Richard Cohen has been kicking around the elite Washington cocktail weenie circuit for many years. He’s written many thousands of wankerific words, mostly in support of empty (or worse, dangerous) GOP policies, and is still apparently blinded from the light of Ronald Reagan’s “shining city upon a hill”.

His latest column for the Washington Post waxes philosophically on the wit and wisdom of convicted liar Scooter Libby. If the Bush regime needed someone from the pundit class to come out front and argue in Scooter’s favor, they could have hardly picked a better mark than Cohen.

Here’s a few choice cuts from Cohen’s column:

At the urging of the liberal press (especially the New York Times), he [Patrick Fitzgerald] was appointed to look into a run-of-the-mill leak and wound up prosecuting not the leaker — Richard Armitage of the State Department — but Libby, convicted in the end of lying.

It’s outrageous to read that Cohen characterizes the outing of a covert CIA operative (which, in earlier times in U.S. history, would have resulted in the execution of the perpetrator for treason) as a “run-of-the-mill leak”. Clearly, Cohen has neither been following the investigation of the leak, or the trial of Scooter Libby - particularly Fitzgerald’s sentencing arguments and Judge Reggie Walton’s outrage over the egregious nature of the lying. Scooter Libby didn’t just lie to investigators to cover his own ass - let’s be clear about that - Libby lied to obstruct the investigation into the leak, a fact which appears to be conveniently lost upon Cohen.

This is not an entirely trivial matter since government officials should not lie to grand juries, but neither should they be called to account for practicing the dark art of politics. As with sex or real estate, it is often best to keep the lights off.

Ahhhhhhhh…there we have it - you knew it was coming - the invocation of the Clinton defense. Again, let’s be clear for Mr. Cohen and anyone else who might be reading his totally off the wall column: charges were NEVER BROUGHT AGAINST BILL CLINTON IN THE WHITEWATER INVESTIGATION. Bill Clinton was charged with lying about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, nothing more. A private matter -vs- lying about a politically motivated breach of national security. Hmmm. Tough call, Mr. Cohen?

I’m not going to take the time to revisit Cohen’s past screeds against Clinton’s affair and subsequent GOP impeachment kabuki. But I will quickly remind ASZ readers that Cohen is the same guy who loudly applauded George H.W. Bush’s pardoning of Caspar Wineberger in the Iran-Contra affair:

Rather than hungering for the new evidence that might have emerged from the Weinberger trial, many leading commentators expressed relief that they would be spared from having to puzzle out the Iran-Contra mysteries anymore.

Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen spoke for many insiders when he expressed how happy he was that the well-liked Weinberger had avoided a trial. In a Dec. 30, 1992, column, Cohen recalled how he had seen Weinberger pushing his own shopping cart at the Safeway grocery store in Georgetown.

“Based on my Safeway encounters, I came to think of Weinberger as a basic sort of guy, candid and no nonsense – which is the way much of official Washington saw him,” Cohen wrote. “Cap, my Safeway buddy, walks, and that’s all right with me.” …

And if Scooter should walk, that would also be just peachy with Richard Cohen - because obstructing justice? IOKIYAR.

Update: Via the magic of Lexis-Nexis, Booman has some choice excerpts from Cohen’s complete 1992 column. The consistency of the wankery is astounding.