Epitaph and Epigone (Dowd alert)

The New York Times ^ | 06/10/04 | Maureen Dowd

[Pokey78]

WASHINGTON

Sometimes I feel as if I'm watching a nation mourn. And sometimes I feel as if I'm watching a paternity suit.

At every opportunity, as the extraordinary procession solemnly wended its way from California to the Capitol, W. was peeping out from behind the majestic Reagan mantle, trying to claim the Gipper as his true political father.

Finally, there is a flag-draped coffin and military funeral that President Bush wants to be associated with, and wants the rest of us to see.

"His heart belongs to Reagan," Ken Duberstein declared about Mr. Bush on CNN, in a riff on the old Cole Porter ditty "My Heart Belongs to Daddy." W. "is that bold-stroked primary-colors leader that—— somebody who has this big vision and wants to stick to it." (Well, the two presidents do share the same middle initial.)

The Bush-Cheney re-election Web site was totally given over to a Reagan tribute, with selected speeches, including "Empire of Ideals" — too bad we didn't just stick to ideals — and "The Boys of Pointe du Hoc," President Reagan's 1984 Normandy speech, played so often last Sunday that it eclipsed W. at Normandy.

Bush hawks were visibly relieved to be on TV answering questions that had nothing to do with prison torture, phantom W.M.D. or America's new C.I.A.-operative-turned-prime-minister in Iraq. What a glorious respite to extol a strong, popular, visionary Republican president who spurred democracy in a big backward chunk of the world — even if it isn't W., and it's the Soviet bloc and not the Middle East.

Showing they haven't lost their taste for hype, some Bushies revved up the theme that Son of Bush was really Son of Reagan.

Never mind that back in 1989, the deferential Bush père couldn't wait to escape the Gipper's Brobdingnagian shadow. Though he liked Ronald Reagan, 41 had a secret disdain for 40's White House. He was dismayed by the way Reagan media wizards treated the president like a prop and the Oval Office like an M.G.M. set. He and Barbara, who divide the world into peers and "the help," also hated being treated like "the help" by the Reagans, who did not have them upstairs at the residence for dinner and who did not always thank them for presents. Nancy also warned Barbara off wearing "Nancy Reagan red."

The Reagans returned the favor. "Kinder and gentler than who?" Nancy sniffed after Bush 41's convention acceptance speech.

For the neocons, ideology is thicker than blood. Bush père is the weakling who broke his tax pledge and let Saddam stay in power. Just as Ronnie was a poor kid from Dixon, Ill., who reinvented himself as a brush-clearing cowboy of grand plans and simple tastes, so W. was a rich kid from Yale and Harvard and a blue-blooded political dynasty who reinvented himself as a brush-clearing cowboy of grand plans and simple tastes.

While W. talks the optimistic talk, he doesn't walk the walk; the Bush crew conducted its Iraq adventurism with a noir and bullying tone.

Nevertheless, Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz tried to merge Junior and Gipper. Mr. Perle said on CNN that he had no doubt that Mr. Reagan would not have been "pushed out of Iraq before completing the mission," and Wolfie agreed that 9/11 had "changed everything. I think it would have changed it for Ronald Reagan. We've gone from just being concerned with the freedom of other people in the Middle East to the threat to our own country from totalitarian regimes that support terrorism."

These maunderings forget Mr. Reagan's practical side, which avoided risk, compromised and retreated at times; when 241 marines were blown up in Beirut, he rejected the pleas of advisers and pulled out. Mr. Wolfowitz has told friends this was Mr. Reagan's low point.

As Alexander Haig told Pat Robertson yesterday, Mr. Reagan won the cold war without a shot. He championed freedom but didn't force it on people at the point of a gun barrel.

The Bush crowd's attempt to wrap themselves in Reagan could go only so far. While Laura Bush and Donald Rumsfeld shared memories of fathers who had suffered from Alzheimer's, Mrs. Bush said she could not support Mrs. Reagan's plea to remove the absurd and suffocating restrictions on stem cell research.

Whether he was right or wrong, Ronald Reagan was exhilarating. Whether he is right or wrong, George W. Bush is a bummer.  

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!

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Moron Dowd enjoys a drink with her DemonRat Party pals
(Courtesy Free ThinkerNY)

[Paul Atreides]

W. was peeping out from behind the majestic Reagan mantle, trying to claim the Gipper as his true political father.

Unlike what the Dims have been trying to do with JFK, for the past forty years. /sarcasm

[stillnoprotestsagainstmuslims]

Maureen who?

[Congressman Billybob]

I am watching Jack the Ripper as I post on this thread. Seems somehow appropriate. Maureen Dowd is the intellectual equivalent of a South London skank, if ever there was one.

Did I miss anything?

Congressman Billybob

Latest column, "Memorial Day, 2004."

If you haven't already joined the anti-CFR effort, click here.

[Adrastus]

Anything I could say would be anti-climatic after the two above comments/posts.Dowd should give it up. She has been trashed by her own insecurities.

[counterpunch]

That final oicture of Dowd drinking with her legs over her head is obviously Photoshopped.
I do not believe she was wearing pants in the original picture.

[counterpunch]

This picture of Dowd drinking with her legs over her head is obviously Photoshopped.
I do not believe she was wearing pants in the original picture.

[lizma]

I haven't really read Dowd since her Elian screed but for some reason, maybe out of curiosity, thought I'd check her out tonight.

What a vindictive, base women. I really hope this women will never blessed us with her abilities to reproduce. She's justa gotta be filled with alot of spooky ovum.

Maybe she's a Rosemary wanna be. Clueless and vile don't mix.

[Consort]

Dowd: Epitome of Epicaricacy.

[lizma]

The before:

Viva la plastics.

[stillnoprotestsagainstmuslims]

LOL! I saw that the other day on that site awful plastic surgery..You ever see the one of Jocelyn Wildenstein? I almost puked my guts up when I saw that one. And I thought Michael Jackson went too far.

[Tamzee]

I believe it is Maureen Dowg...

[egarvue]

I actually am starting to welcome Dowd's rantings, becuase every time she gets her poisonous screed's published, I get a new round of Catherine Zeta-Jones pics! :-)

[Richard Axtell]

I usually try to point out how inexplicably blind columnists like Dowd think the way they do, and prove them wrong, but... like, who cares what she thinks? She is irrelevant.

[Starve The Beast]

Let's add it up:

• Sneer at the Masses for being emotional about Reagan's funeral: Check
• Accusation that Dubya is trying to exploit it: Check
• Lamentation that America has become an empire: Check
• Reference to WMDs: Check
• Reference to Abu Guraib: Check
• Vague insinuation that there was friction between Bush 41 and Reagan: Check
• Vague insinuation that Reagan wasn't really in charge, and that his people treated him like a dolt: Check
• Vague insinuation at catty relationship between Nancy and Barbara: Check
• Misrepresenting the war in Iraq as Bush bullying: Check
• Nebulous shot at "neocons", including mentioning the dreaded Paul Wolfowitz and the even more dreaded Richard Perle by name: Check
• Reminder that Reagan pulled out after the Beirut bombing: Check
• Calling Bush's stance on stem cell research "absurd and suffocating": Check
• Forgetting that she, just like every other loony lib in the media, treated Reagan with exactly the same bilious hatred that they now shower on Bush: Check

Maureen may not have an original thought in her head, but you've got to admit on thing: When it comes to parroting canned sound bites, she's a real trooper.

[suzyq5558]

Ive made it a point to ignore all things Dowd but this diatribe is sick. this woman is an ASS...

[mcenedo]

I actually am starting to welcome Dowd's rantings, becuase every time she gets her poisonous screed's published, I get a new round of Catherine Zeta-Jones pics! :-)

she's going to be on Leno in a few minutes

[mcenedo]

on now - looking good

[StAnDeliver]

"Just as Ronnie was a poor kid from Dixon, Ill., who reinvented himself as a brush-clearing cowboy of grand plans and simple tastes..."

Dear Maureen,

How does a "poor kid" "reinvent" himself? Are you saying that he's meant to be poor forever? That he should not reach above his station? This is troublesome and speaks to your truly small-minded point of view. Dixon was very rural in Reagan's youth and he learned to ride before he ever set foot in California. His enthusiasm for the rustic life was genuine. Note this excerpt from a written France Soir Magazine Q&A that Reagan responded to in 1984:

Q. What was your favorite book as a young man?

A. It was called "Northern Trails." I was quite young and impressionable when I read it, but it began for me a lifelong love of the outdoors. There was a magic world in those pages, and I was delighted to discover that such a world really does exist.

In closing, Maureen, please let me remind you once again that Michael Douglas married a goddess. In comparison, you look like a wart on a pickle. Regards,