‘Ethicist’ Columnist Randy Cohen Departs New York Times, Leaving Leftist Legacy Behind
After 12 years and 614 columns (by his count), Randy Cohen has penned his last “Ethicist” column for the New York Times Magazine , signing off last Sunday. Cohen’s columns, in which he gave letter-writers advice on the right thing to do in ethically sticky situations, often glanced over cultural and ideological topics, which Cohen consistently addressed from a pungent left-wing perspective. According to the paper's veteran columnist, Bush was an incompetent and insane president who lied us into war, socialism is a good thing, Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates should have sued the police, and no one can work for a tobacco company in good conscience. Below are some liberal lowlights from Cohen, both from his column, his blog, and various television appearances. In an October 24, 2010 column, Cohen wrote that no one could honorably work for a tobacco company. The gravity of the misdeeds is also significant. I believe, for example, nobody may honorably work for a tobacco company, the maker of a toxic product that, used as directed, annually kills 400,000 Americans. How grave is too grave? Alas, there is no universal bright line. But your employer seems to have crossed yours. On June 20, 2010 Cohen defended socialism's good name: Incidentally, not that the president is one, but how does it defame a person to call him a “socialist” (outside of nutty far-right circles) — a set of ideas many advanced Western democracies find congenial, what with the accessible health-care, affordable higher education and good public transportation? In a July 27, 2009 blog item on nytimes.com, he wrote of the then-current controversy over Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, urging Gates to sue the Cambridge police for arresting him for disorderly conduct, arguing that a lawsuit would be a valuable tool to probe “the troubled history of police interactions with African-Americans.” Cohen judged the entire episode through the prism of race, failing to address the fact that at least two of Crowley's black fellow officers back him up and not Gates.
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‘Ethicist’ Columnist Randy Cohen Departs New York Times, Leaving Leftist Legacy Behind
After 12 years and 614 columns (by his count), Randy Cohen has penned his last “Ethicist” column for the New York Times Magazine , signing off last Sunday. Cohen’s columns, in which he gave letter-writers advice on the right thing to do in ethically sticky situations, often glanced over cultural and ideological topics, which Cohen consistently addressed from a pungent left-wing perspective. According to the paper's veteran columnist, Bush was an incompetent and insane president who lied us into war, socialism is a good thing, Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates should have sued the police, and no one can work for a tobacco company in good conscience. Below are some liberal lowlights from Cohen, both from his column, his blog, and various television appearances. In an October 24, 2010 column, Cohen wrote that no one could honorably work for a tobacco company. The gravity of the misdeeds is also significant. I believe, for example, nobody may honorably work for a tobacco company, the maker of a toxic product that, used as directed, annually kills 400,000 Americans. How grave is too grave? Alas, there is no universal bright line. But your employer seems to have crossed yours. On June 20, 2010 Cohen defended socialism's good name: Incidentally, not that the president is one, but how does it defame a person to call him a “socialist” (outside of nutty far-right circles) — a set of ideas many advanced Western democracies find congenial, what with the accessible health-care, affordable higher education and good public transportation? In a July 27, 2009 blog item on nytimes.com, he wrote of the then-current controversy over Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, urging Gates to sue the Cambridge police for arresting him for disorderly conduct, arguing that a lawsuit would be a valuable tool to probe “the troubled history of police interactions with African-Americans.” Cohen judged the entire episode through the prism of race, failing to address the fact that at least two of Crowley's black fellow officers back him up and not Gates.
