Entertainment, The New York Times: Comedy Duo of Kristof and Cohen

There have been many famous comedy duos: Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, Burns and Allen, Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin. The New York Times now provides us with Kristof and Cohen; here, however, it has yet to be determined which of the two is the "straight man" in this fledgling act.

On June 27, in "Questions About Iran? Ask a Witness", New York Times op-ed columnist, Nicholas Kristof, wrote:

I’m delighted to welcome back Roger Cohen, my fellow Times columnist, from Iran. For the last couple of weeks, frankly, I’ve been gnashing my teeth with jealousy, both over Roger’s two-week visa to Iran (which left him there after other reporters had to leave) and over his superb columns and videos.

He has agreed to take your questions about Iran and what it was like there, so fire away.

You can imagine how delighted I was to learn that The Times and Kristof were proffering Cohen, who doesn't speak Farsi and whose recurrent line - "Iran is not totalitarian" - was proven notoriously wrong, as an expert on Iran. Ask a question of Cohen concerning Iran? I would rather ask Borat.

If we thought for a moment that Cohen was finished with Iran after writing about tennis and monkeys, we were wrong: On July 20 he returned to the stage with an encore performance in "Iran's Tragic Joke". My response, which The Times agreed to post:

Cohen writes:

"So the line I take away from the important Friday sermon of Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the two-time former president who believes that the Islamic Republic’s future lies in compromise rather than endless confrontation, is this one: 'We shouldn’t let our enemies laugh at us because we’ve imprisoned our own people.'"

Rafsanjani opposes imprisoning Iranians? Maybe that’s because he was too busy executing them in the past. Cohen remarkably ignores what his own newspaper recently told us about Rafsanjani:

"After Mr. Rafsanjani became president, perhaps thousands of Iranians were executed, including drug offenders, opposition guerrillas, Communists, Kurds, Bahais, even clerics." (http://topics.nytimes.com...

Roger continues:

"It’s an Islamic Republic and, as Rafsanjani said, 'If the Islamic and Republican sides of the revolution are not preserved, it means that we have forgotten the principles of the revolution.'"

Cohen would have us believe that Rafsanjani is a man of "principles"? Rafsanjani is considered the mastermind of the 1994 bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, which left 85 dead and more than 300 wounded, and is the subject of arrest orders issued by the Argentine state prosecutor.

Concerning Hussein Moussavi, Cohen labels him a "reformist" and would have us imagine that "Moussavi, with his impeccable revolutionary credentials, was the very emblem of unthreatening change."

Cohen fails to tell us that as prime minister, Moussavi presided over the execution of thousands of dissidents. Cohen fails to say that Moussavi defended the taking of hostages at the U.S. embassy in Tehran and backed the fatwa against British author Salman Rushdie.

Reporting requires that readers be informed of relevant facts. Opinion, I would like to believe, also requires balance. Be this reporting or opinion, something is tragically missing.

Surprisingly, this was the most highly reader-recommended comment posted by The Times. Apparently The Times' readers have grown tired of Cohen's routine.

Notwithstanding Cohen's flop, Kristof, roaming the wilds of Pakistan, presented us on July 22 with "Terror Creeps Into the Heartland". My response:

Kristof writes:

"If we want to stabilize Pakistan, we should take two steps. First is to cut tariffs on manufactured imports from Pakistan. That would boost the country’s economy, raise employment and create good will. Cutting tariffs is perhaps the most effective step we could take to stabilize this country and fight extremism."

Does Kristof really think that by flooding the U.S. with cheap clothing from Pakistan and destroying whatever is left of the U.S. garment industry, this will do anything to stabilize Pakistan? Does Kristof really believe that the profits resulting from lower tariffs will filter down to the laborers in Pakistani sweatshops, where children work 12-hour days, and raise their willingness to oppose the Taliban?

Don't get me wrong: I'm not conservative or liberal (I'm too busy trying to survive) and receptive to all kinds of humor. In the interest of equal time, I should observe that token conservative, New York Times op-ed writer, Ross Douthat, also tickled my funny bone, when he compared Sarah Palin with Harry Truman in his July 6 solo performance entitled "Palin and Her Enemies".

As William Shakespeare long ago wrote: "With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come."