama and Gadhafi are a mismatch. The president is a thinker; Gadhafi is a killer. Unless Obama and the West do something, there's a bloodbath coming. Just ask the Cohens. Gadhafi killed their daughter.
Which "Cohens" if not Richard and his wife?
Why not make it clear by including the standard clarifier "(no relation)"? Richard Cohen had three opportunities to do that. And, at the end he could have said "Just ask Daniel and Susan Cohen."
Cohen was one of 259 passengers and crew on Pan Am Flight 103. I remember her for obvious reasons and also because, to paraphrase the writer Erich Maria Remarque, the death of one woman is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic.
There were 258 other people on that plane. Why mention this woman by name if not to mislead readers that he had a personal relationship with this particular victim so as to gain sympathy and credibility for what he writes?
There is no doubt in my mind that Richard Cohen meant to imply that he was this woman's father.
In every one of the dozens of news reports and opinion pieces that I read last week about NPR, every author made it clear that Ron Schiller and Vivian Schiller are not related.
Every last one. http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/03/10/134388981/npr-ceo-vivian-schiller-resigns
I believe that Richard Cohen wanted readers to believe that he had suffered great personal lose so that his opinion on this topic would have greater weight and credibility. He was expropriating another man's loss and pain for his own purposes.
American Thinker readers can reread Richard Cohen's piece and decide for themselves.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/565887/201103141822/President-Turns-Prudence-Into-Procrastination.htm
Update from Cliff Thier:
I am mistaken. Columnist Richard Cohen was not Theodora Cohen's father.
Reading Richard Cohen's column on Gadhafi and the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, I concluded that he was.
An American Thinker reader has set the record straight. I apologize to readers for have given them the wrong information.
Since then, I have read and reread Richard Cohen's column and am greatly perplexed why he would imply that she was his daughter. And imply, he does.
He does this three times.
On Dec. 21, 1988, Moammar Gadhafi killed Theodora Cohen. That's one way of putting it.
Cohen was one of 259 passengers and crew on Pan Am Flight 103. I remember her for obvious reasons and also because, to paraphrase the writer Erich Maria Remarque, the death of one woman is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic.What "obvious reasons?" The most obvious of all would be a family relationship.
Obama and Gadhafi are a mismatch. The president is a thinker; Gadhafi is a killer. Unless Obama and the West do something, there's a bloodbath coming. Just ask the Cohens. Gadhafi killed their daughter.
Which "Cohens" if not Richard and his wife?
Why not make it clear by including the standard clarifier "(no relation)"? Richard Cohen had three opportunities to do that. And, at the end he could have said "Just ask Daniel and Susan Cohen."
Cohen was one of 259 passengers and crew on Pan Am Flight 103. I remember her for obvious reasons and also because, to paraphrase the writer Erich Maria Remarque, the death of one woman is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic.
There were 258 other people on that plane. Why mention this woman by name if not to mislead readers that he had a personal relationship with this particular victim so as to gain sympathy and credibility for what he writes?
There is no doubt in my mind that Richard Cohen meant to imply that he was this woman's father.
In every one of the dozens of news reports and opinion pieces that I read last week about NPR, every author made it clear that Ron Schiller and Vivian Schiller are not related.
Every last one. http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/03/10/134388981/npr-ceo-vivian-schiller-resigns
I believe that Richard Cohen wanted readers to believe that he had suffered great personal lose so that his opinion on this topic would have greater weight and credibility. He was expropriating another man's loss and pain for his own purposes.
American Thinker readers can reread Richard Cohen's piece and decide for themselves.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/565887/201103141822/President-Turns-Prudence-Into-Procrastination.htm
