Or maybe Richard Cohen has his head up his ass.

It's all but impossible not to hate people who are murdering your children or people who look just like them. Expecting anything like tollerance from the middle east at this point is a joke.

Ask any WW2 vet their opinion of Japanese folks, see if you get an enlightened answer. they were our enemies for 5 years. Jews have been the enemies of Middle Easterners for 60.

We have no comprehension of this situation, and should really butt out. I never see us admonish Israel of their very prevalent racism.

Is he the worst major columnist published today? Political stands aside… Krauthammer is nuts, Gerson is a partisan hack and a religious delusional, Douthat may eventually prove himself an even more painfully un-self-aware Freudian train wreck than Chris Matthews, but that unique combination of sanctimony, smarm, willful disregard for facts and infantile contrarianism, that il ne sait quoi that is Richard Cohen.... does anyone trump that?

Cohen is counting on his audience not having seen, heard nor read the speech for themselves. This is basic operating procedure for the Wingers' spreading of lies.

Perhaps he is a jackass. However, at least he is also reporting on Iran from Iran. That shows a little more courage than most in the media this week, and should give you pause.

If a tree falls in the forest, and Richard Cohen isn't paying attention, does it make a sound?

I think he means it wasn't the sole topic of Obama's speech> Perhaps if Obama had lectured Arabs about anti-Semitism for a whole hour, it would mean something to Cohen.
I don't know if he's the worst major columnist published today, but he's the most toolish this side of Cal Thomas.

I for one, have heard all I wish to hear about poor Israel and the poor Jews living there. Netanyahu is a right wing screwball who has no intention fo granting the Palestinians any dignity whatsoever, now or in any future, and Obama and Clinton are his lapdogs. For me the holocaust is part of the past, not the indefinite present and future. Screw the zionists ! It's high time for the US to start acting in the middle east according to what is good for American interests and not those of the Israelis, unless the benefits of doing so happen to coincide.

Richard Cohen is a lazy, incompetent hack.

During the 2000 presidential campaign, he devoted an entire column to criticizing remarks that Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Lieberman had made in a speech about the role of faith in politics.

It turned out that the speech in question had actually been given by Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush.

The following week, a one-sentence "correction" was appended to Cohen's column.

And many of Cohen's columns since then -- including the one that Steve Benen is writing about here -- have been written on equally bogus premises.

Wasn't Obama the first President ever to visit Buchenwald? (Or first in a long, long time?). That alone, along with his speech and with allowing Elie Wiesel to speak, said so much IMO.

I continue to be amazed at the use of the phrase "anti-Semitic" to mean "racist against Jews." The entire Middle East is composed of Semitic cultures and languages. Calling the entirety of the Middle East, aside from Israel, "anti-Semitic" is incredibly bizarre. You might consider it the other way around, though. It's really the Israeli hardliners who appear to be "anti-Semitic," in that they appear to have a basic revulsion for all non-Jewish Semitic peoples. This terminology really needs to be updated. What people really mean here is "anti-Jew," but they keep it intentionally vague to paper over the fact that they use it to bludgeon anyone who disagrees with crazed right-wing Israelis - a group which, incidentally, includes a lot of moderate and liberal Israelis and Jews throughout the civilized world. Anti-Semitic indeed.

When American Jews enact an effective program for combating anti-Arab, anti-Muslim bigotry in temples and other Jewish organizations, I will be happy to recommend it to Arab countries.

>I continue to be amazed at the use of the phrase "anti-Semitic" to mean "racist against Jews."

Anti-Semitic means anti-Jew. Any other use of the term or pretending that another use exists is simply lying or stupidity. Read the wikipedia article for info on how the term was made up by Judeophobes to refer to their hatred of Jews.

re: "Read the wikipedia article for info on how the term was made up by Judeophobes to refer to their hatred of Jews ... "
Do you get all of your authoritative information about the world through Wikipedia ?

Richard Cohen: demented, chinless beaver.

Seriously, go look at a photo of the man.

Main Entry: Sem•ite
Pronunciation: 'se-"mIt, esp British 'sE-"mIt
Function: noun
Etymology: French sémite, from Semitic Shem, from Late Latin, from Greek SEm, from Hebrew ShEm
Date: 1848
1 a : a member of any of a number of peoples of ancient southwestern Asia, including the Akkadians, Phoenicians, Hebrews, and Arabs
b : a descendant of these peoples

-- peoples of ancient southwestern Asia, including the Akkadians, Phoenicians, Hebrews, and Arabs --

Yeah, Cohen has its head up its ass, and doesn't know anything about the language it professes to speak.

First there were the wingnuts who said Obama never mentioned democracy, and now this guy.

Seems like people of every stripe didn't hear what they wanted not to hear.

Obama is a political genius who is revealing the entrenched thinking of many corners of our body politic.

Oh, and as to "anti-semitic," words mean exactly what the most people take them to mean. That's why words are "communication." Regardless of the dictionary definition of "semite," the word "anti-semite" refers to someone who is against the jewish people. The derivation of words is interesting but not really elucidating.

Richard Cohen is an imbecile who does not do the necessary research for anything he writes. It's affirmative action for lazy morons, as far as I can tell. It's really just appalling that he has a column in any newspaper.

Anti-Semitic means anti-jew, 100% of the time. Anyone saying otherwise has an agenda, or they are being sophistic in their reasoning from the etymology. Words drift from their "logical" meaning, sometimes even inverting meanings completely, like "fulsome" or even "bad" in slang usage.

Angry Vet--

You have your Cohens confused. NYT Columnist Roger Cohen is providing valuable reporting from Iran; Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen has provided nothing valuable for years.

Or perhaps Cohen is a goddamn liar; whoring himself out to the people who sign his paychecks. But it would be impolite and shrill for Steve to say so.

Or perhaps Cohen has simply lost three or four feet off his fastball. Too bad; 20 or 30 years ago he was really good, and if you don't believe me, ask Eric Alterman.

Quite seriously: I know mandatory retirement ages are discriminatory and weed out the good with the bad, but mandatory retirement at 65 would rid WaPo of Cohen, Will, and Broder immediately, and Robert Samuelson in two years. Can't be all bad.

"Anti-Semitic means anti-jew, 100% of the time. Anyone saying otherwise has an agenda, or they are being sophistic in their reasoning from the etymology."

The problem with your assertion is that the word "Semitic" is still used to mean exactly what it means. It's not like that word has fallen into disuse otherwise, so saying I'm appealing to etymology is a bit silly.

And the term "anti-Semitic" is intentionally vague and is often used by people who "have an agenda." An example of such an agenda is to make the Israeli right wing seem like a much larger and more victimized group of people than it actually is.

But I did not mean to sidetrack the conversation, in any case. It's just that the absurdity of that intentionally vague term comes into focus when you're talking about the entire Arab world being "anti-Semitic." Especially when what you actually mean is that they want their own right to life, liberty and property acknowledged, instead of only the rights of Israelis.

And I don't particularly have an agenda in saying this, except perhaps to appeal for more accurate terminology in hopes that we could have a more rational discussion about the Middle East. If anything positive is really going to happen, new rhetoric will be required. People should be held to a higher standard. They should say what they mean, not what we all "know" they mean.

according to many, there can NEVER be a shortage of antisemitism exclamations when talking about the M-E, no matter how much antisemitism is actually discussed.
'

The Answer Is Green - languages are silly, they are illogical and irrational. Semite means a large group of people that includes Jews and Arabs. Anti-Semitic means anti-Jewish. That's just how it is.

I guess you have a point in that better rhetoric would be helpful in resolving the problems of the Middle East, but there's a whole bundle of gigantic problems there. I think your point is mostly a distraction. I certainly agree that the accusation of anti-Semitism is used as an argument by itself, which is rarely helpful.

Little Dickie Cohen is a lousy lay.

And he wears Margaret Carlson's spectacles.

And the term "anti-Semitic" is intentionally vague and is often used by people who "have an agenda."

The term itself is not vague -- "anti-Semitic" has been used to mean "anti-Jewish" for about a century. What's vague is when people use "anti-Semitic" when they really mean "anti-Israel" and try to conflate any criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. It's not the fault of the term, it's the fault of the people playing games with the clear meaning of the term.

perhaps Cohen has simply lost three or four feet off his fastball.

One might lose 3 or 4 miles per hour off your fastball, thereby making it easier to hit--losing 3 or 4 feet would mean you're pitching underground :)

What's vague is when people use "anti-Semitic" when they really mean "anti-Israel"

What's positively insidious is when people use "anti-Semitic" when they really mean "critical at all of Likudnik policy."

There's much more debate over issues like settlements and Israel's stance toward its neighbors in Israel itself than there is here, where anything short of reflexive support of anything Israel does, whether it's in Israel's interest at all, let alone that of the United States, is dubbed "anti-Semitic" or at best "anti-Israel."

Hell, David Brooks tried to claim that merely pointing out the neocon's Likudnik foreign policy objectives -- objectives the neocons themselves boast of -- is anti-Semitic, the jackass.