Maureen Dowd is Farm Subsidies (JM)

Seeing Red Over Hillary

Boy, there sure has been a lot in the news this week: the State of the Union, McCain's big win in Florida, the big vote on FISA, I bet we're going to get cogent analysis of important world politics.

By Maureen Dowd

Nevermind.

WASHINGTON

Even newly armored by the spirit of Camelot, Barack Obama is still distressed by the sight of a certain damsel.

Your word play makes me sad. Also, "armored by the spirit of Camelot"?

It's already famous as The Snub, the moment before the State of the Union when Obama turned away to talk to Claire McCaskill instead of trying to join Teddy Kennedy in shaking hands with Hillary.

Oh god, this is less than news, this is like fifth grade cafeteria stuff. I recognize that other news personages are talking about it, but maybe that's because the NYT, supposed standard-bearer for journalism chooses to have op-ed columnists that would spend time talking about this. As a side note, I hate Claire McCaskill she is a despicable weasel, everything that is wrong with the new Red State Democrats that thinking winning is the sole point of being in office. But that's a rant for a different day.

Nobody cared about W., whose presidency had crumpled into a belated concern about earmarks.

The "nobody" you are presumably referring to is you and the rest of the media. There were many people who covered the State of the Union, but sadly many more covered "The Snub" as if this were somehow newsworthy. You guys set the tone for what America considers to be important, the fact that you treat such a responsibility like this is pretty shameful.

The only union that fascinated was Obama and Hillary, once more creeping around each other.

I am picturing an Obama-like Gollum here… and they can't be a union if they're not together. You are bad writer.

It would have been the natural thing for the Illinois senator, only hours after his emotional embrace by the Kennedys and an arena full of deliriously shrieking students, to follow the lead of Uncle Teddy and greet the rebuffed Hillary.

Again with the nicknames? Though I have to admit, it would be totally awesome if Ted Kennedy were my uncle. One time my uncle, when I was much younger, came to my house, we got a pizza and went to his place and watched Ferris Bueller, that was pretty cool. Now imagine if my uncle had been Ted Kennedy… mindblowing, no?

She was impossible to miss in the sea of dark suits and Supreme Court dark robes. Like Scarlett O'Hara after a public humiliation, Hillary showed up at the gathering wearing a defiant shade of red.

You caught her! Good job, Hillary was wearing read to comport to your insane pop culture metaphor that literally has nothing to do with the movie to which you are referring. I bet eleventy billion dollars that someone else in those chambers was red or some equally bold color. The only reason you noticed this is you are totally obsessed with Hillary. Seriously, if I took your columns typed them up on paper and anonymously mailed them to Hillary I would be arrested for stalking. I am serious, I think you might need an intervention… and a writing class… and perhaps a humor coach. Well, one step at a time.

But the fact that he didn't do so shows that Obama cannot hide how much the Clintons rattle him, and that he is still taking the race very personally.

I would imagine anyone who runs for President of the United States takes it personally. It is a pretty big deal and a very big decision. Except for maybe Fred Thompson, I am pretty sure he really doesn't care about anything but getting back to his lounger.

On a flight to Kansas yesterday to collect another big endorsement, this one from Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, Obama said he was "surprised" by reports of The Snub.

He shouldn't have been. He should be aware that the press is inane and only cares about crazy, banal, trivial shit these days.

"I was turning away because Claire asked me a question as Senator Kennedy was reaching forward," he said. "Senator Clinton and I have had very cordial relations off the floor and on the floor. I waved at her as I was coming into the Senate chamber before we walked over last night. I think there is just a lot more tea leaf reading going on here than I think people are suggesting."

But that answer is disingenuous. Their relations have been frosty and fraught ever since the young Chicago prince challenged Queen Hillary's royal proclamation that it was her turn to rule.

This is where this column turns in to a short story written by Maureen Dowd. She has absolutely no facts to back this up, just blanket assertions and her own sense of self-assuredness. I hate her. You hear that Maureen, I hate you.

Last winter, after news broke that he was thinking of running, he winked at her and took her elbow on the Senate floor to say hi, in his customary languid, friendly way, and she coldly brushed him off.

Come on, seriously. He winked at her? Come on, that did not happen!

It bothered him, and he called a friend to say: You would not believe what just happened with Hillary.

No! No way, this is like a sixteen year old girl on a telephone. I am willing to believe that some semblance of dislike has always existed between these two, but this is just utter, fictional nonsense. In fact, in the spirit, a play (for the purpose of extra humor, I will assume Barack’s friend was Oprah):

Barack Obama: Oprah, you will not believe what Hillary did to me today!

The Oprah: Well, sit down and tell me all about it, boyfriend!

Barack Obama: Well, I winked at her and she totally froze me out.

The Oprah: No, she did not!

Barack Obama: She soo did!

The Oprah: Nuh uh!

Barack Obama: Totally.

Fin.

Again and again at debates, he looked eager to greet her or be friendly during the evening and she iced him. She might have frozen him out once more Monday night had he actually tried to reach out.

I love this concept. Does Maureen think that Clinton was gonna pull a Zack Morris on Obama?! Like he was going to reach out his hand, she would pull back hers, run it through her hair and say, “Too slow…” You are the literary equivalent of a spastic colon.

But now Obama is like that cat Mark Twain wrote about who wouldn't jump on the stove again for fear of being burned.

Nuh uh!

It was only after the distortions of the Clintons in South Carolina that he changed his tone and took on Hillary in a tough way in the debate there. Afterward, one of his advisers said that it was as though a dam had broken and Obama finally began using all the sharp lines against Hillary that strategists had been suggesting for months.

Why had it taken so long for Obama to push back against Hillary? "He respected her as a senator," the adviser replied. "He even defended her privately when she cried, saying that no one knows how hard these campaigns are."

What a totally sincere gentleman, according to your assertion, is he.

But Obama's outrage makes him seem a little jejune. He is surely the only person in the country who was surprised when the Clintons teamed up to dissemble and smear when confronted with an impediment to their ambitions.

This is another one of those times where Maureen Dowd uses a word kind of correctly, but mostly completely wrong. But yes Obama, soooo jejune.

Knowing that it helped her when Obama seemed to be surly with her during the New Hampshire debate, telling her without looking up from his notes that she was "likable enough" — another instance of Obama not being able to hide his bruised feelings — Hillary went on ABC News last night to insinuate that he was rude Monday.

How was that a matter of him not hiding his bruised feelings? That is just a totally weird narrative for this election.

"Well, I reached my hand out in friendship and unity and my hand is still reaching out," she said, lapsing back into the dissed-woman mode. "And I look forward to shaking his hand sometime soon." Something's being stretched here, but it's not her hand. She wasn't reaching out to him at all.

She actually was reaching out her arm, she reached out her arm: there are pictures. You are either lazy or a liar. I suspect both.

The New York State chapter of NOW issued an absurd statement on Monday calling Teddy Kennedy's endorsement of Obama "the ultimate betrayal": "He's picked the new guy over us." But Obama is the more emotionally delicate candidate, and the one who has the more feminine consensus management style, and the not-blinded-by-testosterone ability to object to a phony war.

The question of whether NOW’s decision is totally legit, as is usual in her columns, would have made a much better topic than the rest of this silliness. Obama is actually more feminine, and that’s why NOW should endorse him, he is more of a woman than Clinton. Blurgh!

As first lady, Alpha Hillary's abrasive and secretive management of health care doomed it. She voted to enable W. on Iraq so she could run as someone tough enough to command armies.

This is totally true, though Alpha Hillary, this is a new and inane nickname. It’s like you have a column for the school newspaper.

Given her brazen quote to ABC News, Obama is right to be scared of Hillary. He just needs to learn that Uncle Teddy can't fight all his fights, and that a little chivalry goes a long way.

This is your lesson? Seriously, the moral of all of this is that he should have shaken her hand while being scared, even though you claim that this is her fault and she never reached out her hand? Painful, painful, painful.