MAUREEN DOWD: Peaches Tightens the Girdle

[kevinmc]

WASHINGTON

Joe Biden didn’t talk that much yesterday for Joe Biden.

And he told Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker that they shouldn’t talk too much, either, so that members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee would have time to get in their questions. Even though the senators often didn’t ask questions but simply gave little partisan lectures or told stories about themselves, or in the case of Barbara Boxer, had an aide hold up a blow-up picture of herself with General Petraeus in Iraq.

Nevertheless, Mr. Biden, the committee’s chairman, took time at the end of yesterday’s first hearing with the Surge Twins to make the points, a bit repetitively, that there is no plan to get out of Iraq and that the Bush administration is not leveling with Americans.

John McCain was standing behind Mr. Biden, waiting to sit down for the next hearing — the Armed Services Committee — with the witnesses.

First, the Republican presidential candidate smiled archly at having to cool his heels as the Democratic presidential candidate yakked — sniffing at the Surge that Mr. McCain supports. Then Mr. McCain turned to his G.O.P. colleague Susan Collins and flapped his fingers in the universal hand sign for yakking.

It pretty much said it all............

http://freedemocracy.blogspot.com/2007/09/maureen-dowd-peaches-tightens-girdle.html

[MannyGoldstein]

1. I'm The Only Liberal Who Loves The Times And Ms. Dowd

I suppose I might be ejected from the Liberal's Club.

[ashling]

2. Love might be a strong word, but

I would include myself in that club. Maye we should start a support group.

[Stuckinthebush]

7. What do you love about her?

Serioulsy...I'm not being snarky. I find her writing very high schoolish and immature at times. She has had some good pieces in the past but I do find those to be few and far between.

What about her writing do you like the most?

Thanks!

[grasswire]

3. I don't see any mention of the dead troops ...

...over the next 18 months. This notion of "playing" for time, putting a cork in it, a holding action until the next administration --- where is the humanity in this? Eighteen months of exhaustion for troops, fearing death each day? Eighteen months of insane fear by their loved ones? Thousands of funerals? Tens of thousands of lost limbs, mashed brains, blind eyes?

"Playing" for time?

"Playing" for time?

How ghoulish. How inhumane. How psychotic.

[The_Casual_Observer]

5. Or a girdle for that matter

[TwilightGardener]

4. McCain bloviates as much as Biden, only his verbal diarrhea is actively harmful

to our country. He can go fuck himself, for making disrespectful hand gestures behind Biden's back like a 12 year old. Guess what, Dickwad? Biden might never be President, but you won't be either.

[bklyncowgirl]

6. PEACHES! We have a General who's nickname is PEACHES!

A good one by Maureen Dowd.

I hate Dowd when she goes after candidates I support but when she unleashes her acid on Republicans she can be a very satisfying read.

She's done a great deal of damage to people like Al Gore but my take on it is that Republicans are much better at taking her snarky observations and running with them than are Democrats.

Democrats want the debate about facts and logic. Republicans want emotion to cloud facts. If they can get voters to dislike a candidate personally, then they will disregard anything that that candidate is saying--whether it makes sense or not.

I hope that Democrats learn this lesson.

[saltpoint]

8. I hope Collins had enough sense to ignore McCain's puerility. She's on

a bit of a hot spot for re-election and doesn't need the insider injokes from a man whose campaign is essentially roadkill at this point.

Lo the buzzards' shadows as they arc o'er the dust...