Required Reading: Not a Parody

From the Washington Post, "Too Cool to Fight" by Richard Cohen

Before reading on, please be advised that I will not be held responsible for the coffee you are about to spit over your monitor. Proceed at your own peril.

Richard Cohen has served up a piece of pro-Obama fluff so ludicrous in its hyperbole that historians will likely savor it for generations. I've excerpted some of the highlights below, but you'll want to read the whole thing:

Thank God for Sarah Palin. Without her jibes, her sarcasm, her exaggerations, her smug provincialism (Ed. Note - Supreme Irony Alert!!!!), her hypocrisy about family and government, her exploitation of mommyhood, and her personal attacks on Barack Obama, the Democratic base might never be consolidated…

Now Obama's opponents are going straight for his strength. At least twice at the GOP convention, speakers mocked Obama's service as a community organizer. "He worked as a community organizer," Rudy Giuliani said. "He immersed himself in Chicago machine politics."

And then Palin herself followed up with one of her aw-shucks low blows: "I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities."

In the biographies of both presidential candidates are episodes of pure wonderment. No man can read about McCain's time as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam and not wonder, "Could I do that?" For most of us, the answer -- the truthful answer -- is no.

For Obama, that episode has nothing to do with physical courage but much to do with moral commitment. At age 22 -- a graduate of Columbia University and already making good money as a financial researcher, he walked away to work with the unemployed and alienated in Chicago.

What a great point! It's so true - Obama becoming a community organizer should provoke the exact same amount of "pure wonderment" in us as McCain declining early release and withstanding five years of torture at the Hanoi Hilton. Once again, what a brilliant insight!

While I am experiencing a moment of "pure wonderment" right now, it has nothing to do with either candidate. It has everything to do with Richard Cohen's apparent desperation. Obama's greatest strength is his tenure as a community organizer? The man's résumé may be even worse than even I've given it credit for.

HT: Allah