The Iceman Cometh (Dowd alert)

The New York Times ^ | 05/04/03 | Maureen Dowd

[Pokey78]

LONG BEACH, Calif. — The tail hook caught the last cable, jerking the fighter jet from 150 m.p.h. to zero in two seconds.

Out bounded the cocky, rule-breaking, daredevil flyboy, a man navigating the Highway to the Danger Zone, out along the edges where he was born to be, the further on the edge, the hotter the intensity.

He flashed that famous all-American grin as he swaggered around the deck of the aircraft carrier in his olive flight suit, ejection harness between his legs, helmet tucked under his arm, awestruck crew crowding around. Maverick was back, cooler and hotter than ever, throttling to the max with joystick politics.

Compared to Karl Rove's "revvin' up your engine" myth-making cinematic style, Jerry Bruckheimer's movies look like "Lizzie McGuire."

This time Maverick didn't just nail a few bogeys and do a 4G inverted dive with a MIG-28 at a range of two meters. This time the Top Gun wasted a couple of nasty regimes, and promised this was just the beginning. Mav swaggered across the deck to high-five his old gang: his wise flight instructor, Viper; his amiable sidekick, Goose; his chiseled rival, Iceman.

MAVERICK: I feel the need . . .

GOOSE: The need for speed!

ICEMAN: You're really a cowboy.

MAVERICK: What's your problem?

ICEMAN: Your ego's writing checks your body can't cash. You didn't need to take all that water survival training in the White House swimming pool. The Abraham Lincoln was practically docked, only 30 miles off shore, after 10 months at sea. They had to steer it away from land for you. If you'd waited a few hours, you could've just walked aboard. You and Rove are making a gorgeous campaign video on the Pacific to cast you as the warrior president for 2004, but back on shore, things are ugly. The California economy's bleeding, even worse than other states'. When you took office, the unemployment rate in San Jose was 1.7 percent; by February of this year, it had risen to 8.5 percent. Your motorcade didn't bother to stop in the depressed high-tech corridor in Silicon Valley. Every time you cut taxes and raise deficits while you're roaring ahead with a pre-emptive military policy, you're unsafe. National unemployment goes up to 6 percent and you just hammer Congress to pass your tax cut. The only guys sure about their jobs these days are defense contractors connected to Republicans and the Carlyle Group, which owns half of the defense plant you visited here. You're dangerous.

MAVERICK: That's right, Iceman. I am dangerous.

ICEMAN: You can fly, Maverick. But you, Cheney and Rummy are strutting around on a victory tour when you haven't found Osama or Saddam or WMD; you haven't figured out how you're going to stop tribal warfare and religious fanaticism and dangerous skirmishes with our soldiers; you don't yet know how to put Afghanistan and Iraq back together so that a lot of people over there don't hate us. And why can't you stop saying that getting rid of Saddam removed "an ally" of Al Qaeda and was payback for 9/11? You know we just needed to jump somebody in that part of the world.

MAVERICK: That part of the world is what I call a target rich environment, sorta like a Democratic debate. Hey, Miss Iceman, why don't you head to the Ladies Room? John Kerry and John Edwards are already there, fixin' their hair all pretty-like. Howard Dean's with 'em, trying on a dress, and Kucinich is hemming it for him.

VIPER: You're arrogant, son. I like that in a pilot. You're a hell of an instinctive flyer. You're a lot like your old man. He was a natural, heroic son of a gun. I flew with him in his torpedo bomber in '44. Is that why you fly the way you do? Trying to prove something by doing the opposite? He tried to get deficits down. He did it right. And he knew you had to have wingmen among the allies. You can't buzz the tower of the world every time you go up. You can't just jettison the Top Gun global rules of engagement.

MAVERICK: Sure I can. Like greed, aggression is good. Aggression has marked the upward surge of mankind. Aggression breeds patriotism, and patriotism curbs dissent. Aggression has made Democrats cower, the press purr and the world quake. Aggression — you mark my words — will not only save humanity, but it will soon color all the states Republican red. Mission accomplished.   

[Pokey78]

Catherine Zeta-Jones
2003 Academy Award Winner
Best Supporting Actress

---

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!

[Temple Drake]

please post comparative pic of the Dowd -- need to see contrast.

[PISANO]

SHE CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!

[Howlin]

Dear Mo:

REAL MAN

FAKE MAN

[Clara Lou]

Maureen's only purpose [and the only reason the NYT prints her IMO] is to deride GW Bush. Her columns are not worthy of printing otherwise.

[tet68]

Roflmao.

Losers like Mo just can't see him as anything but what THEY are. Just like all the democrat party flacks.

[Jewels1091]

Someone needs to tell her to do some research...they didn't grab the last line, he grabbed the first!!!! She is sounding more and more like a rejected lover getting her revenge....HHHMMMMM

[Howlin]

I should have put

Sissy Boy

[cardinal4]

Howlin, that is a great post!

[giotto]

Wow, she went to a lot of trouble to write this article, and the end result is that it only demonstrates what a jerk she is. I wonder if it occurred to her that holding the ceremonies onboard the docked carrier would have been cruel and unusual punishment for the sailors and their families, all of whom would have been chomping at the bit for those long awaited hugs and kisses. I thought liberals were supposed to be so compassionate and touchy-feely. Blinded by the spite, apparently.

[Temple Drake]

hell hath no, eh?

[browardchad]

Maureen Dowd – 10 to 15 years younger and cleaned up in Photoshop (from the NY Times).

[dighton]

"Hey, you! Nix! Cut out de noise!"

-- The Iceman Cometh.

[malia]

Am I to pick? No contest -- the cowboy!

Can you just imagine how very proud President Bush's First Lady, Laura and his parents, President and Mrs Bush feel!!!!

[Lessismore]

Anyway, it wasn't a fighter.

S-3B Viking

S-3B Aircraft are tasked by the Carrier Battle Group Commanders to provide Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) and Anti-Surface Warfare (ASUW), surface surveillance and intelligence collection, electronic warfare, mine warfare, coordinated search and rescue, and fleet support missions, including air wing tanking.

[DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet]

I'd say the one in the bottom pic is about a 44B cup, wouldn't you?

[linn37]

bubba needs a bro..

I think Dowd got it on this article,he is looking good ,like a winner and we love winners in this country.

[Miss Marple]

She has been driven mad by the appearance of President Bush in his flight suit (notice she mentioned the straps between his legs).

I am now convinced that she has an unrequited crush on him, and much like the fifth-grade girl who can't get the star Little Leaguer to pay attention to her, she decided to tease and mock to get his attention.

Hint to Mo: It didn't work in Grade 5, and it won't work now.

[JoeSchem]

Am I the only one who sees it? A woman doesn't devote this kind of shrill invective toward a man unless she's hopelessly in love and knows it's hopeless!

[CyberAnt]

Wow! I do so agree!

Her statements are just dripping with jealousy and hatred!