Digitus Impudicus

Maureen Dowd: Hackmyster D

The New York Times’ premier Harlot of Hypocrisy is at it again. This time she’s got her spinnerets aimed at Senator Kerry (though she makes an off-hand reference to Kitty Kelly’s book, The Family)

Let’s take a look see:

For his entire life, he was seen as so ambitious to be president, as so eager to consort with heiresses, that it was off-putting; his St. Paul's classmates played "Hail to the Chief" on kazoos when he walked by, and in the Senate, Bob Dole mocked the Massachusetts senator's love of cameras by nicknaming him Live Shot.

But this summer, when that lust for power should have been coursing through his veins, Mr. Kerry grew timid and logy. He let the Bush crowd and Swift boat character assassins stomp all over him and, for the longest time, didn't fight back. He stumbled into every trap Bush Inc. set.

Finally, the only Democrat who has fended off the WASP Corleones reminded the nominee of the prep-school mantra: punch the bully in the face, and do it in the same news cycle.

And who is this Dem savior? This knight on a white stallion who could ride in and save Kerry, if only he were listened to?

Why, it’s William Jefferson Clinton, of course.

I think the Dems should just get it over with and rename the party. I can just hear the Washington Attorney General’s primary commercials (sorry, local reference):

Blairrrr! I’m an elephant! I’m the Republican!

Bring me you tired, your poor... I’m Lady Liberty, the Libertarian!

Wank wank wank. Puff puff puff. I’m the Clintonista!

The Dem’s breathless (heh heh) adulation of Don Clintioni (hat tip to Rush) is too entirely funny to miss. He represents the Dem party perfectly: charming words, without any accomplishments behind them. And I’m just loving the hell out of watching these people cling to Clinton’s leg in times of need like, well, you know.

This article of Dowd’s also shows one of the earliest examples of what I’ve predicted to happen (and do so again): The Dems will not only blame their candidate for the coming November Surprise (and his hangers-on), but they’ll also blame the stupid American public. See if you can smell the derision and contempt:

Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney jumped in the polls because they cast their convention as a Western. They were the "Magnificent Seven," steely-eyed, gun-slinging samurai riding in to save the frightened town: Rudolph Giuliani, John McCain, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Zell Miller, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush and Poppy Bush, who was on "Imus" comparing Mr. Kerry with Jane Fonda.

Yep. That us. You and me. The “frightened town.” Cowering in our hovels in flyover country. When we’re not tending the sheep, or otherwise engaged in suitably picturesque agrarian activities, were driving around the “back 40” in our pickups with the gun rack in the rear window.

I’ve always gotten the feeling that Maureen was old enough to have seen Gunsmoke, but never mature enough to get it.

And the references to Westerns keep on a commin’

The vice president played up the Western motif by giving ABC an interview at his Wyoming ranch.

"The cowboy riding tall in the saddle and holding the reins for a little girl on her pony could have been Shane," wrote Alessandra Stanley in her TV Watch column in The Times.

The point is that Dowd is one of the Dem’s leading lighthouses on the coast of their philosophy, though a bit too close to the rocks. And in this current environment the Dems only seem capable of choosing between Dowd and Moore. Which is fine with me.

It is impossible for a political party to find continued success when they hold so many Americans in unveiled contempt.

After 9/11, Americans want tough guys who will protect them from Al Qaeda. They seem to be willing to settle for an impersonation of tough guys by Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney...

I’m going to close out with letting Maureen sum up. Actually, her prose is quite good here, and, though this is dripping with snobbish distain, her take is generally correct. She just doesn’t understand why. Or why it’s proper to these times.

In Westerns, the heroes are men of smoke-'em-out edicts and action, played out in gorges on their ranches; in Easterns, the heroes have windy, nuanced dialogue, delivered with a lockjaw in mansions on Beacon Hill and on windsurfing expeditions off Nantucket.

In Easterns, the effete heroes get upset when the wrong kind of people join their Boston clubs, and quibble, in the style of the "Late George Apley," about the rules when suit jackets must be worn.

In Westerns, the heroes treat womenfolk with gallantry, but tell them to stay back. In Easterns, Teresa rides shotgun and calls the opposition "idiots." There's a reason Easterns never caught on in Hollywood. High tea in a drawing room is just not as compelling as high noon in the town square.

Awww shucks.