Spock at the Bridge - Maureen Dowd

Wow. What a phone call that must have been.

“Hey, 43, it’s 44. How’s retirement? You’re biking around the new neighborhood? Buying a nightlight for the bathroom? Can’t be too careful. I hear you’re working your way through a book Dick Cheney gave you on your Kindle. So Vice is still assigning your reading? Sounds like a full plate. No wonder there was no time to watch my address to Congress.

“It must be a relief to tune out — altogether. Still, you might have noticed we’re sort of busy in Washington. That’s why I’m calling, actually. I’m ending your stupid war.”

Mission Relinquished.

The contrasting images were pretty astounding: W. and Laura back in Texas, puttering around the new hood, borrowing chairs from the Secret Service next door to have a big dinner party, oblivious to the shrieks of pain, anger, shock and fear around the country, while Barack Obama engaged in a Sisyphean struggle to push the huge boulder of grief left behind by Bush up the hill.

What can the disavowed dauphin possibly be thinking as Professor Obama strides up to the blackboard to erase everything W. stood for, while giving us crisp lectures about how we must get more educated, more equitable, more realistic, more responsible and more reasonable?

Mr. Obama may not be able to exit Iraq expeditiously; as Tom Ricks, the respected military correspondent and author of “The Gamble,” points out, this is the sixth plan he has covered that attempts to get U.S. forces out of Iraq.....

Everytime I read Doom Dowd's stuff it's hard to remember she is an American