Nice guys finish last

Self-confessed "funny guy" Richard Cohen of WaPo proclaimed in an editorial last week that Colbert was not only not funny, but also rude to make fun of Bush at the WH Correspondent's dinner.

This week, he is upset that he got a lot of hater emails in response to his column about Colbert.

Yeah, really. He really sounds upset. I mean, he's written a whole column about how rude the emails were, and how upset he is, and...get this: those rude emails mean that Democrats will lose the next election.

Huh?

No, seriously, he's a columnist for the Washington Post. Not only that, but he titled his column "Digital Lynch Mob."

I know. Cringe-y. Invoking the lynch mob image is never a good idea when you're a influential columnist with a cushy gig and a six-figure salary.

Check it:

But the message in this case truly is the medium. The e-mails pulse in my queue, emanating raw hatred. This spells trouble -- not for Bush or, in 2008, the next GOP presidential candidate, but for Democrats. The anger festering on the Democratic left will be taken out on the Democratic middle. (Watch out, Hillary!) I have seen this anger before -- back in the Vietnam War era. That's when the antiwar wing of the Democratic Party helped elect Richard Nixon. In this way, they managed to prolong the very war they so hated.

Oh, they're the ones who prolonged the war! See, all this time I've been blaming the guy who actually prolonged the war. I had no idea it was really the antiwar wing of the Democrat Party. See, they shouldn't have been so antiwar. Then the war would have ended a lot sooner. Protesting against things only makes the opposite thing happen. Everyone knows that.

The hatred is back. I know it's only words now appearing on my computer screen, but the words are so angry, so roiled with rage, that they are the functional equivalent of rocks once so furiously hurled during antiwar demonstrations.

If those words are the functional equivalent of rocks hurled during 60s-era anti-war demonstrations, I would assume then that they are somewhat less than the functional equivalent of the bullets fired back at the protesters.

I can appreciate some of it. Institution after institution failed America -- the presidency, Congress and the press. They all endorsed a war to rid Iraq of what it did not have.

Uh, Richard, you endorsed the war as well. And you are a member of the press. May I suggest that you change that last sentence to say "We all endorsed a war..."?

Now, though, that gullibility is being matched by war critics who are so hyped on their own sanctimony that they will obliterate distinctions, punishing their friends for apostasy and, by so doing, aiding their enemies. If that's going to be the case, then Iraq is a war its critics will lose twice -- once because they couldn't stop it and once more at the polls.

"Gullibility" about a war that's killed thousand of American servicemen and women, and lord knows how many thousands of Iraqis, is matched by some pissed-off Democrats writing angry emails?

Really?

Holy shit, I gotta write me some more emails.

Seriously, Richard. Those war critics are pissed that people are dying. Dying. Fucking dying, okay? Remember 9/11? Remember the anger about all the people who died unnecessarily. For nothing? Remember that anger?

Now, you fucker, say some shit about my fucking anger. Come and say it to my face, you fucking puss.

Also, if you check out Cohen's column in its entirety, you will see that he seems to be upset at the relative severity of the reaction to this column compared to, for instance, his recent column praising Al Gore's documentary, which apparently received only a small amount of wingnut hate mail.

Cohen's comparison, though, relies on several bad assumptions, not the least of which is that one column's message, i.e. "Al Gore's movie made good points about global warming" is very likely not nearly as troubling to the right as "It is rude for a hired comedian to make fun of the president at an comedic event" is to the left.

Don't you get it, Richard? You trumpeted a war that was based on lies told by a president you now defend against the "rudeness" of standup comedians.

Christ, how can you not GET THAT???