Maureen Dowd has lived a life of fantasy. She turned her back on the Church she was born into and comforted herself by believing she was showing younger women how to really live. Like Miss Jean Brodie, twenty-five years later it has all blown up in her well-preserved face.
Maureen's latest is full of of slander, mistruths and outright lies. It ought to have her fired. However since the NYTimes is run by girlie-men who have issues with the truth, she will continue on the job suffering the worse fate of all; a dwindling readership of younger women. Her readership will consist largely of women of her own age who all talk to themselves and date girlie-men.
While there are numerous things to refute in her column, I have two small children waiting for me to take them on a bike ride and so I will merely focus on 6 items.
1. The idea that presidents cannot take vacations in a time of war is false. This is actually called strategy. It demonstrates to our enemy that the president, be it FDR, LBJ, Bush 41, or Bush 43, that the war is not consuming them. Since the enemy in this war has to travel from safe house to safe house daily, even hourly, this strategy has the potential to be extremely psychologically taxing and therefore could be more successful than in previous wars. That is if such ignorant idiots like Miss Dowd stop carping and actually let the strategy work. Their carping gives the terrorists strength. The reason Miss Dowd is an ignorant idiot is because if she simply checked the historical record she would see that many wartime presidents have left Washington in August including Abraham Lincoln.
2. "refusing to to see a grieving mom of a dead soldier" Cindy Sheehan is a grieving mom whose sincere grief has caused her great mental affliction. Her whole world has fallen apart and is, to use Miss Dowd's own words, a spiraling crisis since the death of her son. She was just served divorce papers by her husband last Friday. The media ought to do the decent thing and pack up the cameras and leave. That way Cindy's surviving son, whose pain at this point must be unimaginable, can come there, take his mom home and get her the help she desperately needs.
3. Bush Sr. owns a cigarette boat. Nice slam Maureen, but a bit obvious. Try a Boston Whaler.
4. The military are "sitting ducks". Sitting ducks are not armed especially as well as our military is. I wouldn't mind owning a few Daisy Cutters, B52's F16's, cruise missiles, machine guns, Humvees... Our military is actually fighting terrorists who ignore the traditional rules of engagement of civilized countries by not showing themselves before they start shooting. So much for the noble savage theory.
There has been a recent example of our military being "sitting ducks"; Mogadishu. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Colin Powell requested more back up in Somalia from then President Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton denied the request and 18 military members were murdered and their bodies dragged through the street. When, at a memorial service, one of the grieving fathers of the murdered soldiers refused to shake Clinton's hand, the press roundly criticized the father for not accepting Clinton's sincere and heartfelt condolences.
5. Iraq will have a "barren" outcome. Maureen, have you already forgotten that Uday and Cusay Hussein are in the final stages of ashes to ashes and dust to dust? They will never to terrorize, maim, rape, or murder the citizens of Iraq again and then take over the actual running of Iraq upon the death of their delightful father? Or that Iraqi women actually voted earlier this year? Try that one again Maureen but substitute your own name for Iraq.
6. "the official told the Washington Post" Are already we are back to listening to unnamed Washington officials? Why the last time we did that there was a riot in Afghanistan and 17 people ended up dead. The London Tube bombers were even motivated to murder 50+ of their own countrymen by the false information those unnamed Washington officials leaked. Get the officials to go on the record and I will be happy to hear what they have to say.
Mrs. P
Here, here! Great points! Well said! We collectively can't stand Ms. Dowd's rants.
Posted by: The Crack Young Staff | August 17, 2005 at 12:12 PM
"My wife", as they used to say in the Geritol ads, "I think I'll keep her."
This was way back, you have to understand, before we decided collectively that by the time you needed Geritol it was time for a divorce, a young blond thing in a leather bikini and a second childhood. Scratch that. I should have said "infancy".
Posted by: Mr. Peperium | August 17, 2005 at 03:38 PM