Richard Cohen

From Philosopedia

Richard Martin Cohen (6 February 1941 - )

Cohen is a New York City-born journalist who earned his Bachelor's Degree at New York University in 1967 and his Master's Degree at Columbia University in 1968.

He worked with United Press International from 1967 to 1968; was a general assignment reporter for The Washington Post from 1968 to 1976; and has been a syndicated columnist since 1976.

At The Washington Post he was one of two reporters to scoop the story about Vice President Spiro Agnew's being investigated on possible charges of tax evasion and money laundering while he had been Governor of Maryland.

Cohen with Jules Witcover wrote A Heartbeat Away: The Investigation and Resignation of Spiro T. Agnew (Viking), a critical book in 1973 about Agnew, the Episcopalian who was President Richard Nixon's Vice President. Agnew, often described as Nixon's hatchet man, resigned in 1973 after being accused of tax evasion and money laundering, allegedly having accepted $29,500 in bribes while he was Governor of Maryland. Agnew pleaded nolo contendere (no contest) to criminal charges, and he resigned as Vice President, only the second such in that office to do so. Cohen's book details Agnew's record up to 1973.

Cohen's political views are often liberal or center-left. He has written that he is pro-choice, pro-gay rights, against the Iraq War, against tax cuts by the Bush Administration, and in agreement with former Vice President Al Gore on global warming. In a column, "Hunker Down With History", he wrote,

• The greatest mistake Israel could make at the moment is to forget that Israel itself is a mistake. It is an honest mistake, a well-intentioned mistake, a mistake for which no one is culpable, but the idea of creating a nation of European Jews in an area of Arab Muslims (and some Christians) has produced a century of warfare and terrorism of the sort we are seeing now. Israel fights Hezbollah in the north and Hamas in the south, but its most formidable enemy is history itself.

In twice-weekly columns, Cohen writes about any subject he chooses. In a 25 July 2006 column about Israel's extended campaign to drive Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas back from its northern border, Cohen took the position of a freethinker:

• Lacking religious conviction, I fear for [Israel's] future and note the ominous spread of European-style anti-Semitism throughout the Muslim world - and its boomerang return to Europe as a mindless form of anti-Zionism.

(Cohen's columns at The Washington Post are archived.