And what have you done with him, you fiend?

Apparently, Mr. Cohen has been mugged by reality. He's taking down le Carre, and the rest of the loony left, himself.

You would think from reading le Carre that Bush has twice made war on his neighbors, that he has used chemical weapons on his own people and that he murders his opponents -- moderate Republicans as well as Democrats. Bush's America is to be feared, not Hussein's Iraq.

This is a more pernicious madness than the one le Carre says has seized the United States. It caricatures Bush. It explains nothing and, worse, it offers no alternatives. If there is an argument to be made against a war with Iraq, then what it is? Le Carre does not say. In general, the entire left does not say.

Instead, we get le Carre-like rants against Big Oil or -- again le Carre -- a "colonialist adventure." As with the period before World War II, a certain segment of the left has simply stopped thinking. It cherishes peace so much it has substituted wishful thinking for hard analysis: What's to be done? How do we deal with "poor mad little North Korea" with its poor mad little nuclear weapons and its medium-range ballistic missiles? And what do we do with Iraq?

Rand, I guess I should know who Cohen is, but I don't, so I don't see the point of your article. But it would probably have worked better if you hadn't started your quote right where you did--the first sentence summarizes Le Carre's position, not Cohen's, right?

Richard Cohen is an extremely liberal WaPo columnist, who's been out of character lately (perhaps because he's Jewish).

And yes, the first sentence is le Carre's position. It was a little out of context, sorry.

Great post Rand. I would have missed it if not for your weblog. My favorite quote was: "As with the period before World War II, a certain segment of the left has simply stopped thinking." I think that is dead-on. When the likes of Richard Cohen are the ones pointing it out it speaks volumes about what is going on in the world today.

You should put quotation marks around the first sentence

Small nitpick:

Richard Cohen writes for the Washington Post, not the New York Times.

Well, the original didn't have quotes around it, and it's not really a quote--it's a paraphrase, but I guess I need to add more for context.

Dean, how do you get "New York Times" out of "WaPo" ?

Dean, how do you get "New York Times" out of "WaPo" ?

Ummm...because I put the NYT down the memory hole, and changed it to WaPo...