Richard Cohen Quotes

Richard Cohen

Profession : Journalist

Birth : February 6, 1941

The term 'disrupter' has become an accolade, like first-responder or something.

Richard Cohen

The more Scott Walker campaigns, the more he proves he is not intellectually fit for the office he's seeking. He asserts innocent ignorance on matters he should by now know something about - a way of masking his apparent bigotry.

Richard Cohen

In power politics, it's usually not enough to be liked. A nation has to be considered essential.

Richard Cohen

The fact is that the United States does not need Israel. Our special relationship was not forged, as it was with Great Britain, in two world wars, not to mention a common language and, in significant respects, culture. It is based on warmth, emotion, shared values - and, not to be dismissed, a potent domestic lobby.

Richard Cohen

Iran may or may not be the existential threat to Israel that Netanyahu insists it is. But a lessening of U.S. support for Israel certainly would be. With an indifferent America, Israel would become a lonely, frightening place.

Richard Cohen

The ability and willingness to keep two opposing views in mind at the same time are hallmarks of adulthood.

Richard Cohen

We grow up to respect the gray. Black or white, one or the other, is childish. It represents the worldview of someone who does not know the world.

Richard Cohen

I have come to the conclusion that Ben Carson is a bit nuts. I say that not because I disagree with him politically, but because he doesn't seem to know what the truth is.

Richard Cohen

I served in the Army. I worked at blue-collar jobs. I washed dishes and bused tables.

Richard Cohen

My father was raised in an orphanage, and my mother was an immigrant from Poland whose first childhood memory was of hunger. Somehow, despite all of that, I am called a member of the 'elite.' If so, I damned well earned it.

Richard Cohen

Among the things I know is that Trump voters were played for suckers.

Richard Cohen

I have written about cultural dislocation, and I understand the corrosive effect of diminished expectations.

Richard Cohen

A presidential candidate needs a slogan.

Richard Cohen

Sometimes I think that Rush Limbaugh is the dumbest man in America. This happens whenever I take him at face value and forget that he is basically an entertainer with contempt for his audience. He will tell them anything.

Richard Cohen

It takes a willful disregard of history to appreciate how white Southerners could look at the Confederate battle flag and see states' rights or a way of life or a tradition - and not one human being whipping another, which was a common occurrence.

Richard Cohen

I am glad to see the Confederate battle flag gone from a place of honor at the South Carolina state capitol.

Richard Cohen

Large government is inevitably inefficient, but so, too, is large private enterprise.

Richard Cohen

Much worse than the unavoidable inefficiencies of large government is the failure to fund the government we need.

Richard Cohen

Private enterprise cannot rebuild the nation's infrastructure or keep our research institutions vibrant. Government must do what only it can do.

Richard Cohen

Trump is unloved in his own house. A figure of ridicule, a theatrical creation, he is almost sympathetic. He was told by the greedy and the outright stupid that he would make a swell president. The Liar's Paradox has spun out of control, with liars lying to a liar who believed the lie. What would that be called? Fox News, I think.

Richard Cohen