I didn’t miss her:
President Bush has done so much for women. Not at home, of course.
Women in jeans in America may have their rights eroded by an administration where faith trumps science, but women in burkas? The president can’t talk enough about how important their rights are.
And in the administration’s diplomacy-free foreign policy, five of its top spokesmen on the Muslim world are women: Condi Rice; Laura Bush; Liz Cheney, No. 2 in the Near East bureau of the State Department and head of the Middle East democracy project; Karen Hughes, the new under secretary of state for public diplomacy; and her deputy, Dina Powell.
W. thinks so highly of Ms. Hughes, his longtime Texas political nanny, spinner, speechwriter and ghostwriter, that he put his Lima Green Bean, as he called her when she prodded him about the environment, in charge of the critical effort to salvage America’s horrendous image in the Islamic world – even though what she knows about Islam could fit in a lima green bean. Why get any Muslims involved in reaching out to Muslims? That would be so matchy.
Don Surber
She tries. She really does try. She lacks mojo.
chadwig
She’s great. The last two lines are beautiful:
“The most painless way for Muslim men to prove that they have not abandoned Arab culture and adopted Western ways is to tighten the burka.
To us, the “liberated” but repressive Iraq is a paradox. To the women, it’s a prison.”
If you don’t find that insightful you’re just a hater.
demimondian
Hey, John! I know you didn’t miss her — but, hey, did you notice this fine reference?
Oh, boy, no options are off the table, eh, McHallibuShrub? Guess it’s a good thing that you’ve used us all our military options on the war in Iraq.
KC
Maureen Dowd has her good days, but overall, I’m with John. To often I get queezy when I read her.
jerry
We won’t miss you.
Mike
She was pretty witty at one time.
Now she’s just gotten shrill and shrewish.
I won’t be reading her any more than I’d read Krugman or Rich.
I much prefer Friedman and Kristof, assuming I bother with the NY Times at all, which isn’t often.
M. Scott Eiland
If MoDo was the Pacific Ocean, I could walk from L.A. to Tokyo without getting my ankles wet.
Ckrisz
Nice call on Karen Hughes, though. Hard to think of a worse pick.
Bob
I’ve always wondered why reactionaries can keep on complaining about the liberal press, and I think John’s sniping here shows why. The reactionaries can’t tolerate anything that calls into question their beliefs. The press just seems liberal because it’s a liberal that wakes them up. Otherwise, it’s a steady drowse of amens.
Don’t hate the player, hate the reality she points out.
Bob
Plus, of course, Bush is blaming the deterioration of the status of women in Iraq on the (mostly Sunni) insurgents all the while the mullahs of the Shia majority are writing away their rights.
So Dowd points out that Bush is lying again. Pointing out liars used to be a public service.