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Roger Cohen on the Great Unraveling
Eight years ago, when I was a fellow at the American Academy in Berlin, Roger Cohen came through, gave a talk on Germany’s postwar trajectory that I thought brilliant, and stayed for a week. We met most days at breakfast, and I came to admire him. The only thing that I could say that was critical of the man was that he harbored an antipathy for Republicans that defied common sense.
In today’s Pravda-on-the-Hudson, he published a piece entitled The Great Unraveling, in which, among other things, he wrote the following:
It was a time of weakness. The most powerful nation on earth was tired of far-flung wars, its will and treasury depleted by absence of victory. An ungrateful world could damn well police itself. The nation had bridges to build and education systems to fix. Civil wars between Arabs could fester. Enemies might even kill other enemies, a low-cost gain. Middle Eastern borders could fade; they were artificial colonial lines on a map. Shiite could battle Sunni, and Sunni Shiite, there was no stopping them. Like Europe’s decades-long religious wars, these wars had to run their course. The nation’s leader mockingly derided his own “wan, diffident, professorial” approach to the world, implying he was none of these things, even if he gave that appearance. He set objectives for which he had no plan. He made commitments he did not keep. In the way of the world these things were noticed. Enemies probed. Allies were neglected, until they were needed to face the decapitators who talked of a Caliphate and called themselves a state. Words like “strength” and “resolve” returned to the leader’s vocabulary. But the world was already adrift, unmoored by the retreat of its ordering power. The rule book had been ripped up.
You should read the whole thing. But, first, you should read once again the paragraph that I quoted, keeping in mind the fact that Cohen is a very partisan Democrat.
I saw this sort of thing happening once before — when Jimmy Carter was President — and the likes of Roger Cohen then held their noses and voted… for Ronald Reagan.
Published in General
Dr. Rahe, with respect, how is Mr. Cohen anyone that I should respect given, I assume, that he thought Obama had any chance in becoming a successful chief executive of the most complex organization in the world with little to zero executive experience? What did he expect to happen? This article makes him look all the more ignorant in my mind. I am sure that he thought the ruby red slippers would get Dorothy back to Kansas!
People who are discerning in one sphere can be almost willfully blind in another. My guess is that the prospect of having an African-American President caused Roger to lose his wits. If this was the case, he certainly was not alone.
Does this mean that Republicans should nominate a former Democratic Party union president for 2016?
I suspect that after 8 years of GWB, during which most major voices beat the drum of “W is a moron,” the impression of the presidency as a position trivial to occupy well became thoroughly ingrained. Faint whispers of concern regarding Obama’s inexperience were perhaps then easily waved away: “Feh, Bush could do it; I’m sure Obama will do *just fine*.”
Few know the folly of a position better than one who converts from it to another. Just ask Whittaker Chambers.
This was a very powerful piece, stringing together quite a few strands. I was also stunned by its appearance in the NYT.
Note, however, that Cohen is not holding Obama’s feet to the fire. It is just time for all these things to happen – it is doubtful, in Cohen’s telling, that there is much America could do to stop what is looking inevitable.
I read Cohen’s piece this morning. Almost posted it here myself with the subheading… You know there’s disaffection on the Left when you find Kipling’s Gods of the Copybook Headings quoted in the NYT.
Somehow Mr. Cohen neglected to tell us if he gets to keep his doctor and his health care plan.
If instead of harboring all that antipathy for Republicans he had listened to a few, he might have found that quite a few are pretty good at connecting dots. Some of us even still read Kipling, as unfashionable as that might be.
There are many newly-minted Roger Cohens out there. When push comes to shove – or, at least to vote – I suspect that most will still vote D, because A) Wisdom is the Left’s birthright, and surely the next iteration will get it right, and B) while the Republican candidate may not want to criminalize birth control, surely he channels the thoughts of those who do, and this howling yahoo strain has no place in 21st century America.
If these people need a nudge to push them back into the familiar landscape of home, it will be the belief that Christians may support Israel, but it’s for the wrong reasons. There will be a sufficient number of articulate people on the televisor screens to reassure them that they are making the proper decision, and that swelling in the breast one feels when you are among the elect will rise again.
Not to worry – Mrs Clinton or Ms Warren will sort out this mess – no need to vote for a R.
As Jay keeps pointing out, ad nauseam, ’twas the American electorate who got us into this mess – twice!
They can be relied on to vote for the first (Native) American Woman President, as long as free contraceptives are provided for all.
I read this piece this morning and thought it was almost Biblical. Residual loyalty to the progressive tribe prevented him from bringing it home, but readers can do that on their own, which is actually more effective anyway.
My sentiments exactly.
Alas….
No problem…in two years Obama will be a memory and Hillary will be wearing the crown, the new grand Mufti of progressivism. No lessons will have been learned, no self examinations done. The R’s will not endeavor to enlighten the people, but continue running in fear of their rivals and attempting to behave just like them.
I am in no mood to run a revolving-door social club. Those who voted for this disaster and were over the age of 23 at the time had a duty to understand these things. I do not welcome the belatedly converted who wish to abandon their sinking ship which, by the way, rammed and fatally holed our own.
Do not let them escape. Hold each of these termites accountable for the damage done. A failure to take out the trash just means more trash tomorrow. Forgiveness, second chances, and a grudging allowance for a vote for the first (half) black President got all defenestrated up in November 2012.
The right is losing so completely because we run from fights on principle, instead embracing process arguments and trying to outsmart a shotgun.
Only problem with this is that Cohen can vote for a D in 2016 who isn’t Obama. Is he disillusioned with Obama or the ideology?
Republicans need to state that progressive ideology lead us into this mess. Obama doesn’t operate in a vacuum.
Somehow — perhaps I am overly optimistic — I suspect that Roger will be unable to vote for HRC in 2016. His focus is foreign affairs, and he knows too much for that. If the Dems dump the dame, however, tribal instincts may win out.
I am with Ball Diamond Ball on this.
People like Mr. Cohen may be ‘book smart” and good with pencil and paper but they are beyond stupid when it comes to appreciating, understanding, and acting in the real world. They are prisoners of their ideas of the world and cannot learn from what is before their eyes. They will ever believe that “if only we had tried a little harder, spent more money, or been more forceful with the recalcitrant people (i. e., put more heads in the basket below the guillotine)” their finely spun theories would have achieved success. The type is well described in Paul Johnson’s Intellectuals, readily available through the Ricochet Amazon purchase option (which I cannot presently locate and may have gone with the wind, to borrow a phrase).
Leave him and his kind to mope, sulk, and moan at their cocktail parties and in their faculty lounges and for God’s sake ignore their prescriptions!