Richard Cohen Quotes

The majority of Americans, the ones who never elected George W. Bush, are not fooled by his weapons of mass distraction.

I've had enough of the blowhards on cable TV and the self-righteous anger I hear from people whose only accomplishment in life is their ability to turn the dial on an AM radio.

Press critics worry that the rise of media polarization threatens the foundation of credible, common information that American politics needs to thrive.

Palin, Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and others have made an art form of convincing far too many Americans to suspend their disbelief, and they have severely damaged the ability of our country to have serious discussions about serious challenges.

This trend of reporting process over substance is unfortunate, if omnipresent. Even worse is the media's inability - or unwillingness - to fact-check Republicans who are angry about the Democrats trying to debate and vote on Iraq policy.

Their coverage on the Fox News Channel has been atrocious. The stuff that comes out of Sean Hannity's mouth has been infuriating. The stuff that Bill O'Reilly says has been illogical. You go up and down the schedule and it's insanity over there. The number of lies, perpetuated, promoted by Fox News is just shameful and it hurts everybody.

There's so much cynicism around in Britain, especially in the press. The American press might be naive, but at least you feel as if they're on your side.

Rush Limbaugh is a lame professional swine, and he makes a good living at it. He is like a hired geek in some traveling backwoods carnival - the freaks who bite the heads off chickens - but Limbaugh is a modernized geek who thinks he can bite the heads off of people.

Have you ever seen Glenn Beck in operation? It is the most terrifying thing. It's so bad that you think he's going to announce in a minute that it's all a great con. He makes Sarah Palin look reasonable and steady.

I think if you're a regular viewer of Fox News, you're among the most cynical people on planet Earth. I cannot think of a more cynical slogan than 'Fair and Balanced.'

Glenn Beck is Rush redux - Limbaugh with liposuction, partying like it's still 1993.

Media bias has been a favorite theme of the Right for decades, of course.

Of all newspaper presses, I never heard anyone deny that the American is the worst.... [N]othing is easier than to make the people know only one side of a question; few things are easier than to keep them altogether from the knowledge of any particular affair; and, worse than all, on them [the American people] may easily be practiced the discovery that lies may work their intended effect, before the truth can overtake them. It is hard to tell which is worse; the wide diffusion of things that are not true or the suppression of things that are.

Rush Limbaugh makes money getting simpleminded people to feel good about their intellectually undernourished brain spasms. He's very good at it, and I scarcely believe a fraction of what he says.

I am not saying Russia is not important, but Trump's base is very well defended against that: 'the liberal media is out to get him', 'it's fake news', and all the rest.

We must not be misled by left-wing incompetent news media that, day after day, feed us a diet of fantasy telling us we are bigots, racists and hate-mongers.

In the age of Trump, we need to be aware of emotional rhetoric and its power regardless of whether or not it's based in fact.

Like Trump, I would say that fake news is distributed 24 hours a day.

The inability or unwillingness of citizens to differentiate between fake and authentic news is undermining a fundamental assumption of democracy: the informed voter.

Cable news is force-feeding you an endless back and forth of pundits who consistently get everything wrong, while at the same time, they mask their opinions as facts and argue about the endless minutia of a broken Washington, D.C., instead of arming you with real knowledge and new ideas.

We live in a world where we don't really hear ideas. We just hear propaganda. That's not just boring. It's also very dangerous.

A newspaper has three things to do. One is to amuse, another is to entertain and the rest is to mislead.

They are evil people, the press, the media, they are bad people, and nobody, nobody lies like they do. I never like it when they tell me that, and I'm sure they're right, but when people say things that are fabrication - you know, there were fabricated stories made up, these were fabrications. Out of nowhere.

Glenn Beck and others were pretty outrageous and extremely conspiratorial in the pre-Trump years. I don't mean to totally gloss over some of the nuttiness that was airing on Fox pre-Trump, but I do see a distinction between those years and the Trump years.

The infamous political ads like Carly Fiorina's 'Demon Sheep' and Christine O'Donnell's 'I Am Not a Witch' are so confusing, it's almost like they were paid for by Democrats.