Bigotry as Opportunism

In the holiday spirit, Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen wrote that the Commandant of the Marine Corps “is one step short of being a bigot.” Cohen, who strongly supports homosexuals in the military, insisted that the Commandant be fired because he held a different view. According to the dictionary, ‘a bigot is one who is strongly attached to his view of politics and intolerant of those who differ.’ It is Cohen, not the Commandant of Marines, who defines the word bigot.

Cohen is also cunning in arguing that gays should join a Marine Corps that, in his judgment, should dismiss its own leaders. His column is a clarion call to incite the very divisiveness the legislation was intended to expunge. That is a sure way to cause chaos and anger — and increase readership by slyly encouraging controversy of the Jerry Springer style. Cohen’s screed has already rocketed around the military-related web sites.

The best way to treat a bigot is to ignore his opportunistic self-promotion. Let the Washington Post correspondents who risk their lives alongside Marines deal with Cohen and his warped journalistic ethics.

(Richard Cohen, Marine Corps commandant has to go, Washington Post, Dec 21, 2010)