Maureen Dowd is Mrs. O'Leary's Cow (JM)

Surrender Already, Dorothy

Ooh! I am excited, this is already a bad and somewhat surprising metaphor. I mean maybe there’s a chance Maureen hasn’t seen The Wizard of Oz, but probably not since I am pretty sure watching movies is the extent of her research, but Dorothy, you know, wins in the end. Also I would have expect a Wicked Witch of the West reference instead from Maureen, but Dorothy… fine… I guess that makes Maureen the Wicked Witch… in which case get me a bucket of water.

By MAUREEN DOWD

WASHINGTON

It’s all about the magic, really.

Ummmmmm…. I can think of several things it is about. None of them are “the magic”. Magic, I believe falls well behind competence in foreign policy and perhaps directly after “the Benjamins”. In fact, strike that, reverse it.

And whether we can take a flier on this skinny guy with the strange name and braided ancestry to help us get it back.

Whoa! Time out. Does anyone else think the phrase “braided ancestry” is just a tinsy bit racist. And by “tinsy” I mean a lot and by “racist” I mean, get your coat.

Bernard Kouchner, the foreign minister of France and a strong supporter of the United States, recently observed that President Bush has done such a number on our image in the world that no one will be able to restore the luster.

“I think the magic is over,” he said.

Well gee willikers, the magic is over. The French foreign minister thinks so? Well, the French would never prognosticate the doom of U.S. hegemony without being absolutely sure of it. Well, I am just going to write my new book The Rise of Multilateral World, and sit back and wait for the royalties.

Pas si vite, mon vieux. In terms of style, the Obamas could give Carla Bruni-Sarkozy a run for her euros. And at least Obama is not in a fantasy world on Iraq, as W. and John McCain are, insisting it’s improving while we see it exploding.

“God people, paragraphs aren’t boxes where one thought actually follows another thought. We live in a postmodern world people! Just because the first sentence is nonsensical point about vapid topic A doesn’t me the second sentence has to be about those same things. Look, I mentioned the same people twice. I think that’s enough, don’t you?” –Maureen Dowd

Many voters decided last week to stick with Obama despite his less-than-convincing explanations about the Rev. Wright — even as many soured on Hillary, casting her as Lady Voldemort.

Alright, I am all for gratuitous Harry Potter references you poor man’s Rita Skeeter, but this is just nonsense. Lady Voldemort?! Why no go with Lady MacBeth, a more analogous character went trying to attack Hillary and one that actually existed. I am also pretty sure no one but Dennis really believe she is trying to tear her own soul in to pieces by killing people in order to gain immortality. Maybe power, but not immortality.

Democrats are coming around to the point Jay Rockefeller made 10 days ago after introducing Obama in West Virginia: “Democrats always make a mistake by nominating people who know everything on earth there is to know about public policy. I introduced both Al Gore and John Kerry at their rallies. They knew all the policies, but people didn’t connect with them. You don’t get elected president if people don’t like you.”

Ohh awesome! That’s exactly the attitude I like to hear from the Democratic party. Screw it, the people don’t want some who knows what’s going on, let’s get someone likeable elected. That is both condescending and just awful. Thank you Sen. Jay “Let’s Compromise Everything Because the Only Thing That Matters Is That The Name Democrat Comes After The President” Rockefeller, thank you so very much.

Also, not to get too George Carlin here, but how could Jay Rockefella have said that “after” introducing Obama. It seems like Obama would have been talking at the time, and that would just be rude.

Despite Bill Clinton’s saying it was “a bunch of bull” that his wife should drop out, Democrats are trying to sneak up on Hillary, throw a burlap sack over her head, carry her off the field and stick her in a Saddam spider hole until after the Denver convention.

Enjoy President McCain once you alienate a good portion of the base suckers… Seriously, if they push Hillary out before she is ready to go every single Dorothy Zbornak in the Democratic Party is voting for John McCain. P.S. Blanche onced dated McCain, and it was steamy.

One Obama adviser moaned that the race was “beginning to feel like a hostage crisis” and would probably go on for another month to six weeks. And Obama said that the “God, when will this be over?” primary season was like “a good movie that lasted about a half an hour too long.”

Aww… poor Obama, democracy just a bit too long for you. No wonder you didn’t want to be trouble with Florida and Michigan voting again, gets in the way of your schedule.

Hillary sunnily riposted that she likes long movies. Her favorite as a girl was “The Wizard of Oz,” so surely she spots the “Surrender Dorothy” sign in the sky and the bad portent of the ladies of “The View” burbling to Obama about how sexy he is.

“Ladies of ‘The View’”=modern day equivalent of reading bird entrails.

But who knows? Obama and Bob Casey talking March Madness to the patrons of Sharky’s sports cafe in Latrobe, Pa., on Friday night seemed demographically clever. But it is always when Hillary is pushed back by the boys that women help hoist her up.

Obama, like the preternaturally gifted young heroes in mythical tales, is still learning to channel his force. He can ensorcell when he has to, and he has viral appeal. Who else could alchemize a nuanced 40-minute speech on race into must-see YouTube viewing for 20-year-olds?

Yes we get it. He is Luke Skywalker. He is Garion. He is Achilles. Blah, blah, blah…

But at several crucial points in the last year, he held back when he should have poured on, leaving his nemesis around to damage him further.

Obama has social engineering plans as ambitious, in their own way, as the Bush administration’s failed social engineering plans to change the psyche of America and the Middle East.

Ambitiously vague. Social engineer is largely insane and never works. Change is about time and generational overhauls, not talking. But screw it, let’s elect Obama, listen to Kermit sing, “It’s Not Easy Being Green” and watch Bill Frist and Nancy Pelosi wander down the street arm in arm exchanging long-protein strands. Might I add, don’t blame me, I voted for Kodos.

“I think the president needs to use the bully pulpit to change our culture,” he said Thursday, talking energy at a $1,000-a-plate fund-raiser in Manhattan. “We are a wasteful culture. It’s always been that way because of our history. We do everything big.”

He wants to make government “cool” again. He wants to banish the red-blue culture of conflict on TV and in Washington. And he wants to make the country healthier, thinner and smarter. “I want our students learning art and music and science and poetry,” he says, in a crowd-pleasing line.

AGGGGGGH! Seriously, do ANY of you really believe this can happen. Let’s all sit down and seriously think about what this means. Right now, Obama is going to appoint someone to the Supreme Court, do you really think he is going to convince the pro-life public that it’s really okay to be pro-choice? Do you really think that Americans who love the second amendment will suddenly stop (though to be fair no one seems to want to limit gun usage anymore, we lost that battle. Why did we lose it? It was the right wing’s rhetoric of unity and hope, right? No it was their insanely entrenched, unyielding, unmoving position. Good luck making government “cool” again*, I can’t wait.

Using his preacher voice, he urged a black audience in Beaumont, Tex., to be better parents, to put away chips and cold Popeyes for breakfast, and to turn off the TV and video games. “Buy a little desk or put that child at the kitchen table,” he instructed. “Watch them do their homework.”

It’s not certain that Obama could bring about an American renaissance. As the L.A. entertainment lawyer Nancy McCullough, who was on the Harvard Law Review with Obama, told Vanity Fair’s Todd Purdum, he tended to wallow in words. She said he was so intent on letting everyone have a say that “I actually would have been happier for him to say sometimes, ‘This is how we’re doing this, and shut up!’ ”

Ooh what a good source. I asked Chip, a guy Maureen Dowd went to kindergarten with, what he thought of Maureen. He said, “She was great, teachers would ask math problems and she would reference some episode of Scooby Doo she watched last night.”

The pollster Peter Hart says the central questions are: “Is Hillary honest?” and “Is Obama safe?”

Her foreign affairs plumping-up has hurt her, while his exotic and unorthodox narrative stirs doubt.

Why, why is this what people don’t like about Obama. This doesn’t bother me even slightly. There are soooooooo many good reasons to be wary of Barack Obama. This is not at all one of them.

“If I were to produce a spot for Obama,” Hart said, “I would take 100 photographs of everything that he does with his children and wife — that could range from Halloween to a picnic to everything we identify with as part of American life — so people could say, ‘I relate to that, I understand it.’ ”

“Boy, pollsters give great strategic advise”, said Mark Penn.

But, for now, Obama might want to leave the Trinity church photos out of the montage.

Ooh… score.

*I assume by “again” Maureen is referring to the incredibly hip administration of Rutherford B. Hayes. He used to throw parties that would last three days. Samuel Tilden was caught doing opium from the navel of a burlesque house girl. Carazzzzzy!