Voting for a Smile

[rodeodance]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/opinion/06dowd.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print

January 6, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
Voting for a Smile
By MAUREEN DOWD

CONCORD, N.H.

.........

But that’s the way the tough cookie crumbled Thursday night. The Obama revolution arrived not on little cat feet in the Iowa snow but like a balmy promise, an effortlessly leaping lion hungry for something different, propelled by a visceral desire among Americans to feel American again.

The Bushes always self-consciously and swaggeringly put themselves “on the American side,” as Poppy used to say, implying that their rivals were somehow less American. But many Americans can no longer see themselves in the warped values of the Bush White House or the pathetic paralysis of Congress or the disapproving gaze of the world.

They want a different looking glass. So they rolled the dice and, as The Chicago Tribune’s Mike Tackett put it, “voted for a smile.”

I interviewed three Republicans in the Obama section of the caucus who were ready for the red state, blue state merger. They said they didn’t want Hill and Bill back in the White House, and that John McCain was too much of a yes man for W., who had betrayed Republicans with his handling of the Iraq war and his fiscal irresponsibility.

[Enrique]

1. Dowd is unreadable

I tried to figure out what she is saying, but halfway through I lost faith that she's saying anything.

[desi]

2. Dowd spent too much time on Imus

and now sounds just as irrational and confused as Imus. It's sad really, she was a good read to counter Nixonite William Safire.

[Buzz Clik]

3. I submit that Maureen Dowd is a dinosaur. Out of the loop. No clue.

And, Maureen, you are the last journalist on this planet to criticize someone for having a lack of substance.

tsk tsk.