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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Alighieri who wrote (284652)	4/19/2006 9:53:23 AM
From: paret	Respond to of 1574883

What is Richard COHEN going to do when the Washington Post goes out of business? How many employees have they laid off in the past year? How far down are their advertising revenues? Why don't you regale us with Richard's COHEN's problems in the sexual harassment suit filed against him by staffers of your lovely Washington Post.

To: Alighieri who wrote (284652)	4/19/2006 9:54:53 AM
From: paret	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574883

Richard COHEN (Washington Post) Gets Kid-Gloves Treatment in Harassment Case Washingtonian ^ \| June 1998 \| Harry Jaffe COHEN Gets Kid-Gloves Treatment in Harassment Case HARRY JAFFE Washingtonian; POST WATCH; Pg. 11 June, 1998 Devon Spurgeon is a 23-year-old reporter with movie-star looks and a nose for news. Richard COHEN is an aging columnist who calls Ben Bradlee, Sally Quinn, and Bob Woodward his best buddies. COHEN's crude conversations poisoned his working relationship with the young reporter in the Post's New York bureau. It also put the Post's handling of sexual-harassment complaints on public display. And after pushing reporters to go after Bill Clinton for hiding behind his lawyers in the Monica Lewinsky affair, executive editor Len Downie consulted with Post general counsel Mary Ann Werner and now offers only "no comment" through aides. Spurgeon comes from ranching roots in Colorado. She graduated from the University of Chicago with one desire: to report for the Post. She got an internship thanks in part to Chicago alums Bob Levey and Dave Broder. "She struck me as exceptionally able," says Levey. Last summer, New York bureau chief Blaine Harden hired Spurgeon to administer the seven-person office and do some reporting. She racked up 32 bylines, covered Michael Kennedy's death on the ski slopes, and broke a story about Tawana Brawley. COHEN moved from Washington to the New York bureau last year. By all accounts, COHEN expected Spurgeon to cater to his office needs -- and get his dry cleaning. She wanted to report stories. "It's not that she didn't like him," says one bureau reporter, "it's just that she didn't have time for him." But COHEN had time to engage Spurgeon in conversations that made her feel uncomfortable and threatened. She took her concerns to the other reporters, who agreed that COHEN had crossed a line. Around April 1, they asked bureau chief Harden to file an official report with Downie. "This is not a 'he said, she said,'" according to one reporter. "It's 'they said.'" The Post dispatched deputy managing editor Milton Coleman to New York on April 3 and 6. He rented a room in the Essex Hotel and interviewed COHEN, Harden, and reporters Bob O'Harrow, Dale Russakoff, and Sharon Walsh. COHEN hired an attorney. Spurgeon went it alone. Among the allegations reported to Coleman: COHEN asked Spurgeon to come into his office and close the door, then queried her about her generation's view of oral sex. Also at issue: a conversation where COHEN said it's too bad Bill Clinton is the only one who can grope in his office and get away with it. He also is said to have intimidated her with references to his connections with top Post editors, such as Tom Wilkinson, who can hire and fire. No one said COHEN touched her or hit on her. Still, when Coleman asked the reporters if they considered COHEN's comments sexual harassment, three said yes. Spurgeon was flown to Post headquarters to be questioned. Then she was given a two-week leave, which outed her and made it seem as if she was at fault -- violating the Post's policy of not causing "further embarrassment" to the aggrieved party. Meanwhile, COHEN marshaled his old friends, including Sally Quinn, who made calls on his behalf. The Post tried to apply a gag order; Spurgeon complied, but COHEN went public. "This is not about sex and not about harassment," COHEN told Post Watch. "It's a personality clash that got mischaracterized." Spurgeon appealed to Broder, who came to her defense but refuses to comment publicly. Visiting New York in April, national editor Karen DeYoung confirmed the situation was at least "a hostile working environment." But as the story went public, the Post downgraded the episode from sexual harassment to hostile working environment to "inappropriate behavior." The result: COHEN was moved to the 22nd floor and got a personal assistant; Spurgeon got an ulcer and had to take a month's leave to gather her strength. COHEN's public dismissal of the episode and the paper's decision not to discipline him have infuriated many women. "The message is, be really careful because you're not going to get help," says one. If the Post wanted to put distance between COHEN and Spurgeon, it succeeded: COHEN is now out of the office, and Spurgeon is being courted by magazines, TV, and other newspapers.

To: Alighieri who wrote (284652)	4/19/2006 9:55:49 AM
From: paret	Respond to of 1574883

THE LOGICAL CONTORTIONS OF RICHARD COHEN 10/20/98 nationalreview.com The U.S. Patent Office receives about a hundred submissions per year from people who claim to have invented perpetual motion machines. The British Patent Office refuses any submission that involves perpetual motion, because it believes such notions are in flat contradiction of the laws of physics. In the U.S. we are more practical. If you want to patent your perpetual motion machine you simply need to bring in a working model (blueprints will suffice for any other device). I have an idea for how I can get the most coveted prize in all science. Now, all I have to do is throw a net over Washington Post Columnist Richard Cohen and drag his ass out to the Patent and Trademark Office in Arlington, Virginia. Cohen’s columns are the product of a constant- albeit random- series of pendular swings from rigorous serious thinking to, well, unserious, unrigorous thinking. Today’s column is one of the great examples of man-bites-dog sophistry. Mr. Cohen identifies Bill Clinton as the tripwire of our civil liberties. "If this could happen to the President of the United States, the generalissimo of the entire armed forces and leader of what used to be called the free world, then it could happen to us in a snap." I see. “First they came for the President, then they came for my…Postman"? I would flip over Cohen’s argument like an egg timer. If the President of the United States, the chief guardian of the Constitution, both symbol and enforcer of our laws, the moral authority of our secular national government, can violate sexual harassment laws and credos he has largely implemented, lie under oath- repeatedly- with impunity, marshal the instruments of government at his disposal to conceal his perjuries and his "private" acts, and attack his accusers for pointing all this out, then anyone can and should get away with it- "in a snap." Dan Rostenkowski got sent to the slammer for stealing some stamps- and lying about it. Bill Clinton invoked Executive Privilege, froze in place the government, the media, the national conversation for eight months.You can’t have it both ways. If it’s purely private behavior the President doesn’t get to invoke some privileges and create others that the rest of "us" don’t have. Mr. Cohen singles out Ken Starr- and those who think Starr is following where the law and good conscience dictate - for opprobrium, because he is shameless. I’m not kidding. The Stockholm syndrome has truly set in. Bill Clinton is the defenseless victim and Ken Starr who has been more mistreated than any public official in recent memory, is somehow the "shameless" villain.