New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd has been a champion of feminism and growing female influence in politics for years. That is, until the growing female influence is within the Republican party. Liberals apparently have been in denial about the rise of females in the Republican Party. MSNBC's David Schuster remarked, "you look at the image of the Republican Party, all white males with short haircuts. They look sort of angry. No women, no minorities, and it looks like they've sort of become unhinged." But now, liberals can no longer deny it and Maureen Dowd has taken it upon herself to embark on a hit job of these Republican women, who Maureen Dowd refers to as "Jan, Meg, Carly, Sharron, Linda, Michele, Queen Bee Sarah and sweet wannabe Christine". Quite a list for a party of "white males with short haircuts".
Dowd begins her tirade with popular Arizona govenor Jan Brewer who is more than 13 points ahead of her Democrat challenger in the her reelection race. "As the politicians droned on and my Irish skin turned toasty brown", Dowd says, "I worried that Governor Brewer might make a citizen's arrest and I would have to run for my life across the desert. She has, after all, declared open season on anyone with a suspicious skin tone in her state." Nothing quite like accusing your opponent casually of being a racist. Brewer has not declared open season on anyone with a "suspicious skin tone". Brewer just wants immigration law enforced. After decades of inaction at the federal level from both Democrats and Republicans, Arizona's law will make it a state crime to be in the country illegally. These people are already breaking the law, Arizona is just going to enforce it as the federal government refuses to. How "mean" to enforce laws that the federal government is too weak to do.
Harry Reid was apparently also at the same event where Dowd's fair Irish skin was being baked. Dowd refers to Reid as "the slight, mild-mannered, 70-year-old Senate majority leader". Gentle little Harry could never be a meanie, could he? But his challenger for the Nevada Senate seat, Sharon Angle, she apparently has a "slightly threatening air of the inebriated lady in a country club bar". Dowd takes issue with Angle because she told Harry Reid to "man up" and vows "to do what Barack Obama didn't: Shake up Washington." Dowd, fearing for poor little Harry's confidence, felt that she had to stand up to that playground bully, or "grown-up versions of those teenage tormentors who would steal your boyfriend, spray-paint your locker and, just for good measure, spread rumors that you were pregnant", as Dowd refers to her and other Republican women. Reid, according to Dowd, "cloaks his ambition and brass knuckles under a mousy facade" in an attempt to diminish Angle's argument that Reid, became "'one of the richest men in the Senate' after coming from Searchlight 'with very little.'" You see, Angle doesn't very much like career politicians, or politicians that have spent far more time in government or public sector work than in the private sector. But Dowd likes career politicians and people who decry the big bad private sector. She has a soft spot for Barack Obama, so anyone that dare criticize the Washington inner circle, or "a socialist triumvirate" as she mocks, with Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and President Obama deserves defending from these playground bullies.
Dowd's hit job on Republican women, the Republican women who up until now the liberal media have denied even exist, is a petty attempt at belittlement that instead of making the Republican ladies look like bullies just makes the Democrats look like the whining cry-baby. I mean, how dare these Republican upstarts claim that the Washington status-quo is not working because no Democrat, especially Barack Obama, would never do that, right?
After the Nevada Senate debate, Dowd informs us that she "was feeling jittery again." If Sharon Angle saw her, Dowd thought, "she might take away my health insurance and spray-paint my locker." I would probably be feeling a little jittery if the party I was supporting was staring at huge losses in both houses, with a president whose approval ratings are sinking like the Titanic. Dowd's smear campaign will ultimately have little impact, but at least Arizona might be spared from having Maureen pop by when Brewer sweeps back to power.
