Who's Your Daddy Party? (Dowd alert)

The New York Times ^ | 03/28/04 | Maureen Dowd

[Pokey78]

WASHINGTON

I wasn't sure how to ask John Kerry, so I just blurted it out: "Is there anything we need to know about your relationship with your father?"

I didn't think the country could take another vertiginous ride on the Oedipal tilt-a-whirl. It's hard not to see the Bush unilateral foreign policy — blowing off allies and the U.N. to rewrite the ending of a gulf war his father felt had ended appropriately — as the ultimate act of adolescent rebellion.

"I know what you're saying," Mr. Kerry murmured.

The globe got whipsawed by a father-son relationship so twisty and rife with undercurrents that we're still not sure if W. was trying to avenge his father with Saddam or upend his dad's legacy in Iraq — or both. Or was he just following the gloomy, brass-knuckled lead of his surrogate father, Dick Cheney?

Little Bush cited big Bush as a rationale for war in Iraq, referring to Saddam as "the guy that tried to kill my dad at one time." Now Mr. Bush's ex-counterterrorism chief, Richard Clarke, has said that the war in Iraq "greatly undermined the war on terrorism."

Both J.F.K. and W. were the oldest sons of patrician fathers who had served as diplomats.

But while dutiful son John and the uneffusive father who sent him to Swiss boarding school were able to bond when they talked about foreign affairs, black sheep W. and his effusive father spent more time on sports than foreign policy tutorials.

Junior, as he was known in those days, was disengaged from the policy side of his father's presidency. He ran the political loyalty department.

Senator Kerry is cast as the heir to George H. W. Bush's avid internationalism and tender stewardship of the Atlantic alliance.

Being the son of a foreign service officer, Mr. Kerry says, "gave me a great sense of being able to look at other countries not just through our eyes but through their eyes, and that's, I think, an important asset."

Mr. Kerry's father, Richard, was the anti-Wolfie. He wrote a 1990 book, "The Star-Spangled Mirror," warning that America should not see the world in "black and white," exaggerating our goodness and our enemies' evil, or try to recast the world in our image, "propagating democracy" and imposing our values and institutions on the third world.

W. went along with the neocons' desire to dis Europe and undermine the U.N., where his father once reigned as affable U.S. ambassador.

The president seems oblivious to the swelling doubts about his policy in an Iraq sulfurous with treachery and blood. On Wednesday, he went to a press dinner here and made light of the fact that his rationale for invasion has evaporated. "Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere," he cracked, showing a photo of himself searching under a table in the Oval Office.

This was awkward for some, because the dinner also featured the first presentation of an award named for David Bloom and a speech by his wife, Melanie. Mr. Bloom, the NBC correspondent who died in Iraq, probably would not have been there without the hyped claims of W.M.D.

Republicans are demonizing Mr. Clarke, who has accused the administration of negligence on terrorism in the months before 9/11.

Bush officials accuse him of playing fast and loose with facts, even while they still refuse to acknowledge they took us to war by playing fast and loose with facts.

Even after a remarkable week in which a simple apology by Mr. Clarke carried such emotional power, Mr. Bush was still repeating his discredited line on Iraq, as if by rote.

"I made a choice to defend the security of the country," he said Friday, in a speech in Albuquerque, adding: "You can't see what you think is a threat and hope it goes away. You used to could when the oceans protected us. But the lesson of September the 11th is, is when the president sees a threat we must deal with it before it comes to fruition, through death, on our own soils, for example."

Even a president who was routinely referred to as adolescent criticized this White House's adolescent attitude.

"They remind me of teenagers who got their inheritance too soon and couldn't wait to blow it," Bill Clinton said. And this, he scoffed, is the "mature daddy party"?

Well, it's the party obsessed with daddy. That's for sure.   

E-mail: liberties@nytimes.com

[Pokey78]

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From Oxblog:

IMMUTABLE LAWS OF DOWD

1. Ashcroft never deserves credit.

2. Offering constructive solutions to problems, instead of whining endlessly about them, is a sign of weakness.

3. The People Magazine principle: all political phenomena can be explained with reference solely to caricatures of the personalities involved ("Dubya" is stupid; "Poppy" is an aristocrat; Cheney is macho-man; etc.). Any reference to the common good or even to old-fashioned politicking is, like, so passe.

4. It is much better to be cute than coherent.

5. Maureen knows best. Her long years as a columnist (doing basically what your great-aunt Tillie does in the nursing home bull sessions, but getting paid for it) have given her deep insight into foreign relations, politics, welfare, the Constitution, and all other topics. To disagree with Maureen in any way is not only a sign of being wrong, it's a hallmark of pure evil...or at least membership in the NRA, which is pretty much the same thing.

6. It is usually possible and always desirable to name-drop and name-call in the same sentence.

7. The particulars of my consumer-driven, shamefully self-involved life reveal universal truths.

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Explanation of the Dowd/Douglas connection: by Miss Marple- 2/11/03

Ms. Dowd was escorted around New York and DC for many months by one Michael Douglas of Hollywood fame and fortune. She got to go to all the best parties, was photographed for the tabloids, and was picking out a gown to wear at the Oscars. Of course, Michael had become interested in her during Clinton's impeachment, when she had written some very anti-Clinton columns. After a few weeks of the Michael treatment, she began to write anti-Starr, ant-Newt columns, ignoring Clinton.

Then Clinton was acquitted by the Senate. In an amazing coincidence, Michael Douglas dropped Ms. Dowd like a hot potato, and instead picked up a hot tomato, Catherin Zeta-Jones, who subsequently bore him a son and they were married.

Ms. Dowd cannot get over her tragic loss. Her columns are increasingly anti-Bush, in the hope of impressing her lost love, Michael.

In addition, we think she has a secret crush on the President and is trying to get him to pay attention to her. Ha!

[solzhenitsyn]

A nation of roughly 25 million persons has been delivered from the Hitler of our generation. Apparently, Ms. Dowd can see nothing but evil in their deliverance.

[txzman]

"I know what you're saying," Mr. Kerry murmured.

Kerry is not sure which end to wipe with toilet paper.

[Carolinamom]

Dowd is past her sell-by-date.

[binger]

[Casloy]

Ah yes, let's quote Clinton who can't figure whether we Republicans are daddies or teenagers. I think she is upset because it wasn't her under the desk in the oval office giving the "grown up" Clinton oral sex like a frat boy who snuck into the Dean's office with his slut girlfriend.

Those who defended Clinton's behavior no longer have any right to make psychological assesments of anyone.

[Bluntpoint]

If anything ever happens to Kerry, he can be cloned from a gum scraping from Ms. Dowd.

[TexasCajun]

That's J.F'n.K. Miss Dowd!

[anniegetyourgun]

Frankly, I think she was born rotten.

[EllaMinnow]

I think she's drunk.

[Kirkwood]

She's really a pathetic, disturbed, hateful, talentless woman. She would give a shark heartburn.

[Spotsy]

or try to recast the world in our image, "propagating democracy" and imposing our values and institutions on the third world.

Yeah, how dare we impose freedom on the third world. Maybe they like being brutalized by their murderous dictators. Who are we to tell them how to live?

[EGPWS]

The globe got whipsawed by a father-son relationship so twisty and rife with undercurrents that we're still not sure if W. was trying to avenge his father with Saddam or upend his dad's legacy in Iraq — or both. Or was he just following the gloomy, brass-knuckled lead of his surrogate father, Dick Cheney?

Gee, and I always thought that looks couldn't accompany intelligence.

Boy, having to realize my bigotry, a realization that has come to me abruptly after reading the above statement by Ms. Dowd, all I can do is thank the Babe for my knew found realization!

[EGPWS]

I think she's drunk.

I resemble (or is the word resent) that remark, and I "ain't" no Ms. Dowd! ; )

[anniegetyourgun]

Again....

[EGPWS]

Kerry is not sure which end to wipe with toilet paper.

When he does realize the importance of wiping both ends, he is frustrated as to which end to wipe first.

[MegaSilver]

How did this woman get to be a columnist?

[grellis]

Even after a remarkable week in which a simple apology by Mr. Clarke carried such emotional power...

!

[E=MC²]

Some people are left-brained; some people are right-brained; and then there's dowdy who is no-brained.