Cheneyville Christmas: (Dowd alert)

The New York Times ^ | 12/08/2002 | Maureen Dowd

[Pokey78]

WASHINGTON — On TV this weekend, George Bush tells the story of George and the bush.

"George stares down at the empty robe, then picks it up, looking puzzled," the former president says. "Mary's eyes peer out of a large, flowering bush. George starts to toss the robe, then reconsiders, eyeing the robe slyly."

"It's a Wonderful Life" was on NBC, and the visually impaired could tune in to a version in which Bush père charmingly narrated the action, including the scene where Donna Reed loses her bathrobe and jumps into a hydrangea bush so Jimmy Stewart can't see her.

Poppy Bush did the voice-over as a favor for a blind woman from California who is an advocate of TV audio description for the blind.

The Christmas classic has special resonance for the Bushes this year.

Just as George Bailey reverses his life to see how things would have been different, the younger George Bush is reversing his father's life to see how things would have been different. (Rather than Pottersville, W. goes to Cheneyville, a grim, secretive place where the poor are squeezed and the environment is scrooged.)

If 41 hadn't been president, 43 would have nothing to do, since the kid spends all his time doing U-turns on the highway of Pop's presidency.

His father let Saddam stay and raised taxes to cut the deficit; the son has to get rid of Saddam and cut taxes, raising the deficit.

The son is determined to get the second term that the father didn't; the father lost his job because he did not appear to care about Americans' economic woes, so the son will make sure that he appears to care.

Thus, the Thursday night massacre of Paul O'Neill and Larry Lindsey. As heartless as Lionel Barrymore, Dick Cheney initiated the firings, brutally axing his old pal and fellow C.E.O., Mr. O'Neill, after assuring him that he had the president's confidence and could stay two more years. Andy Card pushed Mr. Lindsey off the sled of state.

Signaling its approval, the stock market shot up at news that the former head of Alcoa had been canned.

Before the elections, the White House distracted us from its muddled policy on the economy by fussing about Iraq. Now it distracts us from its muddled policy on Iraq by fussing about the economy.

The C.E.O. Administration has given way to the Mayberry Machiavellis, as a former Bush official calls the politically obsessed West Wing in a Karl Rove profile in Esquire.

Now that the Republicans have control of Congress, the Bush team can stop pretending that it has an economic policy and can try to develop one in the 20 minutes before the 2004 campaign starts up.

Next time around, they're not going to be able to whine that the meanie Tom Daschle and his Democratic Senate were to blame.

By sending a forlorn Mr. O'Neill driving back to Pittsburgh, the White House offered only a counterfeit reckoning. In a genuine reckoning, they would have admitted the tax cuts aren't cutting it. If the Bushies want their fiscal policy, they can't have their national security policy. And if they want their national security policy, they can't have their fiscal policy.

The war on Iraq will cost up to $200 billion, as Mr. Lindsey blurted out, and there is no numerical figure to represent the cost for the war on terrorism or the Department of Homeland Security or the beefing up of the F.B.I. and the C.I.A.

Just as the administration is having a hard time finding an economic strategy — beyond lifting a tax on dividends for those who play the stock market — they're having a hard time finding a casus belli.

President Bush thought he had Saddam boxed in, but he has been stymied by the Iraqi scheme of cooperating but not complying.

Dropping an 11,000-page declaration of their arms programs, Iraqis showed they had learned the art of the document dump from U.S. administrations, which have figured out that the way to confound investigators and the press is to hit them with a paper blizzard. By the time the Arabic diary of obfuscation is deciphered, it will be summer again and too hot to fight.

In a costly reversal of his father's presidency, W. will have to pay for his war against Saddam. The allies and gulf states put billions in James Baker's hat the last time. But it is unlikely that George Bush's friends, like George Bailey's, will bail him out with a shower of cash at the end.

[Pokey78]

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.

[snooker]

Isn't it amusing that both the NTY and dowd are simultaneously sinking into senility?

How else can one explain their aimless brain dead babbling.

snooker

[wingnuts'nbolts]

Maybe they'll name an Aircraft Carrier after Clinton next time just for Maureen. I'll bet the USS GHWBush just will drive her nuts.

[Cicero]

What a pathetic jackass!

[snooker]

Dowd a real Pelooser.

I thought the aircraft carrier naming was a little crass. Usually naming important things after living people is not a good idea. Not that it might not be deserved, but I just have my reservations.

But it will clearly drive the libs up a short tree.

snooker

[VRW Conspirator]

Dowd, Dowd...snap out of it. Hey, hey, snap out of it. You realy should not drink with your medication. You could get a TUI (typing while intoxicated). Now, don't say anything. Shhhhhhh. I said quiet. Hey, hey. your babbling. Ok, now you've done it. Shut...your...pie...hole!

[VRW Conspirator]

If the Bushies want their fiscal policy, they can't have their national security policy. And if they want their national security policy, they can't have their fiscal policy.

This is the core of liberal ideology. The beleive, as the sun rises, that this is true. It would be sweet to see this paradigm shattered by having another tax cut while funding the War on Terror.

[Texas Eagle]

I couldn't help but notice that Frau Dowd criticizes "Poppy" Bush for NOT finishing off Sodom, and in the next breath criticizes President Bush for WANTING to finish off Sodom.

And then she criticizes President George H.W. Bush for not caring enough about the economy and in the next bad breath, she criticizes President Bush FOR caring enough about the economy to fire his two top economic advisors.

Maybe it's just me but I'm starting to think Maureen Dowd simply doesn't like President Bush.

[snooker]

Libs don't even make sense to themselves.

snooker

[Astronaut]

Maureen Dowd's been hitting the bourbon again. Shame. Catherine Zeta Jones is much hotter than her, too.

[tet68]

, the stock market shot up at news that the former head of Alcoa had been canned.

Can this girl write or what?
I mean it takes a real mental giant to write a sentence like that!
Maureen you Maroon!
Hitchens you ain't.
Steyn you ain't.
Get a day job!

[Carolinamom]

Dowd's chronic vitriol is tiresome.

[tet68]

Hitchens has vitriol.
Steyn is acerbic.

Dowd makes one purse up the lips like drinking bad milk.
Honestly, I expect her to start a column," It was a dark and stormy night......"

[ewing]

Another Dowd law, any column published near the date of a Catherine Zeta Jones movie release will be meaner and filled with more vitriol against the GOP.

[ewing]

[The Raven]

And the point of the article is ...?

[csvset]