WaPo’s Cohen: Thompson is no Reagan
I have nothing good to write for almost all of Washington Post’s columnists, well except maybe Novak and Krauthammer, but this clown Richard Cohen really writes some stupid crap sometimes. Take today’s column for instance; Can He Find His Motivation?
Cohen, who also wrote “Wasted Lives“, in which he said our troops were dying for nothing in Iraq and I criticized back in March, claims in this piece that Thompson shouldn’t be allowed to be President for this reason;
If Thompson’s name came up in some sort of free-association game, he would be a genuine stumper: Thompson and what? There is no Thompson Act, Thompson Compromise, Thompson Hearing, Thompson Speech or Thompson Anything that comes to mind. No living man can call himself a Thompsonite. Instead, Thompson came and went from the Senate as if he were never there, leaving only the faint scent of ennui. “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life up here,” he once said. “I don’t like spending 14- and 16-hour days voting on ‘sense of the Senate’ resolutions on irrelevant matters.” As a call to action, this lacks a certain something.
So because a man doesn’t want to be a career politician, he shouldn’t be allowed to be president, apparently. Cohen loves Obama, the man who has just two years in the Senate and doesn’t have any bills or compromises named for him, either. In fact, the only reason Cohen likes Obama, according to his column back on March 6th;
…it’s that he had something very important to say to black America. It has to do, I think, with the extraordinary promise of his candidacy.
Extraordinary promise. Thompson doesn’t have extraordinary promise, apparently. Only people who’ve been in the Senate two years have extraordinary promise.
Cohen continues on about Thompson;
Yet he indisputably lacks the passion, the concern, the fire-in-the-bellydom that Reagan had — not just for winning but about issues themselves. Thompson never showed that he was out to change matters, to right some major wrong, to fix the god-awful mess the country is in. I contrast him with a senator I recently chatted with who took virtually childlike delight in being a senator — being able, as he said, to be a player. He savored his power — as one of only 100. What a difference he could make!
The presidency is where a person can make the most difference. But the emergence of Thompson shows that a fatigued Republican Party is not interested in making any difference at all — just in hanging on. What commends Thompson to the presidency — the only thing anyone ever mentions — is his TV fame. If that’s all it takes, Thompson can look forward to being more than a president. He’ll be an American Idol.
I know this is a foreign concept to Democrats and Liberals who are looking for the “drama” of politics – Democrats who are always “fighting for” me, the little guy, the working man. Democrats who promise that they’ll “do the People’s work”. But maybe America is tired of all of those empty promises the Democrats are selling.
George W. Bush was elected because he was a leader, in the military, in business all before we went into politics – and given any situation, his reaction is fairly predictable because he has told us what he believes – and he does what he says he’ll do. That’s why Conservatives get mad everytime the president starts talking about something they oppose – they know he’ll do what he says he’ll do.
That’s what America needs – a leader – not some ridiculous figurehead who we can lift up as the First Black President or the First Woman President or the First Peace President. Yeah, I know how important empty symbols are to the Democrats – empty symbols of empty promises. But to the majority of Americans, we’re tired of the drama – we want a president who can lead the country effectively, not a symbol of our diversity or whatever idiotic platitude we’re regurgitating this election season.
That’s all Ronald Reagan did – he led the country effectively. The only time the actor in him came out was when he had to deal with partisan idiots like Cohen.
Another point in Thompson’s “plus column” is that he’ll probably never cheat on his wife;
