Mike-

Here's the pitch for Graydon:

The Richard Cohen piece would be fairly similar to the one I did on Thomas Friedman back in March; it would make the case that Cohen ought not to be taken seriously as a pundit insomuch as that he has a track record of making bizarre and self-contradictory arguments, attacking others for holding opinions that he himself has expressed elsewhere, and generally wasting the time of newspaper readers who could otherwise be getting their analysis and opinion from people who have been consistent in their arguments and correct in their predictions, such as Glenn Greenwald. I'll also make the larger point that Cohen and others like him are partly responsible for the decline of newspapers due to their inability to produce the level of insight that readers can now get for free from the many newly prominent writers (again, like Greenwald) who owe their followings to the quality of their output and not to their longevity as columnists.

Cohen's best-known failure is probably his 2003 assertion that "only a fool - or possibly a Frenchman" could be unconvinced by Colin Powell's testimony to the effect that Iraq retained weapons of mass destruction, but there are plenty of others to be found among his old columns. In November of 2008, for instance, he attacked those who claimed during the primaries that Hillary Clinton "lied about almost everything and could be trusted about almost nothing," calling this "a libel and a ferocious mugging of memory itself," but earlier in the year he himself had written that Clinton was "forever saying things I either don't believe or believe that even she doesn't believe," calling her "the personification of artifice." In 2006, he predicted trouble for Democrats in the upcoming election based on the fact that he had received a large number of angry e-mails from liberals who disagreed with him about whether or not Stephen Colbert's routine at the press club dinner had been funny. And throughout the Valerie Plame affair, he puts forth a stream of strange and inconsistent defenses of both Scooter Libby and Judith Miller that contradict both the known facts of the case and his own opinions on related issues expressed elsewhere.

Let me know if this interests you.

Thanks,

Barrett Brown
Brooklyn, NY
512-560-2302





On Fri, May 8, 2009 at 2:42 PM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:

Sure, I'll send in that pitch soon.


On Fri, May 8, 2009 at 12:47 PM, Michael Hogan <Michael_Hogan@condenast.com> wrote:

Barrett,

I’d need to run the Cohen idea past Graydon Carter. Would you mind sending me a short pitch (3 grafs tops) with a couple of examples so I can forward that on?

Thanks and sorry for the delay on this.

Best,
Mike


On 4/23/09 8:58 PM, "Barrett Brown" <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:

Actually, let me get back to you on the O'Rourke piece when he puts out another article. In the meantime, I've been doing some research on Richard Cohen of the Washington Post for my second book, which deals with the general incompetence of mainstream columnists/pundits, and I've found quite a few incredible contradictions and failed predictions among his old columns, comparable in general ridiculousness to the stuff I found on Thomas Friedman. Would you be interested in a piece on Cohen and his failures as a pundit, along the same lines as the Friedman piece?

Thanks,

Barrett Brown
Brooklyn, NY
512-560-2302

On Wed, Apr 22, 2009 at 4:06 PM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:

Howdy-

The edit looks good. I'll expand on the O'Rourke a bit more for you when I get home this evening.

Thanks,

Barrett Brown
Brooklyn, NY
512-560-2302


On Wed, Apr 22, 2009 at 2:53 PM, Michael Hogan <Michael_Hogan@condenast.com> wrote:

Hey Barrett,

Here's a very light edit of the Conservaedia piece. (Try opening it in a
browser.) If it looks OK, let me know and we can post it tomorrow morning,
first thing.

Also, can you tell me a little more about the PJ O'Rourke thing?

Best,
Mike