Maureen Dowd is an Enron Executive (JM)

Two Against The One
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: August 19, 2008
WASHINGTON

Alright, what follows here is a rant of insane speculation the likes of which probably couldn’t be printed in the Enquirer. In fact, I am not entirely positive how this is not straight up libel. This is one of those examples where Maureen has actually gone way too far in to the realm of terribly unethical journalism. The funny thing is I expect that this isn’t even as bad as it originally was before editing. So I shall, for your benefit, add the “original” text in italics.

In the dead of night in a small hideaway office in the deserted Capitol, a clandestine meeting takes place between two senators with one goal.
They grin at each other as they lift their celebratory shots of brutally cold Stolichnaya.

This meeting of the Evil League of Evil will come to order, Hillary intoned, as John McCain and Bad Horse swigged their vodka.
“Our toast to The One,” they say in unison, “is that he’s toast.”

“Obama should have picked you, Hillary,” John McCain tells her. “It isn’t fair, my friend. But it just makes it easier for me to whup him.”
“Don’t worry, John, I’ve put it behind me,” Hillary replies. “I’m looking toward the future now, a future that looks very bright, once we send Twig Legs back to the back bench.”

They chortle with delight.

Joe Lieberman enters and kneels before McCain, “Master, I’ve gotten the lock of Tim Kaine’s hair as you requested.”
Hillary, her head thrown back laughing, says, “Good, good! Now we can control him. Did you bring the eye of Newt?”
::cut to Newt Geingrich running really fast from Lieberman in a bulldozer::

“He’s a bright young man, but he got ahead of himself,” McCain says. “He needs to be taught a lesson, and we’re the ones to do it. Have you seen the new Bloomberg poll? Obama’s dropped and we’re even again. The Bullet’s getting all the credit, but you and I know, Hillary, that it’s these top-secret counseling sessions we’re having. And thanks again for BlackBerrying me the Rick Warren questions while I was in the so-called cone of silence.”

“Oh, John, you know I love you and I’m happy to help,” Hillary says. “The themes you took from me are working great — painting Obama as an elitist and out-of-touch celebrity, when we’re rich celebrities, too. Turning his big rallies and pretty words into character flaws, charging him with playing the race card — that one always cracks me up. And accusing the media, especially NBC, of playing favorites. It’s easy to get the stupid press to navel-gaze; they’re so insecure.”

Seriously, let’s just stop for a second a appreciate the fact that the so-called paper of record has allowed their most famous columnist to print an exchange in which Hillary admits to helping John McCain cheat. This is just such a tremendous lapse in journalistic integrity that I am nauseous. Usually I just think Maureen is a bad writer, but seriously this column makes me feel like she is just a terrible person.

“They’re all pinko Commies,” McCain laughs. “Especially since they deserted me for The Messiah. Seriously, Hill, that Paris-Britney ad you came up with was brilliant. I owe you.”
Looking pleased, Hillary expertly downs another shot. “His secret fear is being seen as a dumb blonde,” she says. “He wants to take a short cut to the top and pose on glossy magazine covers, but he doesn’t want to be seen as a glib pretty boy.”
McCain lifts his glass to her admiringly. “If I do say so myself, while the rookie was surfing in Hawaii, I ate his pupus for lunch. Pictures of him pushing around a golf ball while I’m pushing around Putin. Priceless.”
“I have a little secret to tell you about that, John. Bill made it happen. He loves you so much. He called Putin and told him that if he invaded Georgia, he could count on being invited to the Clinton Global Initiative every year for the rest of his life.”

Vladimir Putin and Osama bin Laden walk in to the room. Putin places as a bottle of Stoli on the table, and Clinton proceeds to drink all of it with no hands.
“Impressive,” laughs Putin, “you’ll see that I’ve invaded Georgia for you. We agree that once you become President that I can have Poland and Germany.”
“Of course you can, John pour us all another drink.”
Osama sheepishly, “No, no, none for me, it’s kind of against my religion. I’ll tell you what, if I can have the Middle East and France I will create a picture on Photoshop of me and Obama having a catch as brothers.”
“Whoa, that’s a hell of an idea! The Middle East is yours!” exclaims McCain.
“France?”
“Ehhh… sure why not. The look on Sarkozy’s face will be priceless.”

“Wow. Should I call him? I saw your husband’s kind words about me in Las Vegas on Monday, saying I’d be just as good as Obama on climate change.”

Lies, lies, lies, lies, lies. Bill explicitly said that McCain is better than most Republicans on the environment and that he prefers Obama’s plan. This is not just what he actually said, but a pretty accurate assessment of the situation.

“I think he’d like that,” Hillary smiles. “He’s still boiling at Obama. And you don’t have to worry about my army of angry women. We’ve spread the word in the feminist underground — as opposed to that wacky Obama Weather Underground — that ‘catharsis’ is code for ‘No surrender.’ My gals know when I say ‘We may have started on two separate paths but we’re on one journey now’ that Skinny’s journey is to the nearest exit.”
“But Obama’s says he’s finally ready to hit back,” McCain says, frowning. “He’s starting a blistering TV campaign and attacking me for attacking his patriotism.”
“Now, John, you know that every time he tries to get tough, he quickly runs out of gas. Sometimes in debates, he’d be exhausted by the third question. He must use up all his energy in the gym. He doesn’t have any stamina, and he certainly doesn’t have our bloodlust. Besides, you can throw that Mark Penn stuff at him that I couldn’t use in a Democratic primary about how he’s not fundamentally American in his thinking and values. While he’s up on his high-minded pedestal, you’ll scoot past him in your Ferragamos.”
“How can I ever thank you, my friend?”

In to the room comes Blackbeard, Hitler, Mao, Charlie Manson, and Richard Nixon.
“Arggh, this is fine conspiracy we have going here.”, Nixon states as he gives Hillary the second creepiest back massage of all time.
Mao and Hitler go over to Joe Lieberman with hugs all around (I suspect this moment was a bit uncomfortable for Joe, but you know anything for the party).
“Arrr, our plan for world domination is neigh completion. Let me ask you this: Does anyone have any gold doubloons they need buried?”
McCain shakes his head with disdain before calling Charlie Manson “a little jerk” and barbecuing for him.

“You can announce that you won’t be running for re-election because you’d be 76, and you can pick somebody really lame to run with, like your pal Lieberman. That means one term for you, and two for me.”
“It’s a deal,” McCain says, sticking out his hand to shake on it. “That was inspired to snatch his convention away — makes him look so weak. Listen, why don’t you stop in Sedona on the way to Denver? Wear a black wig and I’ll spirit you up to the cabin for the night. I’ll catch a catfish in the mill pond and grill it for you. It will be an adventure.” There’s a knock on the door. Jesse Jackson sticks his head into the meeting.

Following Jesse in to the room glides Lord Voldemort, Satan and a living personification of the AIDS virus.
“Tally ho and good day folks, does anyone have any need of a retrovirus this fine summer’s day?”, asks AIDSy.
“Umm… no…” says Hillary, but slowly reconsidering, “Hmm… well let’s wait and see who Obama chooses as VP shall we?” Turning she glances at Voldemort given the first creepiest back massage of all time to John McCain.
“Mmm… thanks Volde, that Imperius curse you taught me was fantastic. Look what a good little servant Joe has become.”
Satan looks around him, “Jesus, this is screwed up even for me! I’m outta here.” Satan zooms off cartoonishly with a little smoke cloud left behind him.
Fin

“Is it over?” he asks his co-conspirators.
“Yes, he’s over,” they respond in unison.

Seriously, I cannot emphasize how bad, absurd, cartoonishly evil, irresponsible, inappropriate and terrible this article is. If I thought it would do any good I would write a letter to the Times. But instead, I choice strawman it death and a makes some decent Harry Potter jokes. We all have our paths I suppose.

Maureen Dowd is Like Playing Mad Libs with Someone Who Has Tourette's (Actually Strike That, That Sounds Pretty Awesome) (JM)

Is She a Trojan Rabbit?

The thing about Maureen’s titles is that they rarely make any more sense after reading the column than they do at the beginning. Let’s go ahead and see if this holds true this week. (SPOILER ALERT: It does.)

By MAUREEN DOWD

WASHINGTON

Now Barack Obama faces a true dilemma: how best to punish Hillary Clinton.

Yes, this really should be his focus. I say a lifetime of labor in the gulag for trying to win an election.

After 15 months of fighting her off, as she veered wildly from bully to victim, as she brandished any ice pick at hand, whether racial, sexual, mathematical or marital (in the form of her Vesuvian husband), Obama must decide the most efficacious means of doing to Hillary what she has been trying to do to him: putting her in her place.

This is definitely the recipe for reunifying the party, concentrating on putting Hillary in her place. I think the mere fact that she lost has put her in her place. By the way, how misogynistic would this be if written by anyone other than a woman. Hell, screw it, still weird and misogynistic as Dowd usually is. Also “vesuvian”? There are like a billion better adjectives for Bill and if you’re trying to impress us with your vocabulary, well it’s a bit too late for that I am afraid.

Her last resort is to continue to press the “Psssst — he’s a black man” tactic. She insisted to USAToday, after the North Carolina and Indiana slide, that she has a broader base, citing an Associated Press article “that found how Senator Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.”

This is a totally legitimate criticism and a major concern for the general election. Race is a touchy issue, but demographic bases is a legitimate discussion and should not be construed as mere race baiting.

So how does Obama repay Hillary for running a campaign designed both to unman him and brand him as an unelectable black? Is the most ingenious way to turn the screw by not choosing her as his running mate, or by choosing her?

How about making a decision on what’s best for the party. The answer is probably she would not be an ideal running mate, but then again she does very much excite her base. Someone who appeals to that base is necessary.

It is, verily, a sticky wicket.

You are, verily, a Lemony Snicket.

One top Hillary supporter who is black warns that, despite the giddy dreams of some punch-drunk Democrats, a fusion ticket could backfire because “Americans can’t handle too much change at once.”

I actually think this analysis is profoundly stupid. I suspect that people who are deterred by either gender or race are likely to be deterred one way or another. I doubt there is someone out there who is thinking, “I am okay with either a black man or a woman as president, but both? That’s just too much change for me!” This is both inane and offensive. The fact is that it is time to just get over this shit and act like this is not a big deal, because when we can treat this like it’s no big deal, well that’s the real victory.

But should Obama ignore that caution and appease Hillary fans by putting her on the ticket?

As president, he could announce that, because Dick Cheney abused the powers of his office so grievously, taking the title “Vice” literally, he intends to shrink the vice presidency back to its “bucket of warm spit” Constitutional prerogatives — presiding over the Senate and taking over if the president goes under anesthesia.

See how that might not appease Hillary fans. Why do you assume punishment is the ultimate goal here. That seems like a pretty stupid goal. Also Obama knows Hillary is a pretty good resource, if he makes her VP it will be with a fairly significant portfolio, probably health care. Anything less would be a debacle.

He might also neglect to give Bill (whose acronym would be SLOTUS, Second Lad of the United States) full White House access.

Another awesome plan, a bitter, pissed off former POTUS running around the world. Maureen, I want you to be in charge of all my life’s decisions from now on.

Aside from the delight Bill would get from living at the Naval Observatory and having a huge telescope to window-peep with, there wouldn’t be much joy in Hillaryland.

Jokes, I like them.

The lady-in-waiting would be surrounded by Obama disciples who disdained her for fighting dirty. And she would be miserable holding up the train of the young prince who usurped her dream, derailing the post-nup she had with Bill to trade places.

The first part of this paragraph is true. I am not sure what a post-nup is, but yes I buy that it would be uncomfortable for her.

As de facto veep for Bill, she had enough leverage over him, due to his shenanigans, to co-opt huge chunks of policy and personnel decisions.

Does Maureen just hate being female. Does she really believe that the only reason Hillary had any policy influence was because she had dirt on Bill. This is just preposterous. Not only is it offensive to her, it is also offense to the millions of people who are certain Hillary would be an incredibly competent world leader.

But in a return engagement with Obama at the top, could she really wake up every day in the back seat and wish him well, or would she just be plotting? (Fourteen vice presidents have ascended, after all.) Wouldn’t she be, in Monty Python parlance, the Trojan Rabbit behind the gates?

See, look, her title came back. It still makes no sense, just another silly pop culture reference to cover up for a weak, weak argument. Plotting what?! If she’s VP her only goal would be a successful Obama administration. She cannot run until he leaves office, so either way, if he wins it’s another eight years, so they better be good ones. If she’s his VP candidate and they lose that damages her terminally. If she really wants to plot, it wouldn’t be from instead the White House.

On a positive note, maybe she could bring back all that stuff she pilfered on her way out.

Umm… did Dowd just accuse Hillary of being a klepto?

Obama’s other option, laid out by Teddy Kennedy on Friday, is to go with someone who wouldn’t be a big dark cloud over his sunshiny new politics.

Teddy told Bloomberg’s Al Hunt that Obama should choose a partner “in tune with his appeal for the nobler aspirations of the American people.”

Yeah, this was a obnoxious comment, especially given that Hillary is in tune with almost exactly fifty percent of Democratic voters.

That would be smart for another reason: Hillary has a strange, unnerving effect on Obama, and whenever he is around her, he’s unable to do his best. Probably, it’s because she’s furious, always shaking his hand off her arm, ignoring him, giving him the evil eye and emasculating him, and the Golden One is not used to such rough treatment.

Hillary as enemy and Hillary as teammate are two very different things. But essentially you’re correct, if Obama is uncomfortable with her, he shouldn’t choose her. However, it’s difficult to imaging that she is like some sort of competence sucking Dementor.

In the last few days, as Hillary has deflated and Obama and the Democrats have dashed for daylight, he has been more like his old self, flashing his all-is-right-with-the-world smile on the cover of Time, joshing and charming Democrats and Republicans as he wooed superdelegates on the House floor, taking on James Carville for insulting his manhood.

“James Carville is well known for spouting off his mouth without always knowing what he’s talking about,” he told Terry Moran on “Nightline.”

James Carville will survive, this is irrelevant to the question at hand.

Obama will never be at his best around Hillary; she drains him of his magical powers. She’s Jane Jinx to him. It’s a similar syndrome to the one Katharine Hepburn’s star athlete and her supercilious fiancé have in “Pat and Mike.”

What a stupid assertion structured merely to lead in to a pop culture reference. Most people use the pop culture references to emphasize their point. Not Maureen, she uses her point to emphasize her pop culture references. She’s kind of like Rose Nyland, with stories from St. Olaf, but way less charming and way more evil.

The fiancé is always belittling Hepburn, so whenever he’s in the stands, her tennis and golf go kerflooey. Finally, her manager, played by Spencer Tracy, asks the fiancé to stay away from big matches, explaining, “You are the wrong jockey for this chick.”

“You know, except when you’re around, we got a very valuable piece of property here,” he says, later adding, “When you’re around, she’s no good, she’s dead, see?”

Movie quotations are not persuasive evidence. Thus far you have made a blanket assertion about Obama being unable to perform when Hillary is around and supported it be quoting a Tracy and Hepburn movie.

“Oh, god, he’s Hepburn.” See I can randomly quote television shows too, and to one up Maureen I am not even giving you any context or relevance at all.

The best way Obama can punish Hillary is to reward himself. He’s no good around her, see?

The best way Obama can be president is not to think like a twelve year-old girl snipping at a lunch table. Just how bad was your childhood Maureen? Really miserable I bet, you are a pretty unlikable person.

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!

Maureen Dowd is a Horrific Tractor Accident (JM)

Soft Shoe in Hard Times

By MAUREEN DOWD

WASHINGTON

Everyone here is flummoxed about why the president is in such a fine mood.

The dollar’s crumpling, the recession’s thundering, the Dow’s bungee-jumping and the world’s disapproving, yet George Bush has turned into Gene Kelly, tap dancing and singing in a one-man review called “The Most Happy Fella.”

With apologies to Amy Poehler and Seth Meyers, but really? Really?! You are surprised that the president is optimistic. What do you expect, GWB to come out like Eeyore? “Siiiigh… hey everyone, the economy’s real bad… I’m soooooo depressed….”

“I’m coming to you as an optimistic fellow,” he told the Economic Club of New York on Friday. His manner — chortling and joshing — was in odd juxtaposition to the Fed’s bailing out the imploding Bear Stearns and his own acknowledgment that “our economy obviously is going through a tough time,” that gas prices are spiking, and that folks “are concerned about making their bills.”

He began by laughingly calling the latest news on the economic meltdown “a interesting moment” and ended by saying that “our energy policy has not been very wise” and that there was “no quick fix” on gasp-inducing gas prices.

“You know, I guess the best way to describe government policy is like a person trying to drive a car in a rough patch,” he said. “If you ever get stuck in a situation like that, you know full well it’s important not to overcorrect, because when you overcorrect you end up in the ditch.”

Dude, you’re already in the ditch.

You know what would help the economy Maureen? The President of the United States coming out and saying, “Well the economy’s in the tank. Quick everyone, sell your stocks, immediately! What, Commerce Bank’s running out of money; we gotta get down there and pull out our accounts as fast as possible!” Raising expectations is really maybe the only thing a president actually does for the economy.

Boy George crashed the family station wagon into the globe and now the global economy. Yet the more terrified Americans get, the more bizarrely carefree he seems. The former oilman reacted with cocky ignorance a couple of weeks ago when a reporter informed him that gas was barreling toward $4 a gallon.

In on-the-record sessions with reporters — and more candid off-the-record ones — he has seemed goofily happy in recent weeks, prickly no more but strangely liberated and ebullient.

Maybe he realizes this whole debacle is coming to an end. Also maybe he loves the fact that journalists who write for the NYT spend their time authoring really terrible columns about Hillary’s personality and writing stupid nicknames rather than actually reporting on the many ridiculously immoral and illegal things for which his administration has been responsible. I mean this is really just a guess…

Even though he ordinarily hates being kept waiting, he made light of it while cooling his heels for John McCain, and did a soft shoe for the White House press. Wearing a cowboy hat, he warbled a comic Western ditty at the Gridiron Dinner a week ago — alluding to Scooter Libby’s conviction, Saudis getting richer from our oil-guzzling, Brownie’s dismal Katrina performance, and Dick Cheney’s winsome habit of withholding documents.

At a dinner on Wednesday, the man who is persona non grata on the campaign trail (except for closed fund-raisers) told morose Republican members of Congress that he was totally confident that “we can retake the House” and “hold the White House.”

“I think 2008 is going to be a fabulous year for the Republican Party!” he said, sounding like Rachael Ray sprinkling paprika on goulash. That must have been news to House Republicans, who have no money, just lost the seat held by their former speaker, and are hemorrhaging incumbents as they head into a campaign marked by an incipient recession and an unpopular war.

You are either the dumbest political journalist of all time or you just really don’t care anymore. Maybe you were kidnapped by aliens and they left a Maureen-related random column generator behind in your place. This computer has devised all sorts of rules and schemes to make people believe that the real Maureen is still here, while she’s actually on planet Perseus-9 being a slave servant to Emperor Glacticon. If this is true, then by the standard of column writing artificial intelligence this is not bad. Also, Glacticon, a warning, don’t let her out of your sight or she will soon be writing bizarre space columns, calling you Glacty and making fun of your personal hygiene.

If only they could see things as the president does. Bush, who used his family connections to avoid Vietnam, told troops serving in Afghanistan on Thursday that he is “a little envious” of their adventure there, saying it was “in some ways romantic.”

This is a nice little tidbit, good writing.

Afghanistan is still roiling, as is Iraq, but W. is serene. “Removing Saddam Hussein was the right decision early in my presidency, it is the right decision now, and it will be the right decision ever,” he said, echoing that great American philosopher Dan Quayle, who once told Samoans, “Happy campers you are, happy campers you have been and, as far as I am concerned, happy campers you will always be.”

In so far as it is a repeating trope it is the same, in pretty much every other significant way these statements are totally irrelevant to each other.

W. bragged to Republicans about his “considered judgment” in sending more troops to Iraq and again presented himself as an untroubled instrument of divine will. “I believe there’s an Almighty,” he said, “and I believe a gift of that Almighty to every man, woman and child is freedom.”

Although the president belittled the Democrats for their policy of “retreat,” his surge has been a temporary and expensive place-holder for what Americans want: a policy to get us out of Iraq.

“Has it allowed us to reduce troop levels to below where they were when it started?” Michael Kinsley wrote recently. “The answer is no.” Gen. David Petraeus told The Washington Post last week that no one in the U.S. and Iraqi governments “feels that there has been sufficient progress by any means in the area of national reconciliation.”

This is a great article by Michael Kinsley. Thank you, Michael Kinsley. Maybe you just collect links of shit you’ve read on the internet for us Maureen. You can be Drudge without, you know, the ole’ Drudge charm.

Maybe the president is just putting on a good face to keep up American morale, the way Herbert Hoover did after the crash of ’29, when he continued to dress in a tuxedo for dinner.

Yes. This is precisely what he doing.

Or maybe the old Andover cheerleader really believes his own cheers, and that prosperity will turn up any time now, just like the W.M.D. in Iraq.

Maybe he does a bit, but probably mostly that first totally correct thing you just said that disproves the entire thesis of this article. You know, that thing you’ve never disproved.

Or perhaps it’s a Freudian trip. Now that he’s mucked up the world and the country, he can finally stop rebelling against his dad and relax in the certainty that the Bush name will forever be associated with crash-and-burn presidencies.

You ever get the feeling that Maureen is that crazy girl at a party who is so drunk and crazy that you just can’t wait to hear the next thing she’s going to say. Rather the sincerity and enthusiasm with which she approaches her every idea is commensurate with the opposite level of total insanity utter incomprehensibility of those very ideas. In other words she is that special brand of “matter-of-factly” crazy that makes rooms full of people turn around to see what’s up. So yeah Maureen, what’s up? Why don’t you tell us all about that street performer whom you once had a four hour conversation with which totally changed your life?

Whatever the explanation, it’s plumb loco.

Quid est demostratum.

Maureen Dowd is a Black Fly in Your Chardonnay (JM)

The Monster Mash

By MAUREEN DOWD

WASHINGTON

I was covered in barbecue sauce, somewhere over Texas, when Barack Obama loped down the aisle of the plane to chat with reporters.

If this isn’t the beginning to a Kafka novel I want out, right now.

I felt guilty, because I had been covering his speeches urging parents to make their kids give up chips and Popeyes. I hadn’t yet come to grips with the notion of giving up Popeyes when Obama — slender, chewing Nicorette and perfectly groomed in his crisp white shirt — came upon me. I was splattered with so much red sauce it could have been a scene from “Saw IV.” Not only on my face and hands but all over the candidate’s picture in the U.S. News & World Report I was reading.

Good god, you are telling America a story about having too much sauce on your face. I swear if they remade It’s A Wonderful Life starring Maureen Dowd, there’d be this scene where Clarence would start scratching his head, shrug and let Maureen jump. Of course, this wouldn’t happen, Maureen would live and write a column entitled “It’s a Wonderful Maureen”, discussing how God’s purpose is best served by inane references to Obama’s nutrition stump speech and “Saw IV”. Oh also, good job reminding the public Obama is trying to quit smoking, relevant and crucial.

“It’s on my ear,” he complained, looking down at the magazine.

Feeling cocky after 11 straight wins, he called me “MoDowd” and tweaked me for my many columns suggesting he would need to toughen up to beat the Clinton machine. “She’s trying to give me hair on my chest,” he said mockingly, plucking at his shirt.

Man, you know what’s cocky, the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination mocking Her Royal Highness, Maureen Dowd. I mean seriously Barack Obama, how dare you! Don’t you know who she is? I mean clearly you do, you mocked her with a stupid nickname. Honestly, sometimes Obama is likable, particularly when jousting with Dowd. He’d be the bestest class president ever. (Editor’s Note: Obama fans: ignore that last shot at Obama, it was completely inappropriate and in no way expresses the feelings of the author or this publication) (Other Editor’s Note: Clinton fans: It soooo does.)

After losing Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island and his mojo, and getting whipsawed around by Hillary and his own chuckleheaded coterie of advisers, he will now have to come to grips with something he has always skittered away from: You can’t be elected president unless you prove you’re tough.

Hillary’s undeniably tough, as even admiring conservatives admit. The Wall Street Journal op-ed page dubbed her Ma Barker, saying she had tapped into the angst of blue-collar women who know they have to ignore their “moping” men and “suck it up and hold the house together.”

Ma Clinton knows where Obambi’s soft spots are; she knows he likes being petted on his pedestal, that he’s unnerved by her, and that he can never fully accept how shameless she is. What could be more shameless than suggesting to Democrats that John McCain would make a better commander in chief than Obama?

Allow me to take a break from hitting Obama to take a swipe at Hillary for a minute. Obama’s weakness is that he cannot full accept how shameless Hillary is?

The Obama campaign seems naïve when it keeps reacting with hurt feelings and play-by-the-rules protestations to the Clinton modus vivendi of grabbing the slightest slip and ripping it open. Hillary’s kneecapper Howard Wolfson compares the goo-goo Obama campaign to Ken Starr with a straight face.

Goo-goo Obama campaign?! Also “modus vivendi” means agreeing to disagree. In other words, it’s a plan to live side-by-side. In other other words, you just totally misused the Latin expression modus vivendi. Of course, that’s your modus operandi to be modus ridiculous and modus atrocious.

The superdelegates are watching to see if Obama can stiffen his backbone. After seeing their candidates lose races they should have won in 2000 and 2004 because they flinched at Republican political waterboarding, Democrats do not want to watch the bully swipe their lollipop a third time.

A Play: Explanation Time At the Institute For Understanding Everything

Hal: Say, the American public seems interested in politics for the first time in a long time. Why do you think this is?

Gerald: Well, might I suggest that it has something to do with Maureen Dowd?

Hal: Really? Please explain this fascinating hypothesis.

Gerald: Well, remember when a few months ago when I developed my “We Need More Ridiculous Analogies About Schoolyard Playgrounds Hypothesis”?

Hal: Oh yes, that was quite the hypothesis.

Gerald: Check out this week’s NYT column by Maureen Dowd. See the line about bullies and lollipops?

Hal: By gum, that is exactly what you predicted!

Daniel Finkelstein: Do I hear good ideas being generated in here?

Fin

Obama’s multiculturalism is a selling point with many Democrats. But his impassioned egghead advisers have made his campaign seem not only out of his control, but effete and vaguely foreign — the same unflattering light that doomed Michael Dukakis and John Kerry.

Way to transition Maureen. Note how the first sentence has nothing to do with the previous paragraph and almost next to nothing to do with the remainder of the paragraph. I am not sure what “multiculturalism” has to do with “impassioned egghead advisers”, but these kinds of implications are nasty and serve next to know purpose other than creating the same kind of weird meme that brought down Kerry and Dukakis. How much better off would we have been with Kerry and Dukakis? Seriously, I want Obama to go down in the primary, but not like this, not for this reason.

First, his University of Chicago economics adviser, Austan Goolsbee, took it upon himself to reassure Canadian officials that Obama was hard on Nafta only to court the economic populist vote. In a meeting in Chicago, a memo from the Canadian consulate noted, “Goolsbee said he has always been impressed with Canada, sharing his experiences which have included trips to Montreal and Toronto as part of the Yale debate team and visits to Vancouver with his wife.”

You know what you are Maureen, you’re a breakfast TV host. You introduce people with banal facts that eat up time and space. You’re also absurdly mean and pretty unfunny. I imagine that this is what breakfast TV was like in Soviet Russia. “In America, you watch television, in Soviet Russia television watches you.”

See Maureen, if you’re going make non-sequitor jokes they might as well be from the master himself, Yakov Smirnoff. You want one more? Okay… "The first time I went to a restaurant, they asked me 'How many in your party?' and I said 'Six hundred million'." Comic gold…

While we’ve seen book tours that set up a presidential run, we’ve never seen one that tore one down. That is, until Samantha Power — the Dublin-born Harvard expert on human rights who drily refers to herself as “genocide chick” — hit London to promote her new book.

Power, a foreign policy adviser to Obama, told The Scotsman that Hillary was “a monster” and the BBC that Obama’s Iraq withdrawal plan was merely a “best-case scenario.” (She’s now resigned.)

Ma Clinton pounced, telling reporters in Mississippi, “He keeps telling people one thing, while his campaign tells people abroad something else.”

Ma Clinton?! This is just a whole new psychological level. Stop, now, before you give America the weirdest Oedipal complex of all time…

Hillary successfully recast herself in Ohio as a beer-drinking former waitress. Only after last week’s reversals did the Obama camp raise a louder ruckus about her tax returns. Obviously, Ms. Night Shift does not want to reveal the details of the fortune that Bill Clinton has made, sometimes through dubious associations.

Next month, the tax returns will be available early next month. If you’re going to get down in the muck with the Clintons you’re gonna have to do better than tax returns.

It has taken Obama a year to start seriously rebutting Hillary’s risible claim that she has far more national security experience than he does. Having a first lady tea in Belfast is not equivalent to bringing peace to Northern Ireland.

Obama sounded whiny after his losses, chastising reporters on his plane for asking him hard questions about Goolsbee and Antonin Rezko. Privately, his people conceded that he hadn’t been as fierce about winning as Hillary, once more playing rope-a-dope.

He’s now learned what Hillary learned in Iowa: You can’t cruise to victory on a coronation strategy.

If he thinks Hillary has cut him down to size lately, he’d better imagine what his life would be like as the Clintons’ vice president.

I guess the last four paragraphs of the column are fine. I agree with most of these sentiments, though I suspect Hillary would incorporate him in the vice presidency, I think the nature of the role has changed substantially over these last 15-20 years and a complex administration requires more voices.

Alright, one more Yakov Smirnoff joke, but seriously this is getting ridiculous: “In Russia we only had two TV channels. Channel One was propaganda. Channel Two consisted of a KGB officer telling you: Turn back at once to Channel One.”

Maureen Dowd is an Incredibly Deep Splinter (JM)

In the year 2115, the trash compacting robot, Garbageotron 3000 came across the following column in the trash. Even given the 265 petabytes of stored information in his robot brain he was still confused.

Duel of Historical Guilts

By MAUREEN DOWD

SAN ANTONIO

Some women in their 30s, 40s and early-50s who favor Barack Obama have a phrase to describe what they don’t like about Hillary Clinton: Shoulder-pad feminism.

They feel that women have moved past that men-are-pigs, woe-is-me, sisters-must-stick-together, pantsuits-are-powerful era that Hillary’s campaign has lately revived with a vengeance.

I do not know this term, “shoulder pad feminism”. Also according to historical records Hillary Clinton never ran on the “men-are-pigs” platform. Perhaps, she was thinking of Bea Arthur’s 2016 campaign for the Senate?

And they don’t like Gloria Steinem and other old-school feminists trying to impose gender discipline and a call to order on the sisters.

As a woman I know put it: “Hillary doesn’t make it look like fun to be a woman. And her ‘I-have-been-victimized’ campaign is depressing.”

Accessing rules of journalistic ethics and standards. According to these files random quotes from random people do not meet sufficient standards of journalistic proof. Also, the Garbageotron 3000 is pretty sure that this quote was just fabricated by the author to begin with.

But Hillary — carried on the padded shoulders of the older women in Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island who loved her “I Will Survive” rallying cry that “I am a little older and I have earned every wrinkle on my face” — has been saved to fight another day.

Why does Maureen Dowd hate old women so much? Also this primary took place after Obama was caught lying about NAFTA and an attack ad about military strength. Maybe causal logic hasn’t been invented yet. Remember, Garbageotron, these people are primitive. In our day robots are capable of both using contractions and self-reference. They didn’t even have robots.

Exit polls have showed that fans of Hillary — who once said they would be happy with Obama if Hillary dropped out — were hardening in their opposition to him, while Obama voters were not so harsh about her.

Three Hillary volunteers, older women from Boston, approached a New York Times reporter in an Austin, Tex., parking lot on Tuesday to vent that Hillary hasn’t gotten a fair shake from the press. They said that they used to like Obama but now can’t stand him because they think he has been cocky and disrespectful to Hillary.

As Hillary, remarkably and cleverly, put Obama on the defensive about a real estate deal, health care and Nafta, her campaign ratcheted up the retro battle of the sexes when they sent Dianne Feinstein onto the Fox News Sunday-morning talk show to promote the idea that Hillary should not be forced out, regardless of the results of Tuesday’s primaries, simply because she’s a woman.

Not so fast, Garbageotron has access to archives of all Fox News transcripts. Ever since President O’Reilly signed in to law the Mandatory Fox News Education Act. This claim was two sentences of a long interview. I believe this is what you humans would call “cherry-picking”.

“For those of us that are part of ‘a woman need not apply’ generation that goes back to the time I went out to get my first job following college and a year of graduate work, this is an extraordinarily critical race,” the senator said.

With Obama saying the hour is upon us to elect a black man and Hillary saying the hour is upon us to elect a woman, the Democratic primary has become the ultimate nightmare of liberal identity politics. All the victimizations go tripping over each other and colliding, a competition of historical guilts.

People will have to choose which of America’s sins are greater, and which stain will have to be removed first. Is misogyny worse than racism, or is racism worse than misogyny?

Neither side was just arguing they should be elected because of their race or gender. But seriously, she should have tried living in our time. We have over 89 genders including superfemale and golf bag. Also forget about race, we have species issues. I remember when the Galacticans boycotted the 2098 Imperial Elections when the head of Howard Dean refused to seat their delegation due to the fact that the secrete a gas so deadly to most sentient beings that to be with in a mile of them is a death sentence.

As it turns out, making history is actually a way of being imprisoned by history. It’s all about the past. Will America’s racial past be expunged or America’s sexist past be expunged?

DOES NOT COMPUTE, DOES NOT COMPUTE!

As Ali Gallagher, a white Hillary volunteer in Austin told The Washington Post’s Krissah Williams: “A friend of mine, a black man, said to me, ‘My ancestors came to this country in chains; I’m voting for Barack.’ I told him, ‘Well, my sisters came here in chains and on their periods; I’m voting for Hillary.’ ”

Do you get paid to use your primitive search engines and steal other people’s quotes?

And meanwhile, the conventional white man sits on the Republican side and enjoys the spectacle of the Democrats’ identity pileup and victim lock.

Just as Michelle Obama urged blacks to support her husband, many shoulder-pad feminists are growing more fierce in charging that women who let Obama leapfrog over Hillary are traitors.

Julie Acevedo, a precinct captain for Obama in Austin, noticed that things were getting uglier on Friday, during the early voting, when she “saw some very angry women just stomping by us to go vote for Hillary. They cut us off when we tried to talk about Barack.

Oh noes! They didn’t want to hear about hope?! How dare they!

Ahem, Jonathan, this is Garbageotron’s post, thank you very much. Don’t make me tell you about your future, you won’t be happy.

“I’m 46,” Ms. Acevedo, a fund-raiser for state politicians, said Tuesday night. “Maybe I missed it by a few years, but I don’t know why these women are so fueled by such hostility and think other women are misogynists if they don’t vote for Hillary. It’s insulting and disturbing.”

She said that if Obama definitively outpaces Hillary, she will work to “heal the wounds” and woo back women who are now angry at him.

Watching Bill Clinton greet but not address — the Big Dog has been muzzled — an excited group of students at Texas State University in San Marcos on Tuesday, 19-year-old Allison Krolczyk said she was leaning toward Obama and felt no gender guilt about voting for him. “Not at all,” she said. “I think they’re both pretty amazing.”

I’m just a simple garbage collecting robot. Maybe I don’t understand your world of journalism. But it seems to me like most of this article has nothing to do with the gender/race choice and is instead about how it’s totally crazy of women to have supported Hillary Clinton. This seems in contradiction to the stated purpose of Maureen’s column. If this gets back to the year 2008, perhaps someone could let her know so she can fix this.

The crowd held up their camera phones to capture the former president, in his bright orange tie and orange-brown ostrich cowboy boots.

“We love you, Bill!” yelled one boy. “You did a good job, except for Monica.”

This is also has nothing to do with the column and seems to be just a reference to a sexual scandal during the Clinton administration. Of course, all of these scandals will soon be blown away by the McCain administration. Perhaps, Garbageotron has said too much. I will leave it at this, if Intrade is offering the following bet, “White House Holds Classical Roman Orgy, Starring Wilford Brimley”, Garbageotron suggests you take those odds. Finally, Garbageotron would like to extend birthday wishes to former President McCain who just turn 1026 today.

Maureen Dowd is the Hamster Dance (JM)

A Wake-Up Call for Hillary

By MAUREEN DOWD

Seriously, do you think the NYT editorial staff is getting sick of this? Dowd and Frank Rich just keep printing the same anti-Hillary crap week after week. This, I am sure, is in no small part why Krugman keeps printing anti-Obama screeds week after week. I still contend that Nicholas Kristof wants to kick all their asses.

SAN ANTONIO

Channeling her inner Cheney, Hillary Clinton dropped a fear bomb, as Michelle Obama might call it, implying in a new ad that if her opponent is elected, your angelic, innocent, sleeping children could die in a terrorist attack.

It’s always good journalism to put the name Cheney next to Hillary Clinton’s. Like you told us last week, the media has been bending over backwards to help Hillary, so you best make sure you balance it out. Also “fear bomb” is what Michelle Obama might call it? I guess… but it’s also what Tim Robbins might call it or the ghost of Dr. Seuss, why Michelle Obama? Also, it is explicitly what you, Maureen Dowd has called it, why not take credit for your particular brand of journalism?

Only she has the wise head to go nuclear, should that Strangelovian phone call from a power-mad Putin come into the White House at 3 a.m. Her ad shows how composed she would be at the dread moment when she picks up the phone. Her nuke look is feminine, in a tailored camel-colored jacket and gold necklace, yet serious, in Tina Fey black reading glasses.

Seriously, if you ever ever claim to be a feminist ever I again… I swear… Also just to note, I do appreciate that Tina Fey has gone pop culture enough to be a Dowd reference. That makes me happy.

It’s hard to discern the message of the ad. The scariest thing is not the persistently ringing phone but an Andrea Yates-looking mother who’s creeping up on the sleeping babes in the dark. The point can’t be that Hillary is superior to Obama in international crisis management, because she’s done no more of it than he has. She’s only done domestic crisis management, cleaning up after Frisky Bill.

Good lord, could this be the worst paragraph since the deleted one at the end of The Great Gatsby where Fitzgerald was about to reveal that Nick Carraway was a ghost the whole time. “It’s hard to discern the message of the ad”? There are 3 year old children who have been raised by wolves, maybe even these wolves, who could discern the meaning of this ad. Dowd must have severe psychological issues to be more afraid of the mother than the phone in this ad. I mean, she just compared a mother who checked in on her kids to a woman who drowned five of her kids in a bathtub. This isn’t even yellow journalism, it’s kind of a vomitous goldenrod. Next she asserts that the point of the ad cannot be the obvious point of the ad because of blanket assertion that has no truth to it whatsoever. Clinton clear has more experience in the international realm and international negotiation. Does she have tons? No. Does she have way more than Obama? Yes. Also good job ending the paragraph with another reference to the Clinton sex scandals, this a very relevant reason to choose a future president.

Is the message that Hillary is Ready on Night One? That she won’t have to waste any time if she’s rousted out of bed in the wee hours, because she’s wearing a pantsuit under her pantsuit? (Or is it just, as Wesley Clark said during an appearance with her in Waco on Friday, that Hillary’s “been in the White House when the tough decisions were made. I guess you’ve been at the bedside when that phone rang at 3 a.m.”)

Alright, I am give Maureen a point here, the “pantsuit under her pantsuit” line made me chuckle. But still the score is AOTG: 3478239085798245980241, Maureen: 2.

It’s rather Mommie Dearest for the first serious female contender to try to give the kiddies nightmares. How maternal is that? But since her nightmare is losing, she doesn’t mind scaring the pj’s off of little Jimmy and Johnny.

There is absolutely no reason to refer to the movie Mommie Dearest here (one of the creepiest movies ever).

Obambi-No-More briskly dismissed Hillary’s attempt to cast him as a global ingénue. “Senator Clinton may not be aware, but we already had a red phone moment,” he said at an outdoor rally here, with the crowd of 8,000 booing at the mention of Hillary’s ad. “It was the decision to invade Iraq. Senator Clinton picked up the phone and gave the wrong answer. And John McCain picked up the phone and gave the wrong answer. And George Bush picked up the phone and gave the wrong answer.”

There is no greater sign that Maureen is completely in the tank for Obama than calling him “Obambi-No-More”. It’s like he’s graduated in her mind, and Maureen is not one to give up a nickname. Also, am I the only one who thinks this “picked up the phone and gave the wrong answer” concept is a terrible mixed metaphor?

(In fact, there is no red phone in the Oval Office, but maybe Obama will redecorate. He wants to put in a hoops court.)

Yay, journalism!!!

On “Nightline” last week, Hillary once more wallowed in gender inequities, asserting that it’s harder for her to run than her opponent — a black man with an exotic name that most Americans hadn’t even heard a year ago.

“Every so often I just wish that it were a little more of an even playing field,” she said, “but, you know, I play on whatever field is out there.”

This has nothing to do with gender and race, nothing. It has to do with the utterly uneven treatment of both candidates by the press. I don’t see how you are unaware of this Maureen, you are practically Exhibit A.

Is that how she would deal with dictators, by playing the refs and going before the U.N. to demand: “How come you’re not asking Ahmadinejad these questions first?”

What weird scenario have you just cooked up? When Al Gore complained about GWB stealing the election was this a weakness? Would Maureen have written, “Is this how Al Gore will deal with dictators? Complaining about fairness?” These are not analogous and it is perfectly reasonable to try and get a fair shake when running for office.

Tangled in her own victimhood, she snipped to Cynthia McFadden that Obama had written in his book that “he’s a blank screen and people of widely different views project what they want to believe onto him.” She said voters were projecting their hopes onto that blank screen even though “he just hasn’t been around long enough.”

In the next breath, asked about the women who feel sorry for her, she said: “I think a lot of women project their own feelings and their lives on to me, and they see how hard this is. It’s hard. It’s hard being a woman out there.”

So projection is bad with Obama but good with her?

Just because both sentences use the word projection doesn’t mean they are about the same thing. I mean god, in one case it was an expression about perception of a person, the other was about sympathy. This is seriously lame.

On a conference call Friday with Hillary’s ever-more-hysterical male strategists, Slate’s John Dickerson asked exactly when she had been tested in a foreign policy crisis. After a silence long enough to knit a sweater in, as the Web site The Hotline put it, Mark Penn cited “her work on the Armed Services Committee.”

Hillary’s boys pout that the press should find some dirt on Obama before time runs out. Their once fearsome campaign is now reduced to whining that Obama did not hold any substantive hearings of his Subcommittee on European Affairs. What’s next? Bitterly complaining that he missed a quorum call?

He didn’t hold any hearings on Afghanistan, a very important issue that was part of his purview. This is akin to saying, “Obama is complaining about Hillary’s vote on Iraq. What’s next? Bitterly complaining that she once laughed at joke made by Rush Limbaugh?” Dowd has redefined the “journalism of putting things next to each other”. She takes two things, one normal and the other awful and just asserts they are connected. It would be funny if millions of people didn’t read her columns.

Hillary keeps trying to dismiss Obama’s appeal as emotional, something that can be overcome with enough mental discipline. But behind that ethereal presence he’s a wonky lawyer, just like Hillary. He reads The Times and Philip Roth and talks about the fine points of Medicare Part B in a way W. never could have when he first ran for president. (Or now.)

There’s an awesome bar… GWB.

Hillary’s visceral attacks will not work. And the Republicans’ visceral attacks on the Obamas’ patriotism, and their usual attempt to make the Democrat seem foreign (Hussein, Hussein, Hussein!), may not have the same traction.

The president took the country to war on his gut, exploited our fears and played the patriotism card to advance his political agenda.

This time, Americans may prefer cerebral arguments to visceral ones. What a refreshing change reality would be.

It would be a refreshing change, of course it’s the opposite of what your advocating for. You’ve chosen the candidate of visceral arguments over the candidate of cerebral arguments. Cherry picking quotes and moments and flatout lying isn’t going to change that.

Maureen Dowd is Vigo the Carpathian (JM)

Begrudging His Bedazzling

Is this a reference to the Bedazzler? The rhinestone gun that allows you to disco up your jean jacket? If so, might I just add Disco Stu don’t advertise.

By MAUREEN DOWD

CLEVELAND

A huge Ellen suddenly materialized behind Hillary on a giant screen, interrupting her speech Monday night at a fund-raiser at George Washington University in Washington.

This evokes a strangely entertain vision of a weird totalitarian society run by Ellen Degeneres. Yes, I am aware that I have made two comments with no points thus far, but to be fair neither has Maureen.

What better way for a desperate Hillary to try and stop her rival from running off with all her women supporters than to have a cozy satellite chat with a famous daytime talk-show host who isn’t supporting Obama?

Why is it desperate for Hillary to use Ellen as a spokesperson, but not Obama?

“Will you put a ban on glitter?” Ellen demanded.

Diplomatically, Hillary said that schoolchildren needed it for special projects, but maybe she could ban it for anyone over 12.

Certainly, Hillary understands the perils of glitter. The coda of her campaign has been a primal scream against the golden child of Chicago, a clanging and sometimes churlish warning that “all that glitters is not gold.”

Is that it? Is that what you spend five paragraphs setting us up for? Also not to nitpick, because I would never do that to so eminent a writer as you Maureen, but can a warning really be clanging. Moreover, churlish? Why is that anytime Hillary makes any attempt to win this election she is cast as mean-spirited?

David Brody, the Christian Broadcasting Network correspondent whose interview with Hillary aired Tuesday, said the senator seemed “dumbfounded” by the Obama sensation.

She has been so discombobulated that she has ignored some truisms of politics that her husband understands well: Sunny beats gloomy. Consistency beats flipping. Bedazzling beats begrudging. Confidence beats whining.

Experience does not beat excitement, though, or Nixon would have been president the first time around, Poppy Bush would have had a second term and President Gore would have stopped the earth from melting by now.

I wonder why this is. I wonder if it could have anything in the world to do with these types of columns. You, personally, Maureen have spent over a year tearing in to Hillary with seemingly no greater end than personal bloodlust, you Maureen once accused Al Gore of “lactating”, you Maureen probably would columns describing Nixon and shifty and jowly. On second thought, the Nixon thing probably would have been okay. But still you are a terrible journalist and you and your cohort are the very reason “excitement” beats “experience”.

Voters gravitate toward the presidential candidates who seem more comfortable in their skin. J.F.K. and Reagan seemed exceptionally comfortable. So did Bill Clinton and W., who both showed that comfort can be an illusion of sorts, masking deep insecurities.

::Jumping up and down and pointing:: See, see! Look how that last sentence might be a really good argument in favor of Hillary. I bet you’re about to follow up on this with some deeper analysis.

The fact that Obama is exceptionally easy in his skin has made Hillary almost jump out of hers. She can’t turn on her own charm and wit because she can’t get beyond what she sees as the deep injustice of Obama not waiting his turn. Her sunshine-colored jackets on the trail hardly disguise the fact that she’s pea-green with envy.

Why is it you think it is okay to just make up other people’s emotions? Why is it acceptable for you to just blatantly say mean-spirited things hidden behind terrible analogies and sophomoric wordplay. Is it cool if I were to write: “The red notebook Maureen Dowd prepares her columns in might as well be green due to the intense level of envy she has for the clearly superior intellect and talent of Hillary Clinton. Her vicious accusations are only cover for her incredible jealous over the fact that Hillary is role model for women through history and she is nothing more than a hack writer.” Is that acceptable? Sure. Why? Because I write a blog read by people who have nothing better to do than listen to the insane rants of a sarcastic New York Jew (P.S. I am not referring to the person who is currently reading this now, you’re totally cool, just some other people… definitely not you). You, Maureen, work for the New York Times.

After saying she found her “voice” in New Hampshire, she has turned into Sybil. We’ve had Experienced Hillary, Soft Hillary, Hard Hillary, Misty Hillary, Sarcastic Hillary, Joined-at-the-Hip-to-Bill Hillary, Her-Own-Person-Who-Just-Happens-to-Be-Married-to-a-Former-President Hillary, It’s-My-Turn Hillary, Cuddly Hillary, Let’s-Get-Down-in-the-Dirt-and-Fight-Like-Dogs Hillary.

Seriously all these different types could be condensed down to soft Hillary and hard Hillary. Also, awesome Sybil joke.

Just as in the White House, when her cascading images and hairstyles became dizzying and unsettling, suggesting that the first lady woke up every day struggling to create a persona, now she seems to think there is a political solution to her problem. If she can only change this or that about her persona, or tear down this or that about Obama’s. But the whirlwind of changes and charges gets wearing.

Alright that’s it. “Cascading images”?!! WTF Maureen? Are your columns corporately sponsored by the word cascading? Long time, AOTG readers will recognize that she has used the word in like seven of her previous articles and almost invariably in an inappropriate manner. It’s just weird, it’s just not that difficult or exciting of a word. What’s the deal Dowd?

By threatening to throw the kitchen sink at Obama, the Clinton campaign simply confirmed the fact that they might be going down the drain.

Sink… drain… get it? Also you write this article every week, aren’t you getting bored?

Hillary and her aides urged reporters to learn from the “Saturday Night Live” skit about journalists having crushes on Obama.

“Maybe we should ask Barack if he’s comfortable and needs another pillow,” she said tartly in the debate here Tuesday night. She peevishly and pointlessly complained about getting the first question too often, implying that the moderators of MSNBC — a channel her campaign has complained has been sexist — are giving Obama an easy ride.

Beating on the press is the lamest thing you can do. It is only because of the utter open-mindedness of the press that Hillary can lose 11 contests in a row and still be treated as a contender.

Oh yes, the press is so totally gracious. It’s so sweet of them to have allowed Hillary to stay in this race. You are the lyingist liar who ever did lie. About your last 30 columns have been Hillary hit jobs (or at least contained a quick hit or two on her character). Chris Matthews spends his nights figuring out ways to unfavorably compare Hillary to 17^th century Chinese moguls. Most of the MSM has been trying as hard as possible to kick Hillary to the curb. The press has been simply terrible to Hillary and all the wishful thinking and assertions to the otherwise in the world won’t make it untrue.

Hillary and her top aides could not say categorically that her campaign had not been the source on the Drudge Report, as Matt Drudge claimed, for a picture of Obama in African native garb that the mean-spirited hope will conjure up a Muslim Manchurian candidate vibe.

God, you are just totally disgusting. I am sorry readers, much of my Maureen bashing has gone from mockery to simply reviling every word she has to say. This is just so totally unethical that I almost through my keyboard at the wall. She denied it to the best of her knowledge? What do you want her to do? Claim total omniscience about everything her staff ever does? Meanwhile when Obama hedges on a billion different things, not a word from you. But I suppose we should just all be totally grateful you and the press have let Hillary stay in the race. So kind of you.

At a rally on Sunday, she tried sarcasm about Obama, talking about how “celestial choirs” singing and magic wands waving won’t get everybody together to “do the right thing.”

This was genuinely one of the funniest things I have ever seen in a campaign. Dennis, a hardline Obama supporter agrees. This was simply great politics.

With David Brody, Hillary evoked the specter of a scary Kool-Aid cult. “I think that there is a certain phenomenon associated with his candidacy, and I am really struck by that because it is very much about him and his personality and his presentation,” she said, adding that “it dangerously oversimplifies the complexity of the problems we face, the challenge of navigating our country through some difficult uncharted waters. We are a nation at war. That seems to be forgotten.”

Actually it’s not forgotten. It’s a hard sell for Hillary to say that she is the only one capable of leading this country in a war when she helped in leading the country into that war. Or to paraphrase Obama from the debate here, the one who drives the bus into the ditch can’t drive it out.

A Maureen Dowd Column Staff Meeting (with herself)

MD: Hey, Maureen, people seem to think you’re not a terrible impartial journalist.

MD: You know, you’re right, I am great. And that just grates on people. What do they want, I’ll put the “scary Kool-Aid” quote in my column.

MD: It’s like that episode of Growing Pains when Mike gets a phone in his room and then Carol wants one.

MD: Yep, okay, I get it. I will end with non-sequitor attack on Hillary, just to make sure I am fair and balanced.

MD: You’re just great Maureen.

Maureen Dowd is Bread at a Seder (JM)

¿Quién Es Less Macho?

Why is the title of this article half in Spanish, half in English?

By MAUREEN DOWD

Ohh…

If this is truly the Decline and Fall of the Clinton Empire, it is marked by one freaky stroke of bad luck and one striking historical irony.

How likely is it that a woman who finally unfetters herself from one superstar then finds herself eclipsed by another?

I mean, somewhat likely? A bit unlikely, but not spectacularly so? A rather unremarkable amount of likelihood given that we are discussing three different presidential candidates?

And when historians trace how her inevitability dissolved, they will surely note this paradox: The first serious female candidate for president was rejected by voters drawn to the more feminine management style of her male rival.

No, no serious historian will ever write about this because, hopefully, by the time people are writing histories of this election no serious intellectual will think in bizarre, anachronistic terms about gender roles in society. Oh what? They don’t even really do this now? I see.

The bullying and bellicosity of the Bush administration have left many Americans exhausted and yearning for a more nurturing and inclusive style.

Sixteen years of politicians in Washington clashing in epic if not always essential battle through culture wars, the right-wing war against the Clintons, the war-without-end on terror, and the war-with-no-end-in-sight in Iraq have spawned a desire for peace and pragmatism.

Yes, how feminine. Because I am a man and you have offended me I shall now launch weapons at you. But because you are a woman, and inherently understand peace and pragmatism, you will wish super duper hard and all the bombs I drop on you will turn in to flowers and moderately priced, fashionable furniture from the Pottery Barn.

Hillary was so busy trying to prove she could be one of the boys — getting on the Armed Services Committee, voting to let W. go to war in Iraq, strong-arming supporters and donors, and trying to out-macho Obama — that she only belatedly realized that many Democratic and independent voters, especially women, were eager to move from hard-power locker-room tactics to a soft-power sewing circle approach.

Let’s examine the evidence you have presented for this awesomely compelling theory Maureen… Okay, the closest we get is the phrase “especially women”, which is not especially persuasive, given that women have been Clinton’s strongest supporters throughout the entire campaign. Yes, America is less bellicose than in the past, but it’s like you’re trying hammer a very small square peg in to a giant, gaping round hole. Also what the hell are “hard-power locker-room tactics?” Maybe I am asking this wrong… maybe I should take more of a “sewing circle” approach.

Less towel-snapping and more towel color coordinating, less steroids and more sensitivity.

Dear New York Times,

Have you been reading yourself lately? Sometimes it’s fine, but sometimes there is reason for worry. You see you have a writer, her name is Maureen Dowd. Her perspective on gender is roughly akin to Rudyard Kipling’s on race. Also she is a super terrible writer. For instance, she will write any joke that comes to her mind, even if it’s not at all funny and makes very little sense given the context of her columns. Speaking of context, her columns are usually nothing more than the virtually equivalent of a crazy homeless lady yelling at the garbage can near her for being too loud. So here’s my question: Is Maureen terminally ill? Is the column something you’ve arranged for her through the Make-a-Wish Foundation? If so, I apologize and I understand. But if not, it’s just kind of curious more than anything else.

Your pal,

Jonathan

Business schools have begun teaching the value of a less autocratic leadership style, with an emphasis on behavior women excel at: reading emotions and social interactions, making eye contact and expressing empathy.

Yes, distinctly feminine. When I talk to people I stare at the ground and mumble. When I see that someone who upset or crying, I hit them.

At the University of Texas on Thursday morning, Obama proved that he was not a cowboy in overdrive like W. when he demurred at throwing a spiral because his pass might not be as good as the Longhorn stars’.

Let’s say someone wanted to prove Barack Obama wasn’t a cowboy in overdrive. I am not sure why someone would feel like doing that, but sure let’s take on this fascinating intellectual exercise. What’s the first question we should ask? Hmm… how about: Did he demure at throwing a spiral because his pass might not be as good as the Longhorn stars’? Check. Alright, our work here is done, let’s pack it in and call it a day. What? You’re not compelled?! Why this is fantastic evidence!

Let’s just pretend the sheer frivolity of this argument is kind of unimportant. By this logic Jimmy Carter is a “cowboy in overdrive” because he threw the opening pitch of a baseball game once, despite the fact that he just was not as good as Nolan Ryan. Also, doesn’t it seem like an explicitly “cowboy in overdrive” thing to do, refusing participate in an activity unless you are as good as a professional? But then who knows, I am just a man, I cannot understand these complex concepts, like feelings and emotions.

After so many years when W. and Cheney stomped on the world and the world glared back, many Americans would like to see their government focus more on those staples of female fiction: relationships and conversation.

Staples of female fiction? Yep, male fiction has absolutely no relationships and conversation in it. I just read Ian McEwan’s new book, Sex and Bombs, it was awesome, not one conversation just nonstop erotica and violence.

At first in Austin, Hillary did not channel Jane Austen. She tried once more to cast Obama as a weak sister on his willingness to talk to Raúl Castro.

You’ve heard it here first. Jane Austen: soft on the Commies. Also, very punny Maureen!

Obama tapped into his inner chick and turned the other cheek. To cheers, he said, “I think that it’s important for us, in undoing the damage that has been done over the last seven years, for the president to be willing to take that extra step.”

Look, if we’re really going to do this, let’s do this. Who is more likely to stop talking to a friend from like 50 years ago because of a disagreement? If we are going to gender stereotypes, doesn’t it seem way more likely to come from a woman?

Hillary tried to rough up Obama on copying his pal’s language even as she copied her husband’s line from 1992: “The hits that I took in this election are nothing compared to the hits that the people in this state and this country are taking every day of their lives under this administration.”

It wasn’t a precise copy; moreover it was just a line as opposed to an entire section of a speech.

While Obama looked at her warily, even fearfully, Hillary suddenly switched to her feminine side. Getting New Hampshire misty, she said she was “absolutely honored” to be there with him and that “whatever happens, we’re going to be fine.” (Her campaign defended the originality of the John Edwardsian sentiment, saying it had even been expressed by the likes of Lindsay Lohan). The press hailed the moment as heartfelt, but it was simply Hillary’s calculated attempt to woo women and protect her future in the party — by seeming more collegial. She’s furious that the Chicago kid got in the picture.

Seriously Maureen, you are just an ass. This paragraph pisses me off, it absolutely a breech of any sense of journalistic responsibility. To broadly assert that the moment wasn’t heartfelt, that Hillary is nothing more than calculating manipulator with nothing more than your gut as evidence is reprehensible. You have one of the widest platforms to generate discussion and educate people and instead you use it to do this crap.

Her “My sister, my daughter” flip from muscular to tremulous left everyone confused. Many characterized her emulation of empathy as elegiac and submissive.

Please stop speaking for me. Do what you will; it is obvious that I have no control over your ability to continue being gainfully employed. However, do not make statement about “everyone”, especially when they are poorly written. You’re like an eleventh grade girl who’s trying to show everyone that she knows her SAT words real well.

But she dispelled that Friday morning when she told Evan Smith, the editor of Texas Monthly, that she will push for Florida and Michigan delegates to be seated, despite her promise. Not for herself, mind you, but for them. “It’s in large measure because both the voters and the elected officials in Michigan and Florida feel so strongly about this,” she said.

I also feel strongly about this. Do I think that Hillary doesn’t have any political interest going on here? Of course not. But I hate how the media (see Maureen Dowd) has turned Hillary in to this calculating Cylon, only interest in what she can gain. Regardless of how you feel about Florida and Michigan you cannot possible believe that this is a black and white issue. Over two million people are being disenfranchised. It is a worthwhile debate that it is perfectly reasonable on which to have a position.

Among her other cascading woes, it turns out that Hillary is not able to manage her political family’s money. Like a prudent housekeeper, Obama spent the cash he raised — including from his continuing relationships with small donors — far more shrewdly, on ads rather than on himself.

We’ve actually talked about this before, you use the word cascading in cascadingly silly ways. Like a prudent housekeeper?! You know, some people go to place like Merrill Lynch to invest their money, but if you really want to know the secret to sound financial investment: housekeepers. Prudent housekeepers: the Goldman Sachs of household help investment vehicles.

Hillaryland spent like a hedge fund manager in a flat-screen TV store. Her campaign attempted to show omnipotence by lavishing a fortune on the take-no-prisoners strategists Howard Wolfson and Mark Penn, and on having the best of everything from the set decoration at events to Four Seasons rooms. In January alone, they spent $11,000 on pizza, $1,200 on Dunkin’ Donuts and $95,384 at a Des Moines Hy-Vee grocery store for get-out-the-vote sandwich platters.

My buddy Rick is a hedge fund manager. He owns 4253262362569435 flat screen TVs. It’s insane, they just sit in this giant room. Sometimes he tries to dive in to them like Scrooge McDuck’s Money Bin, but this often results in injury. Also flat-screen TV store? The hell?

Also the examples Maureen cites here are ridiculous. I mean GOTV sandwich platters seem like a legitimate campaign expense. The cost of Mark Penn is a legitimate criticism, given how little he has managed to do for the campaign, but otherwise this is a bit silly. Also citing numbers in isolation, without comparing them to other numbers is meaningless.

But total domination in the snack arena does not cut the mustard.

I actually sat and stared at this sentence for ten minutes. I was mesmerized by the banality. It’s like a magic eye picture, but no matter how long you look you’re not going to see anything deeper.