Okay, now... can we all just cool off a bit? Yes, what Cohen's saying is terrible - and BTW, when has Cohen not been terrible - but equating "fog" with "dark" and "scary" seems a stretch, at best, or, at worst, an attempt to ratchet all of this up just a bit more. Obama can (and I think he has already) respond to this in a way that deals with it without increasing tensions yet more. Of all the distressing things about the past week, I think the most has been the way that we keep reinterpreting people's words to find all sorts of new racial implications. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and fog is just... foggy. Cohen's no great shakes, but he's also not quite capable of the ugly racial implications you're suggesting.

Cohen's no great shakes, but he's also not quite capable of the ugly racial implications you're suggesting.

Not sure that I would support the supposition it is what he is doing but I am not sure why he wouldn't be capable of it. That goes beyond just giving him the benefit of the doubt which I am happy to do.

weboy: Yes, Cohen is capable of that.

He has demonstrated in past columns that he is capable of not-so-thinly-veiled racist apologia.

That, plus the sexual harrassment stories, plus the 'only a fool or a Frenchman' bigoted, xenophobic war-mongering, plus the columns calling Bush a liberal -- all of this shows Cohen to be a rather dumb and very sordid character.

Let's take a look at some definitions of 'fog' --

Dictionary.com

2. any darkened state of the atmosphere, or the diffused substance that causes it.

Merriam-Webster.com

2: a murky condition of the atmosphere or a substance causing it

Darkened, murky, diffused...what was your point again, Weboy?

HobbesLaw

brent: Exactly. If this was the first time Richard Cohen puts out racist innuendo, he would get the benefit of the doubt from me. But it's not the first, nor the second...

Cohen is a strange, somewhat dense, insecure man. In other words, he's right at home in the mediocre neo-con rag that the Washington Post has become.

Ever seen fog? It tends to be white or light gray. It's not particularly dark. Its main characteristic is that although it's hard to see through, it's ephemeral and insubstantial.

When you play the race card against Bill and Hillary Clinton don't expect to have any credibility when you play against someone else. EVERYTHING is a racist attack to Obama supporters. You are getting ridiculous!

Bloix you are right, fog rolled in the other day and really brightened the place up! And it wasn't scary at all, so I sent my seven year old out to play in it.

If "fog" is now a racial codeword we might as well just stop speaking.

"When you play the race card against Bill and Hillary Clinton don't expect to have any credibility when you play against someone else. EVERYTHING is a racist attack to Obama supporters. You are getting ridiculous!"

I agree. Obama brought all this on himself by playing the race card first, if by "playing the race card" you mean "being born black".

Well, if that fog of a man Barack Obama were really attempting to not obscure his past, he'd reveal it by writing an autobiography or something like that. Oh, wait...

Richard Cohen came out and admitted that he traced his support for the Iraqi invasion to the paranoid fear he felt during the fall of 2002 when a sniper stalked people standing next to their parked vehicles (like at gas stations) and murdered at least five and probably more people. You think a man who operates at such a subterranean level of reasoning might not be "capable of the ugly racial implications" he is accused of. Yes, he is capable BECAUSE he is not doing his utmost to get beyond his primal instincts to ask himself, "why?" "Why does the name Louis Farrakhan magically pop into my head everytime I talk about a black politician?" Cohen cannot be trusted on these issues. He isn't introspective or honestly self-questioning enough.

I don't think Cohen was being racist here. When I think "fog," "black" doesn't particularly come to mind. I'm looking at fog out my window right now, and it's whitish-gray.

I think a better response to Cohen's column is this: Richard, you think Obama is a "fog" because you don't know anything about him? Then why don't you do something about your ignorance? Perhaps make telephone calls and talk to people. Read some things that he's written or that have been written about him by people who know him. Actions like that. Actions that once fell under the category of "journalism." You know, that profession you used to practice long ago?

For the record: 1) I am not an Obama supporter (Clinton, actually); 2) I don't think 'fog' is a code-word in any sense; 3) I do think that Richard Cohen is a racist prick.

Richard Cohen has a track-record, and the image of the scheeming, untrustworthy black man is a well-established racist trope. As much is know about Obama's life as about any other candidate of either party. Singling him out this way could be excused as innocent if this was the first time that Cohen has showed racist tendencies.

Meanwhile no one seems upset that Cohen worked the word "rap" into that same sentence. Think he meant to evoke images of gangstas?

I'm mostly kidding.

He meant to write that Obama is like The Mist. Monstrous, murderous creatures will come rushing out of him.

To me there is a single word which bespeaks the rap against Obama better than any other: "Present." That is, his penchant for avoiding clear, unequivocal statements on matters of some, or even any, controversy. Well, that, plus his sell-out on the Bankruptcy bill, and his support for Loserman AFTER he'd lost the Dim primary in Conn.
Upon consideration, that seems enough to me to disqualify the sumbitch from any consideration by any progressive, primary or general...but the fuckers know they have us over a barrel: don't vote, and it's a default vote for the Fascists.
It really pisses me off.

I wouldn't read too much into "fog of a man". Cohen is a terrible writer who doesn't know how to use metaphors.

plus his sell-out on the Bankruptcy bill
Obama voted against the Bankruptcy bill.

plus his sell-out on the Bankruptcy bill
Obama voted against the Bankruptcy bill.

he voted against it on the floor--the easy vote, since it was destined to be enacted anyway. He voted for cloture in committee, and voted to block amendments that would have blunted some of the more draconian [provisions...
pay attention, please.

"there's too much we don't know about Obama."

"The idea that we don't know enough about Obama is also absurd"

So sorry but it's quite true that we don't know enough.
I've been watching the debates, listening to the coverage, reading Tapped, and other than some present votes on some abortion or other issue, I still don't know what Obama's voting record was, in detail, while serving in the state legislature. Seems that good records are not available. I'd really like to know and I have yet to hear enough.

Woody, the "present" thing is bullshit. A "present" vote counts as a "no" vote. Most of Obama's "present" votes were party-line votes where the Democratic leadership urged the members to vote "present" as a matter of parliamentary tactics.