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Absolute Power Erupts (Maureen Dowd Alert!)
New York Times ^ | 11/21/04 | Maureen Dowd

Posted on 11/20/2004 5:07:39 PM PST by wagglebee

They're fragile and frazzled, depressed and self-doubting.

Trapped in their blue bell jar, drowning in unfulfilled dreams, Democrats are the "Desperate Housewives" of politics.

The image of Republicans as the Daddy party and Democrats as the Mommy party came roaring back in 2004, with a chesty President Bush and Dick Cheney prevailing by making the case that they could protect America from vicious terrorists and uxorious gays better than the Brahmin they painted as a sissy. In politics, as on TV, political correctness is out and retro is in. Hillary's bid to be president suddenly appears more wobbly, and the class of new senators looks like a throwback - with half a dozen white male conservative Republicans front and center.

At the Republican governors' conference in New Orleans, Ken Mehlman, the Bush campaign manager, answered the question, Who's your daddy party? "If you drive a Volvo and you do yoga, you are pretty much a Democrat," he said. "If you drive a Lincoln or a BMW and you own a gun, you're voting for George Bush."

Of course, W. was swaddled by three strong women - Laura Bush, Karen Hughes and Condi Rice - who cleaned up after his political messes.

Yet Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney boldly projected the image of confident - if overbearing - husbands who would guard the family home from intruders, while casting John Kerry as the feminized guy who couldn't get his sports references straight, the sort who would sashay about in Yves St. Laurent pajamas, dithering, whither-ing, and fetching bottled water for Teresa while the burglar alarm rang.

Democrats were furious to learn last week that Mr. Kerry had squirreled away $15 million in primary donations that he could have spent turning out the vote in Florida and Ohio. Once more trying to have it both ways, Mr. Kerry wanted a nest egg in case of a recount or legal challenges - not exactly the killer mentality that Democrats need.

Having gutted their opponents, Republicans are pretending to patch up divisions as they ruthlessly consolidate their gains. Democrats are turning the other cheek. At the opening of his presidential library, Bill Clinton assured the audience that Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry were "good people" who "just see the world differently."

The Republican Visigoths are crushing checks and balances and driving Democrats (and moderate Republicans) into subservient, obedient roles, sticking antiabortion provisions into major spending bills. Even the suggestion that Congress has an advise-and-consent role on judges caused the Visigoths to slap Arlen Specter into stocks, until he whimpered he would do their bidding.

The party of moral values deemed that crime pays, shielding Tom DeLay with a rule that someone facing a felony charge can still be a leader.

The ultracreepy Mr. DeLay de-pantsed Democrats on Friday, sneering: "I understand the Democrat Party's adjustment to their national minority status is frustrating, but their crushing defeat ... should show them that the American people are tired of the politics of personal destruction."

Well, yeah. Watching Bush supporters shred a war hero into a war criminal was tiring.

This most secretive administration wants to stop the public from getting any facts that might challenge its story line.

The Department of Homeland Security is making employees and contractors sign pledges barring them from telling the public about sensitive but unclassified information.

Porter Goss has warned C.I.A. employees that they should support the administration and "scrupulously honor our secrecy oath" by letting only the agency's public affairs office and Congressional relations branch talk to the media and Congress.

Senate Republicans have voted to allow Bill Frist, the majority leader, to fill vacancies on powerful committees, rather than abiding by the seniority system - a sword over moderates and mavericks.

The White House says it wants greater harmony, but it's acting like the thought police. Having run into resistance in their bid for global domination, the president and vice president are going for federal domination, pushing out anyone with independent judgment who puts democracy above ideology.

It's a paradoxical game plan: imposing democracy abroad while impeding it here.


TOPICS: Editorial; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: crazy; democrats; dowd; dowdy; insaneoldliberal; maureendowd; offhermeds; oldnsaggy; republicans; whack; zetajones
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To: wagglebee

And don't forget his cussing fit when he couldn't find his hair "brush", then cussed out his valet because he didn't know where it was


61 posted on 11/20/2004 5:49:10 PM PST by TexasTaysor
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To: wagglebee

LOL you're right, it does


62 posted on 11/20/2004 5:50:28 PM PST by TexasTaysor
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To: Max Combined

Well.....maybe to her money


63 posted on 11/20/2004 5:51:32 PM PST by TexasTaysor
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To: ThanhPhero
If I had to resort to the dictionary so often with every book I read, I'd be worried. But in the 20 books prior to Atkinson's, I went to the dictionary maybe 4 or 5 times. If you know what these words mean – without resorting to the dictionary - you have my great envy:

• triptych
• celerity
• brio
• torpor
• desiccated
• punctilious
• a-borning
• catafalque
• abstemious
• akimbo

“Torpor” was the only one that I knew.

64 posted on 11/20/2004 5:53:25 PM PST by bushisdamanin04
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To: LasVegasMac

LMAO. :)


65 posted on 11/20/2004 5:55:26 PM PST by bushisdamanin04
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To: wagglebee
"The Republican Visigoths are crushing checks and balances and driving Democrats (and moderate Republicans) into subservient, obedient roles,...".

Hey, MODO, I consider myself a moderate Republican (OK, mostly moderate.....today anyway), and I gotcher subservient, obedient right here.
66 posted on 11/20/2004 5:55:31 PM PST by 506trooper ( rough man standing ready to do violence on your behalf)
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To: grandpiano007

She looks very bad. A little bit nice with the red hair and all. But kinda witch-like. She has a bad nose, hisses her "s's" and her upper arms are way way flabby and thick.


67 posted on 11/20/2004 5:58:50 PM PST by Kornev
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To: 506trooper
"The Republican Visigoths are crushing checks and balances and driving Democrats … into subservient, obedient roles ... ."

And that is bad because … ?

68 posted on 11/20/2004 5:59:40 PM PST by bushisdamanin04
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To: bushisdamanin04

That's the easy part..now..try to use them ALL in the SAME sentence...


69 posted on 11/20/2004 5:59:55 PM PST by ken5050
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To: Kornev

She has a "speaking" style which appears to me to be of someone who is either on meds ... or needs to be on meds.


70 posted on 11/20/2004 6:01:18 PM PST by bushisdamanin04
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To: Kornev

If this Dowd person happened to be married to a man, he would be a scratch golfer for sure.......fenway


71 posted on 11/20/2004 6:02:26 PM PST by fenway
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To: ken5050
We went to the triptych celerity on the brio torpor and desiccated a punctilious a-borning catafalque who reminded me of a abstemious akimbo I had known many years before.

How’d I do, teach?

72 posted on 11/20/2004 6:04:21 PM PST by bushisdamanin04
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To: bushisdamanin04

I think she speaks that way because her butt plug is way too big.


73 posted on 11/20/2004 6:06:21 PM PST by MAWG (KILL THEM , KILL THEM ALL NOW!)
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To: MAWG

Yikes!


74 posted on 11/20/2004 6:07:40 PM PST by bushisdamanin04
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To: MAWG

With the way she talks, Michael Douglas must have slept with one eye open. Especially after that little fling with Glenn Close. :)


75 posted on 11/20/2004 6:09:26 PM PST by bushisdamanin04
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To: LasVegasMac

LOL

remind me not to get you going...lol

;>)


76 posted on 11/20/2004 6:09:42 PM PST by wardaddy
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To: 506trooper

Welcome to FR.

We "tolerate" moderates here as a means of achieving more diversity and understanding.

I am a proud Visigoth and I enjoy crushing nuance.


77 posted on 11/20/2004 6:12:00 PM PST by wardaddy
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To: wardaddy

Bottom line on Mo: She has a cruel little mouth and she only uses it to inflict pain.


78 posted on 11/20/2004 6:15:11 PM PST by MAWG (KILL THEM , KILL THEM ALL NOW!)
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To: MAWG

Yep....she projects her inadequacies....


projection is the mother's milk of liberalism....and some modruts...lol


79 posted on 11/20/2004 6:16:55 PM PST by wardaddy
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To: MAWG

Every morning for breakfast, Mo has a large glass of Carnation Instant Bitch.


80 posted on 11/20/2004 6:17:41 PM PST by MAWG (KILL THEM , KILL THEM ALL NOW!)
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