Free Republic

Now Barack Obama faces a true dilemma: how best to punish Hillary Clinton. After 15 months of fighting her off, as she veered wildly from bully to victim, as she brandished any ice pick at hand, whether racial, sexual, mathematical or marital (in the form of her Vesuvian husband), Obama must decide the most efficacious means of doing to Hillary what she has been trying to do to him: putting her in her place. Her last resort is to continue to press the “Psssst — he’s a black man” tactic. She insisted to USAToday, after the North Carolina and Indiana...

If this is truly the Decline and Fall of the Clinton Empire, it is marked by one freaky stroke of bad luck and one striking historical irony. How likely is it that a woman who finally unfetters herself from one superstar then finds herself eclipsed by another? And when historians trace how her inevitability dissolved, they will surely note this paradox: The first serious female candidate for president was rejected by voters drawn to the more feminine management style of her male rival. The bullying and bellicosity of the Bush administration have left many Americans exhausted and yearning for a...

Suddenly, everyone was in the mood for love. Would the scream team turn into the dream team? After Thursday’s Democratic debate, CNN’s Carol Costello said there were “heart palpitations” and “ripples of joy” in the glittery Kodak Theater audience at the idea of a Hillary-Obama or Obama-Hillary ticket, after he was gallant with her and she laughed gaily with him. How could Hollywood not fall in love with Hollywood’s favorite plot? After lots of sparking and sparring, the couple falls into each other’s arms in the last scene. The would-be matchmakers didn’t seem to know that in Hollywood, couples who...

When I walked into the office Monday, people were clustering around a computer to watch what they thought they would never see: Hillary Clinton with the unmistakable look of tears in her eyes. A woman gazing at the screen was grimacing, saying it was bad. Three guys watched it over and over, drawn to the “humanized” Hillary. One reporter who covers security issues cringed. “We are at war,” he said. “Is this how she’ll talk to Kim Jong-il?” Another reporter joked: “That crying really seemed genuine. I’ll bet she spent hours thinking about it beforehand.” He added dryly: “Crying doesn’t...

It’s an odd cultural inversion. The French first lady, the one in a role where wives traditionally ignored and overlooked their husbands’ peccadilloes for the greater gain of keeping their marriages intact and running the Élysée Palace, has fled her gilded perch, acting all-American and brimming over with feelings and feminist impulses. The former American first lady, the one who’s supposed to be brimming over with feminist impulses, has ignored and overlooked her husband’s peccadilloes for the greater gain of keeping her marriage intact, as she tries to return to the gilded perch and run the White House... Few are...

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it -- George Satayana. Well and good. But being a prisoner of the past presents dangers, too. Stay tuned for an example of how reliance on a corollary of Satayana's rule went horribly wrong for the U.S. Maureen Dowd's column of this morning "W.M.D. in Iran? Q.E.D." is the latest example of what passes for MSM wisdom on Iran. In a nutshell, the argument goes: we attacked Iraq over ill-founded concerns about WMD and got bogged down. So perish the thought of using force to prevent Iran from acquiring a...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The New York Times Co said on Monday it will end its paid TimesSelect Web service and make most of its Web site available for free in the hopes of attracting more readers and higher advertising revenue. TimesSelect will shut down on Wednesday, two years after the Times launched it, which charges subscribers $7.95 a month or $49.95 a year to read articles by columnists such as Maureen Dowd and Thomas Friedman. The trademark orange "T's" marking premium articles will begin disappearing Tuesday night, said the Web site's Vice President and General Manager Vivian Schiller. The...

The New York Times will stop charging for access to parts of its Web site, effective at midnight Tuesday night, reflecting a growing view in the industry that subscription fees cannot outweigh the potential ad revenue from increased traffic on a free site.

An editorial in the New York Times says Vice President Dick Cheney and his staff members have been "belligerent," "ideological" and "shadowy." Also "extralegal" and "dastardly." And his position, writer Maureen Dowd says, is "bordering on lunacy." But the attack will get no response from the White House, according to spokeswoman Dana Perino. She was answering a question from Les Kinsolving, WND's correspondent at the White House, who asked: "Yesterday New York Times published a column which contended that Vice President Cheney is – and this is a quote – 'bordering on lunacy' and referring to him as 'crazy Dick.'...

The New York Times seems to have found a new way to conspire against the Right Wing Blogsphere. They have discovered that Maureen Dowd’s most pathetic opinion columns always eat more bandwidth at sites like Freerepublic.com. Not with Maureen’s words of wisdom, but instead, with the derisive Jpegs of Catherine Zeta Jones-Douglass. Today, Parvada on The Hudson scores a Daily Double. Today they have brought out the Zeta-Douglas eye candy that will paper over Conservative Blogostan. And furthermore, moderate voters will actually feel enough sympathy for Barack Oprahbama that they will might become inclined to take the man more seriously...

Maureen Dowd: Will Hillary or Obama take the cake? SO the question of the moment is: Which would be a greater handicap in a presidential bid, gender or race? The answer will depend, of course, on how manly the woman, and how white the black. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Hussein Obama both straddle two worlds, trying to profit from both. Despite her desire to seem far more experienced than her rival, Hillary's role in high-level politics has been mostly that of a spouse - a first lady who felt that she got elected too. The Yale-trained lawyer had one...

RUSH: Here we go with Barack Obama. As you know, he was up in New Hampshire -- do you know, by the way, TV ads for Barack Obama are going to start airing this weekend? Presidential ads for Barack Obama in New Hampshire start airing this weekend. Hillary, I think, is starting to get panicked because she's called up all of Bubba's old buddies, Carville and Begala and Joe Lockhart, she had them over to dinner to discuss what to do about this. Her team wasn't there. They're all one team, of course, but publicly Carville and Begala have said,...

I called Tim Russert to ask if Dick Cheney had washed his hands after their interview on Sunday. "No-o-o," he replied, sounding confused. Any sort of scrubbing, I wondered? Antiseptic wipe, Purell, quick shower on the way out? No, Tim assured me, the vice president did not stop at the basement shower at NBC, or even drop by the men's room you pass on the right as you head out to the parking lot. According to The New York Times' health section on Tuesday, Lady Macbeth and Pontius Pilate were not alone in wanting that "damned spot" out. "People who...

New York Times (NY) Copyright (c) 2006 The New York Times. All rights reserved. July 19, 2006 Animal House Summit MAUREEN DOWD Reporters who covered W.'s 2000 campaign often wondered whether the Bush scion would give up acting the fool if he got to be the king. Would he stop playing peekaboo with his pre-meal moist towels during airplane interviews? Would he quit scrunching up his face and wiggling his eyebrows at memorial services? Would he replace levity and inanity with gravity? "In many regards, the Bush I knew did not seem to be built for what lay ahead," wrote...

I dedicate this column to John Murtha, the reason soldiers invented fragging. In response to the arguments of my opponents, I say: Waaaaaaaaaah! Boo hoo hoo! If you're upset about what I said about the Witches of East Brunswick, try turning the page. Surely, I must have offended more than those four harpies. Wait 'til you get a load of what I say about liberals in the rest of the book! You haven't seen the half of it. For snarling victims, my book is Christmas in July. Hey -- where's Max the grenade-dropper? Let's keep this diaper-fest going all summer....

FAMOUS American feminist Maureen Dowd is in Australia, and has declared she is looking for a fair-dinkum Aussie man to make her own. Read the story NEWS.com.au asked "why you're the Aussie bloke to sweep American feminist Maureen Dowd off her feet". Here is a selection of the best applications from those men who offered themselves for consideration. Perhaps Maureen had better keep looking... From: T.J. Comment: This Australian man "is necessary"...! . Long time in US & Europe. Multilingual.Action man.Smart.Interesting.Cheeky.Uncomplicated. Don't leave my cell phone in cabs.. Always enjoyed the red girls spunk. Call me Maureen, you won't be...

It's one of the great ironies of Australian feminism. Despite 40 years of maturation, we still play the man and not the ball. We can't help ourselves. Well before we consider the content and ruminate on the argument a woman might pose, we sharpen our squint, asking, "But who is she?" In the case of New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, the collective answer seems to be: she's a powerful, sexy little fox who's smart, witty, made it to the top and has got it all sewn up. She's a bitch. The Australian media response to Dowd's new book, Are...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Travis in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. I'm glad you called, sir. Welcome. CALLER: Mega dittos, Rush. RUSH: Thank you, sir. CALLER: How are you? RUSH: Couldn't be better. CALLER: Great. RUSH: Actually, that's not true. If you want to know the truth I'm in a foul humor today. It's only my professionalism that makes you think I'm enjoying things today. CALLER: Well, maybe we can add a little more satire to your show now. RUSH: (Laughing.) Perhaps. CALLER: What I was calling for is I watched the David Gregory apology. RUSH: Yeah, that was on Meet the Depressed...

What exactly do women want out of life? Regardless of the complexity of the question, the answers are readily available by the hundreds. All you have to do is pick up a magazine, newspaper or "self-help" book and all will be revealed, neatly simplified, packaged and made readily digestible for a readership with an apparently insatiable curiosity about the desires and needs of women.But how accurate are those answers? And more to the point, how reliable is the research upon which they are based?In her new book "Are Men Necessary?" (Putman; $25.95; 352 pages), New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd...

What exactly do women want out of life? Regardless of the complexity of the question, the answers are readily available by the hundreds. All you have to do is pick up a magazine, newspaper or "self-help" book and all will be revealed, neatly simplified, packaged and made readily digestible for a readership with an apparently insatiable curiosity about the desires and needs of women. But how accurate are those answers? And more to the point, how reliable is the research upon which they are based? In her new book "Are Men Necessary?" (Putman; $25.95; 352 pages), New York Times columnist...