I’ve been compiling material for a post on Richard Cohen for a while now, mainly because he’s emblematic of a certain brand of thinking set of attitudes among the Village punditocracy. His column yesterday, “The Mendacity of Hope: What We Want to Believe About Obama” starts with a doozy:

John Edwards lied about the cost of his haircuts. Fred Thompson lied about lobbying for a pro-choice outfit. John McCain insists that the United States was founded as a “Christian nation.” Mitt Romney concocted the story about how his father marched with Martin Luther King Jr. And Rudy Giuliani is a one-man fib machine — everything from why he had to provide police protection for his then-mistress to the survivability rates for prostate cancer in Britain. Yet it is something Barack Obama said that bothers me most of all because Obama is a new kind of politician. He is supposed to be coolly authentic.

What the hell is he talking about when he says Edwards “lied about the cost of his haircuts”…? As Greg Sargent notes, both Steve Benen and Atrios have correctly called Cohen’s claim false, and Sargent has written Cohen for an explanation.

As it so happens, I’ve got a good idea of what Cohen means. He made the same ridiculous claim in his column on 7/24/07, “He Just Plays a Straight Shooter.” In that piece, Cohen starts by calling out Fred Thompson for lying about his lobbying for a “family-planning outfit.” Then, showing Broder-esque “balance,” Cohen writes:
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Why go hi-tech? Get all “fire and brimstone” on their asses! Two armed Pinkerton guards standing either side of the display would solve the problem. Or, better yet, surround the nativity scene with hidden bear traps! Any would-be Jesus thieves would instantly get their legs snapped off.

Does sound a little too harsh though, I suppose. Maybe leave a plate of arsenic-laced cookies nearby?

After all, we must ask ourselves “What Would Jesus Do?”

Baby Jesus Statue Gets GPS for Christmas

BAL HARBOUR, Fla. (AP) — A baby Jesus statue here is getting a Global Positioning System for Christmas. The statue, part of a nativity scene, will be equipped with the device after the previous statue went missing, even though it had been bolted down.
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The Mary and Joseph statues will also be fitted with GPS devices, she said.

The devices are being bought using residents’ contributions and Cellini’s own money.

Cellini has also installed a Plexiglas screen in front of the display.