| MND COMMENTARY |
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by Bernard Chapin
Today’s polemic, The Politics of Self-Pity, is once again a poor choice of title on Dowd’s part as it is more descriptive of today’s liberals than of her nemesis, the GOP. Yet, the distortions are so great that I feel the need to pick up the pen again. She begins by sighting the passing of the Cheeseburger Bill last week in Congress which exempts food producers from lawsuits arising out of the consumption of their products. The bill is a great idea and was passed with the support of many Democrats, although Dowd declines to mention their assistance. Maureen then links this recent legislation to, you guessed it, President Bush. She claims that, unlike the bill, he is not accepting personal responsibility for his actions even though Republicans expect obese people to be responsible for their choices in food selection: “So it comes as something of a disappointment that the leader of the Republican Party, the man who epitomizes the conservative ideal, is playing the victim. President Bush has made the theme of his re-election campaign a whiny ‘not my fault.’ His ads, pilloried for the crass use of the images of a flag-draped body carried from ground zero and an Arab-looking everyman with the message, ‘We can fight against terrorists,’ actually have a more fundamental problem. They try to push off blame for anything that's gone wrong during Mr. Bush's tenure on bigger forces, supposedly beyond his control. One ad cites ‘an economy in recession. A stock market in decline. A dot-com boom gone bust. Then a day of tragedy. A test for all Americans.’” This is all so tiresome. I’ve seen those ads and there’s nothing whiney about them whatsoever. President Bush has done some waffley stuff over the years, but there’s no reason why he shouldn’t mention his swift and muscular response to the sinister sneak attack of 9/11. He acted assertively and that’s far better than what any mamby-pamby writer for The New York Times would ever do. In actuality, his ads are downright fair. Besides, recall that fifties musical standard, “Who’s Whining Now,” and think of how much better it fits John Kerry than George Bush (okay, that wasn’t the name of the song) . Since last summer, the President has been taking abuse like a white male attendee at a NOW convention, so it’s high time he fought back. Why shouldn’t he? Kerry has a lengthy record in need of assault. Miss Dowd mentions the recession but declines to mention that it’s been over since November of 2001. Liberals always leave out this fact. They still pretend that we are in a recession even though we are now experiencing robust growth. Was Bush to blame for the recession anyway? How could he be. It began a month after he took office and there is no question that the economy began to tank long before the Supreme Court authorized his presidency. Yet here again, the left denies reality. They pretend that the March of 2000 NASDAQ bust never happened or that it transpired in 2002. They bring emotion rather than intellect to the battle which is another reason why economics remain so allusive for them. Predictably, her unsubstantiated claims continue: Mr. Bush has been in office over three years. It's time to start accepting some responsibility. Republicans have a bad habit of laying down rules for other people to follow while excluding themselves. Look how they beat up Bill Clinton for messing around with a young woman, while many top Republicans were doing the very same thing. Who’s messing around with young women? President Bush? She provides no proof or references for such a statement. It’s like arguing with a third grader. No, Maureen, Bill Clinton was impeached for obstructing justice and perjuring himself, not for splattering an intern’s dress–and get that Popsicle out of your mouth when you’re talking to me! How is Bush not accepting responsibility? His tax cuts got the economy moving again. Apparently Dowd thinks that giving the people their money back impedes wealth and growth. Yet now I’ll say something that’s far above the likes of Dowd and most leftists in general when I state that periods of growth and retraction are natural occurrences within an economy. They are not something which must be blamed on others. Specifically, I do not fault Clinton for the dotcom bust of 2000 and I’ll also remark that he did a decent job of keeping government out of the way during the heady days of the late 1990’s (thank you Dick Morris). Maureen could never make such a concession about an opponent and she absolutely does not understand that growth has to give way to recession eventually. This is just another reason why the latte left remains intellectually bankrupt today. I’ll relate bit more of her slander here, “These tough-guy Republicans, who rule the House with an iron fist, were suddenly squealing like schoolgirls at being victimized by big, bad John Kerry. J. Dennis Hastert, the House speaker, said Mr. Kerry would have his ‘upcomeance coming.’ Tom DeLay sulked that the public was getting ‘a glimpse of the real John Kerry.’ The Hammer was talking like a nail. Marc Racicot, Mr. Bush's campaign chairman, accused Mr. Kerry of ‘unbecoming’ conduct and called on him to apologize.” Well we know who’s whining like a school girl and it’s not Dennis Hastert or Tom DeLay. Our columnist misconstrues simple statements that Kerry would get what he deserves as being whines. The reason she does this is that she has no legitimate arguments whatsoever. The Republican strategy of painting Kerry as the aggressor is sound because it is well-known that the American people hate negative campaigns and nastiness out of their candidates. This applies to both moderates and Democrats themselves (ask Howard Dean if you doubt it). The angle the Republican leadership took is shrewd and not irresponsible in any way. That’s why they own the House and Senate while the liberals own a slander machine publishing out of Manhattan. Then we discover that “Mr. Bush is not believable in the victim's role. He and Dick Cheney have audaciously imposed their will on Washington and the world. We are not yet sure who is behind the horrendous bombings in Spain, but they have already underscored how vulnerable our trains and subways are. And they have reminded us that the administration diverted resources from the war on terror and the search for Osama to settle old scores in Iraq, building a case for war with hyped and phony claims on weapons.” (Yawn)…Okay Big Mo, he’s not playing the victim. He’s being proactive. That’s why he bought the television ads she finds so objectionable. Further, he has not diverted resources from the war on terror to Iraq. We’ve been efficiently killing terrorists in Iraq for nearly a year now and that is a most productive means of terrorist control. Also, the only way to ensure attacks don’t occur on our trains and subways is to close them. That’s something the left doesn’t understand when it plays the fault game. Utopians don’t get that the world is not perfect and that the only way government can completely safeguard its citizens is by putting them in a bubble or by liquidating our enemies before they find us. How is the search for Bin Laden being undermined? She doesn’t say because she doesn’t know. Thus we reach a fitting end for another mock of Our Woeful Lady of Perpetual Ignorance. DISCUSS THIS ARTICLE IN THE FORUM! Bernard Chapin is a writer in Chicago. |
Friends,
recently I’ve received some emails asking why I do not comment on
Maureen Dowd’s work (sic) more often. The reason for this is that
most of her columns have slipped into vulgar political partisanship,
as opposed to outright male bashing, and responses would cause me
to adopt the voice of a rah-rah, Republican party hack. This would
be very inappropriate as I am a conservative first and a voter for
Republicans second. Further, her arguments are usually just cookie
cutter versions of standard leftist conspiratorial blather so there’s
little point in refuting allegations devoid of fact concerning Halliburton,
Dickie, Rummy, Bushy, and any other figures she recalls from the playground.|
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