A Tale of Two Fathers (Dowd alert)

The New York Times ^ | 10/12/03 | Maureen Dowd

[Pokey78]

WASHINGTON

It's a classic story line in myth, literature and movies: a man coming into his own is torn between two older authority figures with competing world views; a good daddy and a bad daddy; one light and benevolent, one dark and vengeful.

When Bush the Elder put Bush the Younger in the care of Dick Cheney, he assumed that Mr. Cheney, who had been his defense secretary in Desert Storm, would play the wise, selfless counselor. Poppy thought his old friend Dick would make a great vice president, tutoring a young president green on foreign policy and safeguarding the first Bush administration's legacy of internationalism, coalition-building and realpolitik.

Instead, Good Daddy has had to watch in alarm as Bad Daddy usurped his son's presidency, heightened its conservatism and rushed America into war on the mistaken assumption that if we just acted like king of the world, everyone would bow down or run away.

Bush I officials are nonplused by the apocalyptic and rash Cheney of Bush II, a man who pushed pre-emption and peered over the shoulders of C.I.A. analysts, as compared with the skeptical and cautious Cheney of Bush I (who did not even press to march to Baghdad in the first gulf war, when Saddam Hussein actually possessed chemical weapons).

Some veterans of Bush I are so puzzled that they even look for a biological explanation, wondering if his two-year-old defibrillator might have made him more Hobbesian. Mr. Cheney spent so much time in his bunker reading gloomy books about smallpox, plague, fear and war as the natural state of mankind.

Last week, for the first time, W. — who tried to pattern his presidency as the mirror opposite of his real father's — curbed his surrogate father's hard-line crony Rummy (Mr. Cheney's mentor in the Ford years).

The incurious George, who has said he prefers to get his information from his inner circle rather than newspapers or TV, may finally be waking up to the downside of such self-censorship. You can end up hearing a lot of bogus, self-serving garbage from Ahmad Chalabi, via Mr. Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz, instead of unpleasant reality.

I hope Mr. Bush at least read the news coverage of his vice president's Iraq speech on Friday, which was a masterpiece of demagogy.

On a day when many Republicans were finding a lesson of moderation in Arnold Schwarzenegger's victory in California, Mr. Cheney once more chose a right-wing setting, the Heritage Foundation, to regurgitate his rigid ideology. While Arnold was saying to voters, "You know best," Mr. Cheney was still propounding "Father Knows Best."

Even after the president was forced to admit after Mr. Cheney's last appearance on "Meet the Press" last month that the link the vice president drew between Saddam and 9/11 did not actually exist, that did not deter Mr. Cheney. He repeatedly tied Saddam and 9/11 and said, all evidence to the contrary, that the secular Iraqi leader "had an established relationship with Al Qaeda."

He characterized critics as naïve and dangerous when his own arguments were reductive and disingenuous. In justifying the war, he created a false choice between attacking Iraq and doing nothing.

The war in Iraq and its aftermath have proved that Mr. Cheney was wrong to think that a show of brute strength would deter our enemies from attacking us. There are improvements in Iraq, but it is still a morass, with 326 soldiers dead as of Friday. It's hard to create security when we are the cause of the insecurity.

Mr. Cheney lumped terrorists and tyrants into one interchangeable mass, saying that Mr. Bush could not tolerate a dictator who had access to weapons of mass destruction, was allied with terrorists and was a threat to his neighbors. Sounds a lot like the military dictator of Pakistan, not to mention the governments of China and North Korea.

To back up his claim that Saddam was an immediate threat, the vice president had to distort the findings of David Kay, the administration's own weapons hunter, and continue to overdramatize the danger of Saddam. "Saddam built, possessed and used weapons of mass destruction," Mr. Cheney said. Yes, but during the first Bush administration.

Perhaps the president now realizes the Cheney filter is dysfunctional. If Mr. Bush still needs a daddy to tell him what to do, he should call his own. 

[Pokey78]

Pathetic. Even for Mo.

---

---

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.

---

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!

[Support Free Republic]

 

	Keep Our Republic Free Or mail checks to FreeRepublic , LLC PO BOX 9771 FRESNO, CA 93794 or you can use PayPal at Jimrob@psnw.com
STOP BY AND BUMP THE FUNDRAISER and say THANKS to Jim Robinson! IT'S IN THE BREAKING NEWS SIDEBAR THANKS!

[Miss Marple]

I have been griping that there wasn't much news on the threads tonight, with lots of sports taking up the space.

And so, Pokey, what do you give me? DOWD! Yikes!

President Bush didn't have to read the news coverage because he KNOWS WHAT WAS IN THE SPEECH! And Dowd is pulling her tricks with ellipses again.

I guess I should go look up that speech and link it here. Back after a bit.

[independentmind]

If Mr. Bush still needs a daddy to tell him what to do, he should call his own.

Sounds to me like Ms. Dowd needs a mommy to teach her how to behave. What a disgrace that a national newspaper would carry such an article.

[Pokey78]

But remember, she's a Pulitzer prize winner! </sarcasm>

[concerned about politics]

How would she know what Bush elder thought?
This is another liberal fantacy article , but without the gay sex and infant sacrifice.

[tet68]

Mo sinks ever deeper into the abyss of insanity and bad writing.

[Howlin]

Maureen wants a sugar daddy, thus the daddy fixation.

[tet68]

Ya know, it sounds like Mo is crying out for a daddy of her own, one who will punish her when SHE is BAD.

[tet68]

This is another liberal fantacy article , but without the gay sex and infant sacrifice.

She didn't even mention "Nazis" or "Haliburton" once.

[Howlin]

Bush I officials are nonplused by the apocalyptic and rash Cheney of Bush II, a man who pushed pre-emption and peered over the shoulders of C.I.A. analysts, as compared with the skeptical and cautious Cheney of Bush I (who did not even press to march to Baghdad in the first gulf war, when Saddam Hussein actually possessed chemical weapons).

Here's a hint, Maureen:

9-11-01

Oh, yeah, I almost forgot...

Bitch.

[concerned about politics]

Maureen wants a sugar daddy, thus the daddy fixation.

Or she has penis envy.

[socal_parrot]

Michael Douglas chose wisely.

[Howlin]

That is out there for consideration.

[facedown]

Truly breathtaking. Mo is no longer subclinical.

[Howlin]

"Who's your daddy, Mo?"

[Howlin]

Ping me if you find it. I'd love to catch her in another fraud.

[Miss Marple]

Still looking.

[abclily]

Dowd is nuts!

[dogbyte12]

(think Mo "sugar daddy" Dowd was referring to the Brit Hume interview)

HUME: How do you get your news?

BUSH: I get briefed by Andy Card and Condi in the morning. They come in and tell me. In all due respect, you've got a beautiful face and everything.

I glance at the headlines just to kind of a flavor for what's moving. I rarely read the stories, and get briefed by people who are probably read the news themselves. But like Condoleezza, in her case, the national security adviser is getting her news directly from the participants on the world stage.

HUME: Has that been your practice since day one, or is that a practice that you've...

BUSH: Practice since day one.

HUME: Really?

BUSH: Yes. You know, look, I have great respect for the media. I mean, our society is a good, solid democracy because of a good, solid media. But I also understand that a lot of times there's opinions mixed in with news. And I...

HUME: I won't disagree with that, sir.

BUSH: I appreciate people's opinions, but I'm more interested in news. And the best way to get the news is from objective sources. And the most objective sources I have are people on my staff who tell me what's happening in the world.

HUME: Mr. President, thank you very much.