I never meant to read
Richard Cohen's piece of crap (click through at your own risk) in the Washington Post last week. I just wanted to unsubscribe from the WP's damned emails. But I must have clicked something by accident and I found myself staring at Mr. Cohen's unclever bit of concern trolling proposing that the best thing for Hillary Clinton, to divert some press coverage away from her Presidential aspirations, would be a Democratic opponent.
Ironically, I actually agree that Secretary Clinton, as a candidate with positions appealing to me, might seem vastly improved by a good run from someone on her left, at least to voters susceptible to such campaign head fakes. But beware of such campaign maneuvers, as they rarely have much effect on how winners actually govern. Anyway, that isn't actually Mr. Cohen's point, which he makes right up front:
In John F. Kennedy’s first political race, he faced about nine opponents for a House seat. One of them was named Joe Russo, and he supposedly had the ethnic Italian vote locked up until someone else jumped into the race. By the sheerest coincidence, his name was also Joe Russo. According to “The Patriarch,” David Nasaw’s wonderful book, some cynical types wondered if this hadn’t been arranged by JFK’s rich and highly pragmatic father. Whatever the case, this is a precedent Hillary Clinton ought to consider. She desperately needs a Russo.
Get it? Secretary Clinton has no opponents and Jack Kennedy had nine, so Clinton needs exactly what Kennedy needed, for the same reasons! What could be more obvious?
The reason? Because if someone contested the Democratic nomination with Clinton, all of the ink and pixel stained wretches in the village would lumber off to report on the possible usurper and leave the Clinton's alone for once. Cohen's pick?
I can’t think of anyone clamoring for Martin O’Malley to be president. But that’s not the point. As a Russo for Hillary Clinton, he’s perfect. He’s experienced, but almost no one knows anything about him. The media can do story after story about his marriage, his old girlfriends, his weird or not dietary habits, his exercise routine — all the things we really need to know about a presidential candidate.
On a slow day, stories could even be done on his positions — NAFTA, NATO, the Islamic State, Common Core, immigration, same-sex marriage, no-sex marriage — and whether he would take a Kardashian as a running mate. You see, the possibilities are endless and these stories would take the heat off of Clinton. Run, Martin, run.
Hillary needs you.
Mr. Cohen's column in the Washington Post, with little cause or explanation, takes time in the middle, to cite Charles Krauthammer's long standing indictment of Hillary Clinton as a "congenital liar", before returning to his ostensible point that Mrs. Clinton needs a Democratic opponent. So, this recent bit of scat from this well known Village Idiot is either a completely gratuitous excuse, to call Secretary Clinton a liar or else, Mr. Cohen is auditioning for The Onion.
But either way, Cohen's obvious pandering and GOP preference is patently clear even though his only mention of the GOP or anyone in it is the gratuitous backhanded complement to Secretary Clinton that, as liars go, Mr. Cohen would prefer her to "the pandering provincial from Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker."
I hear newspapers are dying. I think it may be suicide.