From an online chat at the Washington Post yesterday... Oakland, Calif.: Mr. Cohen, do you sincerely believe that
when "practicing the dark art of politics," "it is often best to keep
the lights off," and if so, how do you reconcile your view with the
Fourth Estate's responsibility to serve as the public's watchdog
against the abuse of power? Richard Cohen: I think my
responsibility is not the same as a politician's responsibility. I
think there are a lot of things that are done in any line of work that
you may not want to see exposed. Everyone in their life is a hypocrite
of some sort, we all have areas of our lives we aren't particularly
proud of, we cut a corner here or there. Politics is probably the most
open of all endeavors -- it's on the public record, it's covered by the
press, and people engaged in it can't keep their mouths shut anyway.
But there are elements of politics -- leaks, anonymous sources -- have
been done for years and years and years. And while some of this can be
abused -- anonymous sources need to be limited more in my opinion --
they can be extremely useful. The reader was apparently trying to follow up on a column by Mr. Cohen from the previous day, in which he wrote:
With the sentencing of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby,
Fitzgerald has apparently finished his work, which was, not to put too
fine a point on it, to make a mountain out of a molehill. At the urging
of the liberal press (especially the New York Times), he was appointed to look into a run-of-the-mill leak and wound up prosecuting not the leaker -- Richard Armitage of the State Department -- but Libby, convicted
in the end of lying. This is not an entirely trivial matter since
government officials should not lie to grand juries, but neither should
they be called to account for practicing the dark art of politics. As
with sex or real estate, it is often best to keep the lights off.
Really?
7:37:34 AM 
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