In her latest column in the "Newspaper of Record", Maureen Dowd pulls out all the stops for her man, John McCain, in attacking Senator Obama. She, of course, continues to insult and denigrate Hillary Clinton, something less perspicacious Kossacks may be tempted to get behind. But make no mistake, she is a Republican faithful through and through and will attempt any line of attack she can imagine against Barack Obama.
The most interesting and predictable line of attack, of course, is to attempt to feminize Barack Obama while suggesting he is an out of touch elitist. While, of course, other than his "elite" education, there's nothing at all to suggest that Obama is effete or elitist, this is clearly where MoDo feels Obama is weakest.
She opens by alluding to the overplayed and intentionally misinterpreted "Bittergate":
In grim times, a bitter Hillary clings to bitter voters who in grim times supposedly cling to guns, religion and antipathy to people who aren’t like them.
She goes on to say:
Obama is acting the diffident debutante, pretending not to care that he was given a raspberry by a state he will need in the fall.
Modo not only suggests that Obama is acting like a young woman (which I believe Maureen Dowd may have been at some time in the past) of wealthy parentage, but also that West Virginia, with its five electoral votes, is somehow a "must-win" for Obama. All of this is patently false.
She then goes on to point out the impact of racism on this election. She, of course, attempts to frame it in the context of Obama making an attempt to overcome this racism, just as JFK overcame anti-Catholic sentiment. She highlights the charm of JFK, which presumably Obama lacks. She also highlights JFK's use of corruption and dishonesty, which presumably Obama, to his detriment, also lacks.
But, of course, her real point isn't that prejudice can be overcome. Her real goal is to feminize Barack Obama and to point out how he cannot possibly overcome racism in West Virginia and elsewhere.
(Oh yeah, she also throws in a flag pin reference and a Reverend Wright line or two.)
She is simply wrong. And frankly, if this is the media smear campaign we can expect from the Republicans, I think November looks pretty good.