a few words to Richard Cohen

I came across references to Cohen's Sept 8 piece, Too Perfect to Know the People, earlier in the week on some of my regular reads. I finally had a chance to read the whole thing today, and it cries out for response.

There are a few issues I'd like to raise to Mr. Cohen. Let's start off with this quote: In retrospect, I learned more by failing than I ever would have by succeeding.

Here's the first point:
Just because you wish something were true doesn't make it so.

That is a mighty big assumption Cohen is making there. I'm sure he learned a lot through the experiences he did have, but how can he possibly know that he would have learned less had he stayed in college? I would not be willing to make such an assumption. In fact, having recently reviewed my own failures, I can quite clearly see the opportunities I missed. I know I learned less, I grew less, because I took an easier path. Why is Cohen so sure that the road he took is better than the one he couldn't follow because he couldn't overcome his boredom and distraction? The reality is, he can't know it, but he asserts it because he wants it to be true.

My second point:
Empathy does not require experience.
One of the greatest abilities we have as humans is to learn from other people's experiences.

Cohen decries Judge Roberts' lack of life experience, quickly recapping his professional resume. Then he segues into an anecdote about Theodore Sarbin, a psychologist who learned empathy for the underclasses by "riding the rails as a hobo." Sarbin gets full credit for this experience, but Cohen undercuts Roberts' own summers spent working in steel mills thus, He shared the work -- but not the plight.

Well. It's somewhat difficult to tell from the obituaries, but it would seem that Sarbin did the same thing. He got his PhD from Ohio State when he was only 30, after receiving a bachelor's degree from the same institution and a master's degree from Case Western. Sarbin, it appears, followed much the same path as Roberts: college, then advanced degrees, then well-respected professional work. Yet Sarbin gets credit for learning empathy, while Cohen assumes that Roberts' summers as a steelworker taught him nothing about the nature of hard work or blue collar workers. I supspect that Cohen feels comfortable lauding Sarbin while denigrating Roberts, because Sarbin's politics are more to Cohen's liking. Cohen seems incapable of considering that two intelligent, well-educated men could possess similar capacities for empathy.

Cohen's piece then takes an odd turn and rants about the "cold arrogance" of the New Orleans' evacuation plan, which made no provision for those unable to get themselves out of town. We've all seen and heard about the consequences of this spectacular failure, but Cohen goes right off the rails, here: The poor? It's as if the idiots up and down the line never heard of them. It's as if no one at the top of the Federal Emergency Management Agency or at the White House knew they existed. Check that. They knew, but it was theoretical: Oh, they'll manage.

Third and final point: It was the responsibility of the city and state to evacuate New Orleans, and to adequately prepare safe havens for those who remained.

Please note I am not holding the federal government blameless here. But blaming the White House for the plight of the poor who were abandoned in New Orleans is ridiculous, especially given the fact that it was George W. Bush who pleaded with the local authorities to evacuate the city. Even then, they only reluctantly agreed, and then failed to implement their own disaster plans. The snafus have been many, and the White House has bungled many aspects, but the evacuation of the city is one thing that can not be laid on the White House's doorstep. Anyone who has seen the famous photo of the flooded bus yards has to recognize that.

(It's all well and good to say "The Feds should have taken over when they realized the local government was incompetent!" But there are laws against that kind of thing, and whatever you may think of the President, he is not a dictator.)

Cohen brings it all together in closing, I would prefer that Roberts had had his moment of failure. He will lead one branch of the government. I wish he knew more about all of the people.

I wish Cohen knew more about all of the people, too. I wish he knew that empathy doesn't require experience, and that sometimes even those with direct experience, like Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco, fail in their duties to protect those who elected them.