A Washington Post column comparing the left’s response to the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., to the right’s response of the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya, was poorly received Tuesday, and the liberal author found himself the target of derision from left-leaning media figures.
“Ferguson has become the liberal Benghazi. It is more of a cause than a place, more of an ideological statement than an incident,” Post columnist Richard Cohen wrote in an article published Tuesday. “Ferguson was not the racist murder it was thought to be, and Benghazi was not an incident in which the Obama administration’s incompetence or timidity allowed four Americans to die. The facts argue otherwise.”
The article, titled “Ferguson and Benghazi’s troubling parallels,” went on to note that although the original Ferguson narrative – that former Officer Darren Wilson had shot Brown even after the African-American teen had surrendered with his hands in the air – proved to be untrue, the shooting turned into a larger movement protesting police violence against minorities.
Ferguson “was made to represent institutional racism across the nation, but it is, really, a tiny nondescript place where a supposedly racist and unjustifiable killing by the police did not occur,” wrote Cohen, a longtime columnist for the Post. “It does, though, conform to the very keen feelings of people who see white racism everywhere.”
So, too, he added, the fallout from the death of four Americans in Benghazi has served as a vehicle for the right to declare President Obama a dangerously incompetent and dishonest executive.
“I…believe that distorting the facts can impede progress. The dead of anywhere — Ferguson or Benghazi — do matter. And so does the truth,” Cohen wrote.
Cohen’s column didn’t find a warm reception — especially on social media.
“So glad that when I die I’m not going to be Richard Cohen,” Huffington Post media reporter Jason Linkins said in a tweet
Former MSNBC host Goldie Taylor added, “F–k Richard Cohen.”
The New Republic’s Jamil Smith tweeted, “We have to do better than Richard Cohen,” while Talking Points Memo editor Josh Marshall said, “In other news, Richard Cohen a touch wigged out by black people.”
The criticism wasn’t limited to social media, however. Left-leaning publications took the columnist to task for comparing Ferguson to Benghazi.
“Cohen has a history of making disputed comments about race,” TPM charged in a report detailing his latest column.
Meanwhile, Esquire’s Charles Pierce suggested in a none-too-flattering post that “it is entirely possible that this entire column is a joke since Richard Cohen is known to be a very funny fellow.”
Most of the pushback on the Post’s columnist’s Tuesday take on Ferguson and Benghazi read in that vein.
Cohen did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
