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Mission accomplished

Back in October of last year, this humble blog made a public service announcement.

As you may recall, we asked you to help this man:

Richard Cohen is running out of ways to be wrong. He has almost used them all up!  Of the twelve kinds of wrongness Aristotle describes in the Nicodeman Ethics (you remember, predictive, retrospective, substantive, distributive, boneheaded, etc.), Cohen has now employed eleven.  He has been wrong about things domestic and foreign, liberal and conservative, major and minor.

It’s not an overstatement to call this a national crisis of wrongness.  Unlike, say, the writers of Clownhall.com or Tech Central Station, Cohen does actual damage to the Republic with his compelling and influential wrongheadedness.  And in order for him to keep doing that damage, he needs to find new issues and events about which to be wrong.

(And check out the comment thread on that post!  One of the four funniest comment threads ever threaded on the Internets.)

Well, for once we have good news, people.  Richard Cohen has found yet another way to be wrong!  The final frontier!  There are no more lands to conquer!*

No, it’s not about Stephen Colbert qua Stephen Colbert.  Reasonable people can disagree about Colbert’s performance at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.  I personally thought it was a thing of beauty, a joy forever, like that Keats fellow once said.  But chacun à son goût, as we epistemological relativists say in our Frenchified “English” departments.  Rather, what makes Richard Cohen’s latest column so brilliantly, spectacularly wrong is its opening paragraph:

First, let me state my credentials: I am a funny guy. This is well known in certain circles, which is why, even back in elementary school, I was sometimes asked by the teacher to “say something funny”—as if the deed could be done on demand.

Quite apart from the performative contradiction involved in this paragraph, two things immediately come to mind—one tragic, one (appropriately) comic.  The comic one is this: do you remember that incredibly pompous doofus in seventh grade who thought he was some kind of Serious Intellectual?  The guy who was such an obstreperous asshole that even teachers would ask him to make a fool of himself for general class amusement?  It’s a dull day in May in your English class, and everyone’s supposed to be discussing something like “Miniver Cheevy” but they’re really looking out the window or doodling “Yes” logos in their notebooks or thinking about sneaking into Billy Jack on the weekend because it’s rated R and their parents won’t let them see it, and suddenly Mrs. Eggleston at the front of the room says, “Mr. Cohen, say something funny for us, won’t you?” And the entire class snaps to, because everyone knows Mrs. Eggleston meant “say something ridiculous and goofy as hell,” and Richie really does say the most amazingly stupid-ass things you’ve ever heard come out of a human mouth, and sure enough, he does not disappoint: “I think Miniver Cheevy is the kind of hero who could help us turn the corner today in Vietnam,” says little Richie.  Half the class bursts into laughter, and the other half thinks WTF? and actually looks at the poem to try to figure out where in the world Richie pulled that one from, and lo!  Mrs. Eggleston’s English class is back on track, and nobody’s thinking about Billy Jack any more.  It’s dirty pool, pedagogically speaking, but it works.

The tragic one is this: little Richie is still at it today!  Right on cue, he opens his mouth and says that Saddam has WMD and that “only a fool—or possibly a Frenchman—could conclude otherwise.” Get it? possibly a Frenchman? That is teh funny, Richie!  Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!  Every time the right calls on you—to stump for war in Iraq, to demand that Patrick Fitzgerald close his investigation into the Plame scandal, to defend Bill Bennett, or simply to insist (way back in 2000) that Bush was the man to heal our nation—you deliver.  Karl Rove says, “say something funny, won’t you, Mr. Cohen,” and within seconds, they’re laughing uproariously at you.  At you, Richie, not with you.  They think you’re a buffoon, really they do.  In fact, they think they can get you to say anything at all.  Now, Richie, why do you think they think that?  Go ahead—say something funny!  We’re all waiting.

And for those of you who are waiting for this blog’s hockey prognosticatin’: it’ll be right up.  But I’ll put it below this post, so as not to mess with the 99.94 percent of you who come to this blog hoping that someday it will no longer talk about hockey.

________

* Perhaps fittingly, it turns out that I am wrong about this.  Applying the principles of Advanced Physical Science rather than those of the Nicodeman Ethics, one intrepid blogger has identified a new state of wrongness.  Many thanks to Peter Ramus in comments.

Posted by on 05/05 at 12:10 PM

  1. Lordee, lordee, so true.  And Stephen Colbert has vaulted onto my list of prospective second husbands, too . . . a list ungraced by Richard “Class Clown” Cohen.

    Posted by  on  05/05  at  02:05 PM

  2. Doesn’t Colbert’s ballsiness make vaulting difficult?

    Posted by  on  05/05  at  02:19 PM

  3. Richard Cohen along with Thomas Freidman are the type of liberals I can say: with libs like this we don’t need conservatives.

    Posted by  on  05/05  at  02:26 PM

  4. Gabriela, sooner or later someone’s going to tell you that algebra teaches reasoning. This is a lie propagated by, among others, algebra teachers. Writing is the highest form of reasoning. This is a fact. Algebra is not. The proof of this, Gabriela, is all the people in my high school who were whizzes at math but did not know a thing about history and could not write a readable English sentence. I can cite Shelly, whose last name will not be mentioned, who aced algebra but when called to the board in geography class, located the Sahara Desert right where the Gobi usually is. She was off by a whole continent.

    This little bit of satire by Cohen is comic gold, no doubt about it. Insisting writing is the highest form of reasoning while writing a thoroughly unreasonable argument, well that’s genius. Proving an argument that math doesn’t matter based on a sample size of one...stop it Rich, you’re killing me! I thought Colbert’s performance was terrific, but when a master satirist such as Cohen says that it was not all that witty or courageous, I’ve got to reevaluate.

    Posted by  on  05/05  at  02:29 PM

  5. Cohen would probably complain about “A Modest Proposal” because it’s not funny.  “Catch-22”?  Not funny.  “Slaughterhouse Five”?  Ditto.

    ‘Anyone for satire, wouldn’t it be nice?’

    My ultimate and final response to Cohen is a quote from Loudon Wainwright III that I use often: “Bluaah!!!”

    Posted by Aaron Barlow  on  05/05  at  03:06 PM

  6. Cohen:

    [Colbert] referred to the recent staff changes at the White House, chiding the media for supposedly repeating the cliche “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic” when he would have put it differently: “This administration is not sinking. This administration is soaring. If anything, they are rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg.” A mixed metaphor, and lame as can be.

    Me:

    Swift’s A Modest Proposal is so not funny. Swift wrote: “I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricasie, or a ragoust.” An appeal to authority, and lame as can be.

    Posted by  on  05/05  at  03:22 PM

  7. Well, to wear those glasses, may be he does a sense of humor.

    Posted by  on  05/05  at  03:24 PM

  8. But I’ll put it below this post, so as not to mess with the 99.94 percent of you who come to this blog hoping that someday it will no longer talk about hockey.

    Actually, we are looking forward to the eventual withering away of the NHL. Hockey fans and players unite!  You have nothing to lose but your impossibly bad television contract. You have a world to win!

    Posted by  on  05/05  at  03:27 PM

  9. Ahem.  If that’s the way you feel, Mr. Alpers, I do hope you catch the lone allusion to Marx in the prognosticatin’ post below.

    And the reference to the “impossibly bad television contract” is, if I may quote Richard Cohen, so not funny.

    Posted by  on  05/05  at  03:34 PM

  10. Besides which, Mr. Colbert’s Titanic/Hindenburg joke wasn’t even a mixed metaphor, anyway. So Mr. Cohen is double-dumb.

    Posted by MzNicky  on  05/05  at  03:47 PM

  11. Blimey, MzNicky! I believe you might . . . be right.

    Posted by  on  05/05  at  04:30 PM

  12. I’ve got it, by Jove! Whenever we want to sniff, “Not funny, and I should know, because I’m a funny guy and have been so since grade school, so I can determine what’s funny or not”, we can short hand it by just saying “Cohen”.

    Posted by  on  05/05  at  04:35 PM

  13. "Funny” and “funny-looking” are not the same thing.

    Posted by Roxanne  on  05/05  at  04:35 PM

  14. As I recall the funniest kids in elementary school were called upon by the teacher to take their act down the hall to the principal’s office. I’d guess Monsieur Cohen has never seen the business end of a detention pass.

    (Captcha: class.)

    Posted by black dog barking  on  05/05  at  05:15 PM

  15. Ah, yes, it’s such a fine line between funny and funny-looking. . . .

    Posted by Michael  on  05/05  at  05:28 PM

  16. Hell, if Cohen can get that passed the Washington Post editors, I figure I should use it as the opening for my job application cover letters.  For example:

    For an endowed chair at Yale: “First, let me state my credentials.  I am a scholarly guy.  This is well known in certain circles, which is why, even back in elementary school, I was sometimes asked by the teacher to ‘say something scholarly.’”

    For a spot in the Giants’ starting pitching rotation: “First, let me state my credentials.  I am a hard-throwing guy.  This is well known in certain circles, which is why, even back in elementary school, I was sometimes asked by the teacher to ‘throw something hard.’”

    Posted by Jeremías  on  05/05  at  05:45 PM

  17. Like a hissy fit?

    Posted by  on  05/05  at  06:00 PM

  18. My dad always said that if you had to tell people you were smart, clever, funny, or whatever, that was a good sign you weren’t.

    Posted by  on  05/05  at  06:03 PM

  19. Ha ha!  I posted on one of the four funniest threads *evah*.  I am so proud.

    Posted by  on  05/05  at  07:41 PM

  20. Markg - like to use the word “honor” is to suggest its opposite?

    Posted by  on  05/05  at  07:46 PM

  21. A horse, a rabbi, three pickles, and Richard Cohen walk into a bar.

    The bartender says “What is this, some kind of joke?”

    The pickles respond “That’s no monkey, sir! That’s my wife!”
    __________________________________________________

    Great sporkchewin’ Christ, why does this man get to have a voice? Aren’t there other people who could write down words on the news-paper?
    Bah.

    Posted by  on  05/05  at  07:47 PM

  22. i>If Gore were an American Indian of yore, his name would be Al Finger-in-the-Wind. </i>

    How humbled we are before the droppings of a true comedic genius. In this vintage Cohen kneeslapper, he achieves his humorous aim by astonishing the reader with his “what-mere-mortal-could-ever-have-thought-of-it” use of a descriptive Indian name to make light of a characteristic of a contemporary politician. But as always with Cohen, there are more levels to appreciate - those willing to read deeply enough enjoy the piquancy of the contrast of the quaint Middle English term “yore” with the plain heartland appeal of an American Indian, which itself further plays off the woodenness of Al Gore.

    Posted by  on  05/05  at  08:04 PM

  23. Ed Naha, in his mkanejeeves.com blog today seemed to grasph much of what you were illuminating in dicky cohen:

    Richard? I know funny guys. I am a funny guy. Funny? You ain’t. (Unless you’re one of those Uncle Vinny, who eats too much pasta and drinks too much at a family dinner and, then, cracks himself up farting and burping “God Bless, America” before bursting into tears and reciting “The Pledge of Allegiance” types who are thought funny.) And, by the by, in elementary school? “The Yellow River” by I.P. Daily is considered funny. Get a life.

    or “else” —captcha word

    Posted by  on  05/05  at  08:29 PM

  24. Hey spyder, what about “Under the Bleachers, by Seymour Butts”? Doncha think Richie coulda thoughta that one, too?

    Posted by  on  05/05  at  10:12 PM

  25. You’re talking about elementary-school humor and no one’s mentioned me yet?

    Posted by  on  05/05  at  10:23 PM

  26. Amanda, darling! Proof positive! Thanks for gettin’ my metaphoric back!

    Mr. Hertz: And no one’s mentioned Richard Noggin yet, either!

    I seem to have a plethora of exclamation points tonight!

    Posted by MzNicky  on  05/05  at  10:54 PM

  27. Bart Simpson’s calls to Moe’s bar is funny.

    Cohen? not so much.

    Posted by  on  05/06  at  01:11 AM

  28. I hope this debate about whether Colbert was funny goes on forever. Every time I read one of these position papers on the humorlessness of Colbert’s speech I’m overwhelmed by a chorus of conservative limp dick-whipping and sphincter tightening and I can’t understand what on earth these dudes are talking about. Let me show you what I mean:

    First, let me state my thwacky thwacky slap thwack credentials: I am a funny guy ka ka ka. This is well known eeeeeeeeeeeerrr in certain circles, which is why, even back in elementary school slappity slappity pock pock pock, I was sometimes asked by the teacher blub blub blub to “say something funny”—as if the deed could be done on demand eeeerrrPOP!.

    The more ink that’s devoted to the vexed intricacies of What is Universally Funny (if only we had Aristotle’s lost Comedy to consult!) and whether Colbert met those standards, the less ink is spilled arguing whether Colbert was wrong. Hell, I guess in retrospect Colbert was funny, but I didn’t notice the first time I saw that clip because I was in the ecstatic throes of what felt like an orgasm channeled from my eyeballs through my lungs right down to my quivering appendix (actually, I should get that checked out). The humor was obviously a secondary pleasure for me.

    Posted by D.B.  on  05/06  at  03:07 AM

  29. Does everyone here (and on the other threads I’ve read) feel that Colbert was just hilarious?Really? All of you? Was it me or was the lack of timing and rhythm too subtle to be commented on? I liked the premise of the Helen Thomas routine but it went on forever in the diminishing returns category.
    This does not mean that i disagree with Colbert or pay any heed to Cohen.I like Colbert but feel that he’s often been better. I appreciate that he enunciated our contempt and disappointment and horror within spitting distance of the Decider. I also understand that the Colbert detractors are amazingly similar to the usual suspects. I just feel that the enemy of my enemy isn’t necessarily a hysterically brilliant cross between Lenny Bruce and Mark Twain just because he insults a guy who deserves it.
    When is hockey coming back?

    Posted by  on  05/06  at  03:21 AM

  30. Cohen’s wrongness has apparently been bested by this stunning breakthrough in the very frontier of quantum wrongness research.

    Posted by  on  05/06  at  05:40 AM

  31. Ha ha!  I posted on one of the four funniest threads *evah*.  I am so proud.

    And it would still be one of the three funniest threads ever if not for this damn thing.

    When is hockey coming back?

    The post directly below this one is all hockey, Jim!  And it is a funny guy!

    About Colbert:  I didn’t say he was funny.  I said his performance was a thing of beauty.  I did laugh out loud at the clip two or three times, and like everyone else, I thought the Helen Thomas thing went on too long (though it’s really kind of appalling that Noam Scheiber thought the “big joke was that ... Helen Thomas is old and batty.” Poor Noam must be the kid who said, “Seymour Butts?  I don’t get it").  But what it made it remarkable, of course, was that it was delivered ten feet away from a petty autocrat so sheltered that he puts on the Pouty Face whenever he hears the faintest little criticism.  The best lines, I thought, had to do with the press—and the fact that they hated it (and, in some cases, missed the point altogether) made Colbert’s point better than Colbert did.  Good points:  the Scalia bit was inspired, as was the glacier line.  And, of course, I liked the sheer loopiness of “don’t pay attention to the approval ratings that say 68 percent of Americans disapprove of the job this man is doing. I ask you this, does that not also logically mean that 68 percent approve of the job he’s not doing?” I don’t always love Colbert’s shtick; there are times when he’s too good at doing O’Reilly, and the effect is more eerie than funny.  (Though I believe one purpose of his act is to try to render O’Reilly unwatchable, the way you can’t watch James Lipton anymore without thinking of Will Farrell’s evisceration of him.  If that’s the case, then Colbert isn’t just a comic—he’s performing a service to democracy.) The really priceless moments of his show, I think, tend to come in the interviews, partly because Colbert, like Stewart, is just that much sharper and quicker than 98 percent of his guests.  And “The Word” is usually good for a LOL or two.

    Whereas Richard Cohen is priceless.

    Posted by Michael  on  05/06  at  09:16 AM

  32. Is it just me or does that picture of him look like one of those little trolls everyone’s sister used to collect?

    Like these

    Posted by Rann  on  05/06  at  11:54 AM

  33. As Roger Ailes (the good one) wrote: “Do I know Jokes?  Hell, I AM one!”

    Posted by  on  05/06  at  12:15 PM

  34. Not germane, but merely as a point of reference sourcing for future use among those, like Cohen, who sometimes may not get it. 

    Those of us who are old, and reasonably liberal in our humors (and vapors), will remember that a very, long, time ago, the boys of the former Harvard Lampoon produced their memorable: National Lampoon’s 1964 High School Yearbook--the Kaleidescope.  Featuring Kefauver High and several later to be infamous crafters of SNL, i quickly reviewed the writing credits in my old battered copy (a 1974 paperback that cost a whopping $2.50 new back then), and did not locate Mr. Cohen as a contributor.  This is a shame, because amongst the very funny pages, are approximately 400 names of students, each of which represents the very best of elementary school humor (B. Stoveburden and X Benedict??).  Just saying.....

    Posted by  on  05/06  at  03:23 PM

  35. Rudeness means taking advantage of the other person’s sense of decorum or tradition or civility that keeps that other person from striking back or, worse, rising in a huff and leaving.

    Cohen must not watch the O’Reilly Factor, since he seems to have mistaken Colbert’s parody for Papa Bear’s shtick.

    Captcha?  Reported.  I think Michael’s rigged ‘em to be apropos.  What’s next?  The biggest douche in the universe?  I call shenanigans!

    Posted by Scott Eric Kaufman  on  05/06  at  03:26 PM

  36. I really liked that Scalia was rocking and chortling at Colbert (while the people around Scalia nervously looked for reaction guidance.)
    What I don’t understand is why I now have to watch EVERY puck get by Brodeur!

    Posted by  on  05/07  at  01:54 AM

  37. Cohen’s story about his funny childhood reminds me of this TV joke that I heard that I’ve got to tell you about. Okay, so I was watching TV, right? And there was this show with this guy and he was on TV, right? Okay. And so he makes this TV joke, and it was so hilarious.

    Posted by Blar  on  05/07  at  06:08 PM

  38. Blar, that’s so funny!  I saw that same TV show with that guy.

    Posted by Michael  on  05/07  at  06:50 PM

  39. Please, most dangerous one, post some new content so as to push that picture off of the front page. It freaks me out every time I see it up there.

    On second thought, though, it does look like a picture of you in 20 (10?) years.

    Posted by  on  05/07  at  11:13 PM

  40. That’s rough, John. To me, Cohen looks like a cross between Bill Galperin and Brian McHale. Of course, that’s where the similarities end.

    Posted by  on  05/08  at  12:14 AM

  41. On second thought, though, it does look like a picture of you in 20 (10?) years.

    Good lord!  What have I done to deserve that?

    Oh yeah.  Never mind.

    Posted by Michael  on  05/08  at  07:21 AM

  42. I am too sick and lazy to look up the reference, but, the “new state of wrongness” reminded me of a comment about W. Pauli.  He was asked to comment on a paper and he dismissed it as “ not even wrong”.
    I think I saw it in “Heisenberg’s War”, T. Powers.
    Thanks for two chuckles for a sick guy who is not in good humor.

    Posted by  on  05/08  at  06:52 PM

  43. Nicodeman Ethics?

    Aristotle wrote the Nicomachean Ethics.  Nicodemus was the Pharissee who would come to hear Jesus speak, but only at night, for fear his Scribe and Pharissee colleagues might find out.

    I remember the exact title of the Nicomachean Ethics so well because it is the only book I have ever stolen.  The title made me do it, as a sort of pure act of self-negation.  Unfortunately, I actually have such a pathetically low capacity for rule-breaking, that I felt compelled to then read the Ethics, and found that it really had nothing to do with ethics in the modern sense that would have made stealing the book an act of negation.  Aristotle is descriptive, rather than prescriptive, of human nature.  And perhaps that’s the connection with Nicodemus.  Follow even values-free scribing too faithfully, and pretty soon you’re sneakng off at night to listen to the crazy man preaching on the street corner.

    Posted by  on  05/08  at  10:33 PM

  44. Hi, Glen!  Just click on the hyperlink for “Nicodeman Ethics.” It’s not very funny, but I did go to the trouble of creating a whole nother blog just to get the title wrong. . . .

    Posted by  on  05/08  at  11:23 PM

  45. I feel bad, and used. Michael, according to Richard you bloggers were responsible for smartly assembling a roaring digital mob, a mob that threw emails that served as functional rocks leaving Richard bruised and battered. I had no idea I was part of that. What’s worse, the rage you bloggers unleashed will cause the Democrats to lose every election in the foreseeable future, just like the anti-Viet Nam rage caused Nixon to be elected.

    If I weren’t a rage-aholic in constant need of spleen venting, I’m telling you I’d be swearing off the blogs. Perhaps some kind of twelve-step blog should be started. At the very least, someone should start a band named Functional Rocks.

    Posted by  on  05/09  at  06:04 AM

  46. Cohen’s equation of emails with stone throwers demonstrates that, as elementary school funny guy, he missed the famous saying: “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me”.

    Posted by  on  05/09  at  12:11 PM

  47. Not learning algebra: $1 million.

    Advocating Bush’s invasion of Iraq: $279,427,000,000 and counting.  $73/barrel oil.  2500 US Lives, 20,000 Iraqi lives.

    Richard Cohen: Priceless.

    Posted by  on  05/09  at  02:25 PM

  48. Michael,
    Amen and Hallelujah!

    Posted by  on  05/09  at  03:51 PM

  49. Is that the 12th type of wrongness: excessive humility in the face of George W. Bush?

    Posted by GFW  on  05/10  at  02:36 AM

  50. Regarding the missing wrongness of the original thread, licentious.

    With:
    “The e-mails pulse in my queue, emanating raw hatred...”
    Cohen does cut it for any french slang reader. He even reaches some creative summit in a very perverse virtual worls of way.

    Posted by  on  05/10  at  06:52 AM

  51. I seem to have a plethora of exclamation points tonight!

    I’m apparently one of the seven people in the world who thought The Three Amigos was funny, not least because of that “plethora” joke.

    Because I would hate to thin’ that somebody would tell somebody he had a plethora if that person din’ even know what a plethora is.

    Maybe that puts me in Cohen terriory, sense of humor-wise. But at least I don’t look as stupid as he does.

    Nice pix of the zeppelin deck chairs on that link upthread, btw.

    Posted by  on  05/10  at  10:49 AM

  52. Re “stupid looking”: my mind still balks at accepting that any sentient person could deliberately use a publicity pic that makes him look that much of a dork. And not David-Byrneian ironic dorkishness either, but the pure, unartful thing itself. Or not unartful--striven after, achieved. Just look at that haircut. He paid someone to do that to him. It’s not enough that his ideas are dorkish; fate has decreed that he look the part as well and he has embraced that fate with both arms.

    Dorkier than the dorkiest dork in dorkland, as I think Rowan Atkinson has said somewhere.

    Posted by  on  05/10  at  11:28 AM

  53. Well, truth be told, his earlier mug shot was more dashing, and he wasn’t always so consistently wrong as he is today.  But I suppose it’s true that 9/11 changed . . . it changed . . . um, hang on, it’ll come to me. . . .

    Posted by Michael  on  05/10  at  01:51 PM

  54. That’s a great post.... I really enjoyed reading your conversation.. LOL <a href=http://stopgoutpain.info//"> Gout Pain Treatment </a>

    Posted by gout pain treatment  on  08/18  at  03:03 AM

  55. This is an awesome post! What is the main reason for angry reasonable people on Colbert’s performance at the White House? Thanks smile

    Posted by Nil jhonson  on  08/08  at  05:32 AM

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