Posted on 08/20/2005 3:11:55 PM PDT by Crackingham
Richard Nixon once gave me a lesson in the politics of war.
Howell Raines, then the Washington bureau chief for The Times, took some reporters to meet Mr. Nixon right before the 1992 New Hampshire primary. The deposed president had requested that Howell bring along only reporters who were too young to have covered Watergate, so we tried to express an excess of Juvenalia spirit.
Before the first vote of '92 was cast, Mr. Nixon laid out, state by state, how Bill Clinton, who was not even a sure bet for the Democratic nomination at that point, was going to defeat George Bush.
If, Mr. Nixon said, Bill could keep a lid on Hillary (who had worked on the House Judiciary Committee looking into the Nixon impeachment), he'd have it made.
"If the wife comes through as being too strong and too intelligent, it makes the husband look like a wimp," he said.
In his jaundiced view, the first President Bush had squandered his best re-election card: if the Persian Gulf war had still been going on, Mr. Bush could have been benefiting from that.
"We had a lot of success with that in 1972," Mr. Nixon told us, with that famously uneasy baring of teeth that passed for a smile.
Was he actually admitting what all the paranoid liberals had been yelping about 20 years earlier - that he had prolonged the Vietnam War so he could get re-elected?
Bush Senior made some Republicans worry that he left Iraq too soon. Bush Junior is making some Republicans worry that he is staying in Iraq too long.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
It's not that she has a Sophia Loren body or anything, it's just that somehow, she's able to put that extra zip into the camera. Quite the sexy beast.
Plus, like another favorite of mine, Diane Lane, she seems to get better looking as she matures.
IMMUTABLE LAWS OF DOWD1. 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.
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, anti-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, Catherine 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!
This upon the restoration of Louis XVIII
That happens when one turns into a bitter old crone.
Learning and remembering are two quite different tasks.
I do not think GWB is staying to long. I think we will be there a long time to come.
They'll never see it coming, until it is too late. Brilliant.
My bet is when we do leave Iraq the left will not be happy
To me, the best indication of her minimal mental ability is that she went for that midget Michael Douglas at all.
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