Free Republic

Excerpt - Columnist Mary McGrory, a major figure in 20th-century American journalism, a writer of lasting influence, exquisite technique, liberal convictions, a contempt for phonies and a love of orphans and delphiniums, died last night at George Washington University Hospital. A hospital spokeswoman declined to give the cause of death.

SIGNS OF DEMOCRATIC LIFE Fri Nov 22, 8:01 PM ET By Mary McGrory WASHINGTON -- He is called "the Hammer." She's a velvet hammer. He is Tom DeLay, the newly elected House majority leader, who is all coercion and threat. She is Nancy Pelosi of California, who is all persuasion and smiles. DeLay was unopposed. Pelosi was opposed, fitfully and futilely, by a series of Democrats who seemed to be seeking the ink and airtime that hopeless aspirants can sometimes wring from a contest that was over before it began. Pelosi spent 34 months seeking the whip's job and prepared...

Democrats know exactly how they feel about prescription drugs and the privatization of Social Security, but when it comes to war and peace, people dying and all that, they really have no comment. They just salute the commander if chief and hope voters mistake them for patriots.

Mary McGrory has filed a Sunday column that reads like a parody of Maureen Dowd. The ancient columnist actually took a report on "Botox parties" (a left-coast phenomenon if there ever was one) and tried to somehow, with great mirth and wit, tie them into Washington and her general hatred of the Bush administration.