Doug Ross @ Journal

Void left at WaPo befits Richard Cohen's Legacy

The sardonic Mediacratic punchline known as Richard Cohen cracked wise again this week with a new comedic gem: "Void left at ground zero befits Bush legacy". I'll save you the effort of reading Cohen's latest humorous excretion; here's a thorough and complete synopsis in only four bullet points:

1) Osama still loose.
2) Rummy* bad.
3) Bush legacy: Osama still loose.
4) Bush bad.

*An official requirement of the job for any Far Left Op-Ed columnist is to continually refer to SecDef Rumsfeld as "Rummy"

Cohen's comedic genius is evident precisely by what he doesn't say. Imagine an op-ed piece about a Presidential Legacy and Osama Bin Laden without mentioning Bill Clinton! The first WTC attack... the total of eight Al Qaeda attacks on the U.S. under Clinton's watch... the AQ recruiting poster represented by Mogadishu... the vicious rise of extremist terror... leaving the aggregate mess for President Bush represented by the worst attacks in U.S. history... and it's all Bush's legacy!

And talk about Bush's legacy: knocking terrorist cells for a loop... taking the war directly to the crossroads of terrorism... preventing a repeat attack (against all odds)... destroying the Clinton-era AQ Kahn nuclear parts network... bringing Libya back from the brink without a shot fired... setting the stage for a real long-term solution to the Middle East's malignant problems by promoting democracy... in other words, the possibility of a Reagan-esque legacy for George W. Bush (and, yes, Cohen was completely wrong about Reagan as well).

So Cohen's droppings regarding the Bush legacy omit the two key related concepts: that of Clinton's treatment of terrorism as a trifling law-enforcement problem; and Bush's aggressive pursuit of a war on terror and Democracy-building on a historical scale (and an approach, mind you, where no plausible alternatives other than shrieking, "Retreat! And bury our heads in the sand and hope terrorism goes away!" have been proposed by the Democratic party).

And that's precisely what Cohen pulls off... it's comedy gold, Richard, gold!

How else to interpret Cohen's meanderings other than as comedy? For if it's not satire, one could only interpret these droppings as the bitter echoes of a Democratic Party press release. And I'm just not jaded enough to interpret it that way.