Moe Lane

Dear God, the last thing that I need to read in the morning is Maureen Dowd referencing Lovecraft:

The influential horror writer H. P. Lovecraft knew better than to be too literal in his description of monsters.

In the short story “The Outsider,” Lovecraft’s narrator offers a description that matches how some alarmed Democrats view Tea Partiers: “I cannot even hint what it was like, for it was a compound of all that is unclean, uncanny, unwelcome, abnormal and detestable. It was the ghoulish shade of decay, antiquity and desolation; the putrid, dripping eidolon of unwholesome revelation; the awful baring of that which the merciful earth should always hide. God knows it was not of this world.”

Aside from everything else, that’s a faintly silly choice of Lovecraft stories to reference.  To quote Ken Hite… quoting HPL: (more…)

Apparently she got shut out of CPAC’s Blogger’s Row Friday night (or maybe Thursday): if the former, it must have been after I had to bail for the day, because I’m pretty sure that I would have noticed that particular example of “Do You Know Who I AM?” going on.  It’s also interesting that it didn’t occur to Maureen Dowd to make a couple of quick calls; Lyndsey acted absolutely correctly and according to procedure there, but arrangements could still have been made.  Seriously, Maureen: next time, just call me on my cell and I’ll see what I can do.

You do have it, right?

Moe Lane

The way this administration is handling Supreme Court pick (and current Solicitor General) Elena Kagan may just have more Left-pushback than I assumed: it’s making Maureen Dowd wax most sarcastic.

['Voice' of Joe Biden]: This week, when the president first told me he’d chosen Elena Kagan to serve on the Supreme Court, I couldn’t help but smile. I met her 20 years ago, when she took a break from teaching school and chasing guys to join my staff in the Senate, and even back then, it was easy to picture her in a black robe.

Of course, Elena prefers to see herself in something frillier, because she’s a girl’s girl. Just try dragging her out of La Perla! And I’m sure, under those robes, she’ll be rocking some Juicy Couture jeans and Christian Louboutin suede boudoir slides. Uh-oh. Did I sound gay there for a minute? Well, I’m not. And neither is Elena Kagan.

[snip]

Elena is anything but a history-making, barrier-breaking, proud, strong, happy gay woman. She’s a garden-variety, sad, scary, single, childless career woman who can’t get a man because she’s too smart, works too much and refuses to settle.

I’d like to repeat for the record – once again – that wide swathes of the Right are largely indifferent to whether or not SG Kagan is gay. Although if it turns out that she is we’d quite like to know why this administration felt the need to lie about it.

(H/T: Hot Air Headlines) This is an assumption on my part, of course: better for all concerned that you revisited old habits and lifted something from the netroots than the idea that both you and your editor thought that this deserved a wider audience.  I mean, as is it reads as half-convenient opportunity for projection (Dowd’s apparently highly upset that Obama couldn’t keep the MA seat in the hands of the Democrats), and half-immediate aftermath of a stroke.  Given a choice between believing plagiarism and facing the specter of there being people in the journalism industry who don’t facepalm at the sight of  this sort of thing, I’d pick plagiarism every time.

I mean, really: “What are you going to do about it, Hussein? Mirandize me?”  Maureen, it’s not our fault that you decided to follow The God That Failed.

Moe Lane

PS: By the way, blimps were safe after the Hindenburg.  Blimps are non-rigid airships; dirigibles (such as the Hindenburg) are rigid airships.  For that matter, the reason why the Hindenburg burned up was because the company couldn’t get any helium (it being considered war material by the USA).  Ever hear of Wikipedia?

…does that mean that Bush was like Spock*?

Before he left for vacation, Obama tried to shed his Spock mien and juice up the empathy quotient on jobs. But in his usual inspiring/listless cycle, he once more appeared chilly in his response to the chilling episode on Flight 253, issuing bulletins through his press secretary and hitting the links. At least you have to seem concerned.

[snip]

In his detached way, Spock was letting us know that our besieged starship was not speeding into a safer new future, and that we still have to be scared.

Heck of a job, Barry.

I’d like to note for the record that Maureen Dowd could have cut the rest of her article and just published that.  Then again, she’d have missed out on all the reflexive Bush-bashing, convenient overlooking of the fact that the GOP is the minority party these days, and general complaining. Of course, if Dowd did she might have to face the fact that her basic message now about the God Who Failed is the same one that the Right was making last year…

Moe Lane

PS: That being said: that implied crack about the President’s ears is a little mean-spirited, Maureen.  Yes, yes, of course you weren’t talking about that.

Crossposted to RedState.

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…and I almost never bother with Maureen Dowd, but this paragraph is impossible to resist. Dowd on the President, and why he should act more like THAT WOMAN (no, really):

He’s a highly intelligent man

Actually, he’s a reasonably intelligent man. 130 IQ, tops.

with a highly functioning West Wing,

Err, no. I’m drawing a blank on things that the executive branch haven’t messed up, lately. These people can’t even manage an Easter Egg roll properly.

and he’s likable,

He’s likable enough. I guess.

but he’s not connecting on the gut level that could help him succeed.

This implies that he ever did (a statement that will no doubt confuse people not on my side of the aisle).

Moe Lane

…(care of the much more interesting Jen Rubin) for two reasons.  One, people like Dowd really do think that we think and talk like this:

“I hear Poppy Bush is furious at you,” he says. “He’s telling folks he put Junior in your care and you stole his presidency and destroyed the Bush name and derailed Jeb’s chances to ever be president, and P.S., you wrecked the country and the Atlantic alliance to boot. He has it in for Lynne, too. Thinks she spun you up, like she did in high school with her flaming batons. He thinks you got loopy from all the heart procedures. And Colin’s mad at you.”

“He can go to yoga with Pelosi for all I care,” Dick growls.

Bizarre to contemplate, but true. There are people out there who apparently just can’t function in life unless they’ve convinced themselves first that the opposition has a Deep, Dark Conspiracy in place. I suppose that it’s a motivation exercise, or something.

Moe Lane

PS: The second reason? I thought that I’d give whoever she might have ripped off to write this piece a better chance of seeing it.

Crossposted to RedState.

Wow.  I haven’t commented about Maureen Dowd in ages.  There’s this entire nostalgia vibe going on here.

For those who don’t feel like risking the SAN/Intelligence loss that can come from reading one of Dowd’s columns, let me summarize: I like Blagojevich more than I like Paterson, because Blagojevich is clearly insane – do you hear that, Illinois voters? Insane – and Paterson did my friend Marquise Caroline Kennedy-Schlossberg wrong by not picking her right away.  That let the awful, awful Clintons destroy the chances for the best choice for the NY Senate, and never mind all those Republicans out there who were revving their chainsaws and grinning evilly.  I hope that they primary that gun-loving, bailout hating Gillibrand – and that they primary that adulterous, drug-using governor, too!  That’ll show ‘em.

OK, I may have added a little subtext there, but really: the title is “Whose Governor is wackier?” and everything (via Hot Air Headlines).  That tells you something right there. (more…)