Vodkapundit - A Fisking

A Fisking

Posted by Stephen Green · 22 July 2004

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present for your intellectual and philosophical pleasure, Maureen Dowd.

The capital has plunged into satire.

'Tis true – Maureen is back from vacation.

There's the bizarre investigation of Sandy Burglar, as the respected former national security adviser has now been dubbed, pulling a Fawn Hall and smuggling stuff out of the National Archives in his fine washables.

That spin is about as subtle as Mike Tyson propositioning a beauty queen. You'll notice Sandy was "respected" – until he started behaving like that big-haired Republican wench. Still, I gotta give Mo some credit. She used the phrase "fine washables," but I tried to get you to picture Sandy in a cotton thong. Dowd wins the first round on points.

And just when you thought the Bush foreign policy couldn't sound more chuckleheaded, revelations in the 9/11 commission report being released today elevated the Bush doctrine to an Ali G skit.

Actually, what Dowd means to say here is "reduced the Bush doctrine to an Ali G skit." See, the documents make Bush's policy even sillier than they were, hence the Ali G reference. But, hey – reduce, elevate, whatever. It's not like Mo is known for her accuracy. So let's continue.

The most astute prophet of the administration's Middle East muddle is Sacha Baron Cohen, the hilarious British comedian whose Ali G character is an uninformed gangsta rapper interviewing unwitting V.I.P.'s.

I'm going to just breeze by the next three paragraphs, and spare you having to read them here. Why? They're just Dowd retelling what she saw on Ali G's HBO show – and there are few things more painful than somebody repeating last night's TV jokes at you while you're trying to work. I know Maureen Dowd likes to think of herself as a hip and amusing (and oh so thin!) (and just like Ali G, only pretty!), but in this case, she's the clueless guy in the plain brown tie, hectoring you at the water cooler with all the funny things that Tim Allen said on last night's syndicated episode of Home Improvement.

You can thank me later. In the meantime, let's continue with the fisking.

Well, as it turns out, the United States did bomb the wrong Ira-.

Oh, since you missed it in the bits I snipped out, Former Secretary of State and current Council on Foreign Relations member Ali G thinks that since Iran and Iraq are spelled alike, maybe we got all confused and stuff. You know, like the wardrobe crises Mo faces each Fall. "Now, is brown the new black still, or is black the new black again? They both start with B's, darnit."

President Bush says he's now investigating Qaeda-Iran ties, and whether Iran helped the 9/11 hijackers.

Scary, isn't it, when presidents investigate who might be giving aid and comfort to our enemies.

Whoops. Right axis. Wrong evil.

Well, no.

Alright, I'll be a little less flippant and actually explain. We were never told, "Saddam was behind 9/11, and now we're going to go get him." We were told that "if Saddam Hussein does not fully disarm, for the safety of our people and for the peace of the world, we will lead a coalition to disarm him."

Nothing about 9/11 there.

It's like Emily Latella - "What's all this fuss I hear about making Puerto Rico a steak?" - except the U.S. can't simply shrug "Never mind" because 900 American troops are dead.

And 25 million Iraqis are free. And a dictator is in jail awaiting trial. And the US Central Command now commands a central position bordering tyrants in Syria, Saudi Arabia, and – yes – Iran.

At least Ali G has fresh material -- but now the Boring Water Cooler Guy is hitting us with 25-year-old SNL sketches. And when I say that, please understand I mean no offense to the ghost of Gilda Radner. You're still the cat's meow, baby, wherever you are.

Sorry, Mo – what were you saying?

The Bush administration had no good intelligence, so it decided to invade the Ira- that was weaker.

From time to time, Dowd really ought to read a newspaper she doesn't get a paycheck from. She'd discover that the intelligence was about as solid as intelligence ever gets.

And who says Iraq was the weaker state? Certainly not these people. Unlike Iraq, Iran actually has a large, motivated, and indigenous resistance movement. Usually, the low-hanging fruit falls on its own. Judging by the headshot Mo uses on her columns, nothing on her has been allowed to fall on its own, even a little. But only her plastic surgeon knows for sure.

The war was based on phony W.M.D. analyses and fallacious welcome scenarios drummed up by the neocon Chihuahua Ahmad Chalabi.

We've already covered the "phony" WMD issue, so let's not go there again. Instead, let's talk for once about political correctness and cultural sensitivity. Does Maureen Dowd know where dogs stand in Arab culture? While she's at it, why doesn't she call co-worker Thomas Friedman a kike, or haul out the n-word against Bob Herbert?

If Bill Safire had called Chalabi a Chihuahua, the Left would be all over him.

Mr. Bush should have worried about the Axis of Evil in the order of the threat posed: North Korea, which has nukes; Iran, which almost has nukes; Iraq, which wanted nukes.

Worry? Yes. Act? Hell, no!

One doesn't pick fights against nuclear-armed opponents. It… it… it just isn't done, like wearing white after Labor Day, or eating Mexican right after a tummy tuck.

By Mo's logic, we should have charged right into Germany at the first opportunity during WWII. Then we'd have had the clout to take on Italy. And, naturally, we'd have saved Finland for last.

NOTE: Hey, Mo -- didja know that the people who made your cell phone fought on the Nazi side in the WWII? It's true!

Right now I'm really missing the water cooler guy and the recycled Tim Allen jokes.

Now American forces are so depleted that the Pentagon is pulling forces out of South Korea to go to Iraq.

Fine by me – the South Koreans no longer want us there, and are well able to defend themselves.

And, given the huge National Guard deployment in Iraq, states say they don't have enough manpower to guard prisoners, fight wildfires or police the streets.

The primary duty of the National Guard is to fight wildfires?

Maureen, let me explain something to you. There's a difference between "what you usually do" and "what you're supposed to do." The National Guard is supposed to help the regular Army fight wars. That's why they have all those guns and tanks and blowy-up things. But we aren't usually at war – and so the Guard often finds itself doing emergency work, like fighting wildfires. (And since when, other than in extreme riots, does the Guard police the streets? And since when, other than in your imagination, does the Guard guard prisoners? Just because they have "Guard" in their title, doesn't make them actual guards.)

Or, to explain it in terms you'd understand better, Mo – what you're supposed to do is to provide critical analysis for millions of readers, but what you usually do is recycle other people's jokes.

We clear?

Besides excoriating the C.I.A. and F.B.I. and chronicling as many as 10 missed opportunities to pick up on the 9/11 plot - in the Bush years and in the Clinton era - the 9/11 commission report has new evidence that Iran may have helped up to 10 of the hijackers with safe passage from Osama's Afghan training camps.

Reminds me of an old joke, goes like this:

The Blonde Mating Call: "I'm so drunk!"
The Brunette Mating Call: "Has the blonde left yet, sugar?"
The Redhead Mating Call: "NEXT!"

Sounds to me like we know, today, something that we didn't know last year – that Iran might have had a hand in 9/11. If Iran wants to be the redhead shouting "NEXT!" then so be it.

Meanwhile, I'm filing this column in the archives. Because if we ever are forced to go to war against the mullahs, I want to be reminded that Maureen Dowd should be expected to play the slutty cheerleader, urging us to fight, fight, fight.

"Grimly, what the new 9/11 report makes clear is that nearly three years into the war on terror, America is still not close to understanding the enemy," Michael Isikoff and Michael Hersh report in Newsweek. "And Washington seems less able to force Tehran to change its ways, especially since Bush has removed one of the chief threats to the mullah regime, Saddam Hussein, and is now bogged down in Iraq. As one intel official said before the Iraq war: 'The Iranians are tickled by our focus on Iraq.' "

Excuse me? When we supported Saddam during the Iran-Iraq War, it was a Bad Thing. But if we were propping up his dictatorship today, that would be a Good Thing.

Did I read that right?

Just as the invasion of Iraq was "a Christmas gift" to Osama, as the C.I.A. official who wrote a book as "Anonymous" put it, in terms of recruiting in the Muslim world and diverting the U.S., so it may be a gift to Iran. U.S. military officials say Iranian agents have been helping Iraqi insurgents as a way to shape Iraq into a Shiite fundamentalist satellite.

"Anonymous" also called for leveling Arab cities, burning Arab farms, and causing civilian casualties on a scale not seen since WWII. If Mo is really in support of such things, then she's even a sluttier cheerleader than I'd hoped.

Meanwhile, if Iran is helping Iraqi insurgents, then we have two things going for us. One, we get to kill Iraqi insurgents. Two, we get to harm Iranian interests while doing so.

But, hey – even if we are fight, fight, fighting the Iranians indirectly, we're doing so in that country spelled with a Q instead of a N. Easy to see how Dowd might find that confusing.

Though the 9/11 panel found no "collaborative" relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda, it found one between Iran and Al Qaeda - but no evidence that Iranian officials knew in advance about the 9/11 attacks.

Oh, damn - the slutty cheerleader turned out to be nothing but a tease. The Iranians weren't really that involved in 9/11, so maybe we should only go to second base – er, I mean, not invade them.

The report concludes that "Al Qaeda's relationship with Iran and its client, the Hezbollah militant group, was far deeper and more longstanding than its links with Iraq," according to The Washington Post.

Or maybe Ali G said that. Whoever said it, I'm hard-pressed to explain how Hezbollah – a group with nothing to do with 9/11 or the Iraq War – got dragged into an otherwise cogent and coherent newspaper column.

Mr. Bush vowed to deal harshly with any country that harbors terrorists or assisted the 9/11 plot. But our military is so overextended from invading Ira-, we'd be hard pressed to go after Ira-.

Whichever. But it's good to know that, whoever our enemies are, we'll always have at least one cheerleader urging us to go almost all the way.

Comments

Fisking Dowd is ungallant. It's like beating up yor baby sister.

Posted by: Conrad at July 22, 2004 12:40 AM

If your baby sister has a particularly low I.Q.

Hey--I'm a little sister myself, and that's offensive.

Posted by: Attila Girl at July 22, 2004 01:41 AM

The thing about the Guard, is that these guys are citizen soldiers, i.e. they have other jobs outside the military that ain't getting done because of their guard tours are being extended.

But I am reminded of an army of 8 divisions, 2 reserve divisions, (709,000 and 293,000 men) 20 air force and naval air wings (about 2000 iarcrafts) 232 straegic bombers, etc. etc. The Clinton military cuts.

When you dispose of that much of a force, when you make a cut that is larger than most nations military, it is going to take time to rebuild from those cuts. You can't wave a magic wand and create an entire army division out of thin air and ready to go in 15 minutes. There is no way to microwave it, it has to be grown. You have to recruit men, buy material, uniforms, weapons, etc. You have to train those men.

Posted by: Ben at July 22, 2004 02:51 AM

Somewhere Catherine Seipp just had an orgasm.

Posted by: Oy at July 22, 2004 06:23 AM

If we could only see Dowd in her underwear, instead of seeing her write about Bergers.

Posted by: Charlie (Colorado) at July 22, 2004 06:48 AM

Looks like some panic by Dowd. Two Bush "scandals" have just collapsed (Wilson, 9/11 report), and the Democrats just opened up a biggie (Berger).

And I don't know which is more appaling...Dowd's understanding of military strategy or Middle Eastern politics. If we fought NK first, we'd be in the middle of a nuclear war and Saddam would still be doing weapons research. Now, Saddam is gone, Libya disarmed, Iran is internally weaker, and NK is about the same. Advantage: US.

And I really don't get how having a US-backed democracy with 130,000 troops on it's borders is better for Iran than Saddam's Iraq. The only way that possibly works is to admit that Iraq had WMD and the intent to use them on its neighbors. Surely Dowd isn't making that argument?

Good God, and to think she's picking up a paycheck for this...

Posted by: Mike M at July 22, 2004 07:33 AM

Anyone else notice that Dowd lost the top shelf on the Op-Ed page's layout to the guest?

Posted by: TC-LeatherPenguin at July 22, 2004 08:01 AM

It's better to just ignore MoDowd's regular parody of an Op-Ed column. She rarely makes sense, people just read her for the insults, and it's obvious that she writes the column in the last 2 hours before deadline and has to fill with whatever pop culture item she has just seen.

There are days when I actually feel sorry for her. She must worry that someone will notice just how bad and inconsequential writer she has become.

Posted by: pilsener at July 22, 2004 08:08 AM

Fisking Dowd? Really? I love your blog(s) but isn't it kind of bush league on the degree of difficulty scale. Well done and all that but you are spending a lot of energy squashing an ant. Albeit a widely read and overly promoted one.

Posted by: Steve Ducharme at July 22, 2004 08:18 AM

So, let me get this straight. We have a noted liberal columnists grilling the Bushies over not seeing connections between Al Qaeda and Iran. A connection that no liberal had previously made either. Moreover, Al Quaeda is Sunni Wahhibi and Iran is Shi'ite central. Weren't we always told from all the "experts" that Shi'ites and Sunnis don't get along. Weren't we always told that Al Qaeda would never work with any non-Wahhibi Muslims? After all, we were told Al Qaeda would not work with the secular Muslims who ran Iraq. I just can't keep up. I mean, it's almost like Al Qaeda will work with anyone who wants to kill Americans. But, that can't be. Al Qaeda are idealogically pure. Right?

Great fisking BTW.

Posted by: Russ Goble at July 22, 2004 08:18 AM

Thank you for your thoughtful commentary.

A friend hit me with Ms. Dowd's article first thing this morning. Your response was much beter than mine--"This isn't worth responding to." Yours was at least funny (g).

Posted by: Lornkanaga at July 22, 2004 08:49 AM

> And 25 million Iraqis are free. And a dictator is in jail awaiting trial. And the US Central Command now commands a central position bordering tyrants in Syria, Saudi Arabia, and – yes – Iran.

Its my pet theory... no, let me correct that, hypothesis, that it is part of some master plan that we have our troops on two of Iran's borders at the same time.

That's my $0.02.

Posted by: A.W. at July 22, 2004 09:03 AM

Well, MoDo is a thick parody of herself these days, but her Guard reference is to that an awful lot of the Guard is made up of state and local employees, particularly police and fire. But that is because they typically have generous employment rules that give them paid time off and extra pension benefits for their Guard or Reserve service. Usually a much better deal than private sector employees get. That is why a lot of the Guard is made up of public sector employees. (The story during the Vietnam War was that LBJ contemplated calling up the 42nd, a NY/MA Guard division, and Nelson Rockefeller, then Guv, told him that NYC would become ungovernable due to lack of cops if he did.) If the Feds would reinstitute call-up wage insurance (it collapsed in the 90s due to poor design), they would get more private sector and self-employed individuals into the Guard and Reserve.

Posted by: pendennis88 at July 22, 2004 09:25 AM

I guess Maureen had rather be thin than well n'Dowd.

Posted by: R. Willis Cook at July 22, 2004 09:41 AM

You said: "One doesn't pick fights against nuclear-armed opponents. It… it… it just isn't done, like wearing white after Labor Day, or eating Mexican right after a tummy tuck."

Good point, except that's the reason these countries are trying to build nuclear arsenals in the first place. Not invading a country that is a bigger threat b/c of the very threat for which we should be invading is like telling a slutty cheerleader that you'll only sleep with her because she's easy...

Posted by: M.P. at July 22, 2004 09:43 AM

Finland didn't fight on the Nazi side, the Nazis fought on the Finnish side. There's a big difference. The Finns never got involved in WW2, being rather busy at the time fending off invasions by the Evil Empire (remember them? OK, so in the 1940s there were two Evil Empires rampaging in Europe. Let's call the USSR EE1, and the 3rd Reich EE2). Germany (EE2), being at the time also at war with EE1, naturally offered to help. We, OTOH, were at war with EE2, and had made an alliance of convenience with EE1, so we didn't offer any help. So the Finns took the help that was on offer. What would you do?

But they never participated in EE2's war, and didn't even do EE2 the 'courtesy' of firing Jewish officers in their army. The poor Nazis had to work together with Jewish Finns, and pretend to like it. (Then again, the Jews had to pretend to like it too, so I guess it balances out.)

Posted by: Zev Sero at July 22, 2004 10:09 AM

I was reminded of one of my favorite Lileks quotes:

"Who knew that fish, confined to a barrel, would evolve to sport concentric circles on their sides that look exactly like targets?"

Posted by: Ernie G at July 22, 2004 10:12 AM

Some people seem to believe that it is terribly significant that US troops are in countries on both sides of Iran. Yet does anybody seriously believe that we have the troops to invade that country? Our presence in Iraq is insufficient to stop repeated terrorist attacks and kidnappings. What would happen if they were suddenly to invade a much larger, and heavily populated country?

Posted by: Clark at July 22, 2004 10:28 AM

MP - I fail to find any thread of logic in your statement....maybe it's just me.

As for Charlie wanting to see Dowd in her underwear...oh buddy...trust me...you can't hide those nasty surgical scars under a thong.

And as for fisking Dowd...I don't see it like picking on the village idiot (mean) or a baby sister with a low IQ (too easy) - though Dowd fits both of those descriptions...I see it more along the lines of ...if you can't sing or dance...and you book yourself on the gong show...then what did you expect?

Posted by: Becky at July 22, 2004 10:39 AM

Sure fisking Dowd is like shooting fish in a barrel, but sometimes them fish is askin' fer it.

Posted by: Robert at July 22, 2004 10:40 AM

Clark, you make good points, but I don't think anyone's seriously considering invading and conquering all of Iran. That would be an extraordinarily unpleasant task, and I think Bush's strategy is geared in part toward avoiding its necessity.

I think the main thing is that having the U.S. army on their eastern and western borders has got to make the mullahs nervous, and embolden their opponents. The balance is delicate enough that our incremental weight might just tip it. Not tomorrow, and not soon, but hopefully soon enough.

Posted by: JPS at July 22, 2004 10:52 AM

All I can say is that Mo must be one strong woman. The way she can move those goalposts in her columns is Herculean. Maybe there are some stables somewhere that need cleaning?

Posted by: RandMan at July 22, 2004 11:00 AM

Gotta love it. Dowd argues (via Issikoff and Hersh) that our best method for pressuring the Iranian mullahs was to leave Saddam in power. Wha????

Under that scenario, Option 1 is that Saddam's mere presence provided an "alternative model" for freedom-seeking Iranians while repressing and killing his own people. Option 2 is that Saddam's "weak" military presented a serious threat to a neighbor. Option 1 is ridiculous on its face. Option 2 is not only the height of hypocrisy, it would be a blantantly dangerous policy option. How does a second Iran-Iraq war make the world safer?

It's incomprehensible that the NYT allows this person to write for them.

Posted by: JP at July 22, 2004 12:02 PM

Take one look at the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz and you will understand why it is unlikely that there will be any invasion of Iran from Iraq. It's called supply.

Posted by: Forbes at July 22, 2004 12:21 PM

As I've suggested before, what really needs to happen is for MoDo and Paris Hilton (of "The Simple Life") to change jobs. That way, the NY Times would get a new brand of vacuous nonsense written by someone with a more attractive profile photo, and MoDo would get to try jobs more suited to her intellectual level, such as selling fast food and shoveling pig excrement.

Posted by: M. Scott Eiland at July 22, 2004 12:45 PM

Forbes, I think it is (was) an unlikely scenario, however, rationality and continuing oil flows never precluded Iraq from undertaking offensive actions against oil-producing neighbors. Similarly, the US didn't intervene in every case, either.

Posted by: JP at July 22, 2004 01:18 PM

I'm getting tired of pointing this out, but you all have fallen for the practical joke played on the readership by the editorial staff of the NY Times.

Come on, the Times may not be what it was, but do you really think they'd give the most coveted op-ed space in the world to a ditz like Maureen Dowd?

It's obvious that MoDo, as we fans like to call her, is a Times parody of the "woman writer" as a flibbertigibbet, desperate to show she's hip and unable to view anything except through the prism of her own personality.

I think the joke has gone on long enough, myself.

Posted by: Alex Bensky at July 22, 2004 01:23 PM

Wonderful, Stephen. Wonderful.

Enzo

Posted by: 1972 at July 22, 2004 01:26 PM

Alex, I'd be more likely to believe your scenario if it weren't for the Howell Raines regime, which was apparently undertaken in all seriousness as opposed to an intentional parody of the most paranoid conservative conspiracy theories about leftist control of the media. If MoDo is a parody, the humor was utterly overshadowed by the backwash of the Raines years, particularly the "Martha Burk groupie" days.

Posted by: M. Scott Eiland at July 22, 2004 01:36 PM

You missed one:

The Ugly Blonde Mating Call: "I said I was drunk..."

Posted by: physics geek at July 22, 2004 02:01 PM

Nice work Stephen. Surprised you let this line get past the fact radar...

"Besides excoriating the C.I.A. and F.B.I. and chronicling as many as 10 missed opportunities to pick up on the 9/11 plot - in the Bush years and in the Clinton era"

Bush years?? He was in office for all of 8 months. Months, years, Iraq, Iran...whatever!

Posted by: EricK at July 22, 2004 02:14 PM

She brings disgrace to a perfectly good first name. Thanks for making me laugh at something that otherwise wouldn't have been funny.

Posted by: Maureen at July 22, 2004 03:58 PM

I can never seem to get through the first 5 or 6 lines of a Down column without tossing the paper into the ashcan.

You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din.

Posted by: Larry at July 22, 2004 04:46 PM

I can never seem to get through the first 5 or 6 lines of a Down column without tossing the paper into the ashcan.

You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din.

Posted by: Larry at July 22, 2004 04:47 PM

For me, nothing has busted the myth that New Yorkers are wordly like the knowledge that they giggle over Dowd's column. She is Manhattan's answer to Hee Haw.

Posted by: L N M at July 22, 2004 09:25 PM

"And as for fisking Dowd[...] if you can't sing or dance...and you book yourself on the gong show...then what did you expect?"

My God... Maureen Down is the William Hung of journalism!

Posted by: Strider at July 23, 2004 08:31 AM

I'm out of breath. That was the best fisking that I have seen in a long time. You and Andrew Sullivan should just rip Dowd's infantile rants everyday. Jeez...I can't believe that this bimbo actually gets paid for this crap. That NYT just continues to sink further and further into the propaganda cesspool. This Berger thing is going to take them way over the top. Can you imagine if that was Condi Rice with those documents? MoDo would be calling for the National Guard to surround the Whitehouse and start shooting. I can't wait until ten years from now, when Blogs are the medium of record, and these hacks are begging you guys for a job. Maybe you can force them to cover the tenth anniversary celebration of Iraqi sovereignty. I doubt that MoDo will be able to go unless she can get time off from her astrology page gig in Sheboygan.

Posted by: Gordon at July 23, 2004 10:12 AM

Finland fought valiantly against a Soviet invasion while Germany and the USSR were still nominally aligned (this fighting occured after the Nazis and Soviets had carved up Poland in 1939, and the Soviets had conquered the Baltic States in 1940). Finland eventually lost and ceded some territory to the Soviets. This happened in 1940, before the Nazi invasion of the USSR in June of 1941. After that, Finland was neutral in WWII. I'm not aware of Nazi help to the Finns, after all, again the Nazis were aligned with the Soviets at the time of the Finnish--Soviet fighting.

Posted by: me at July 24, 2004 09:06 AM

I LOVE the comment calling Maureen Dowd the William Huang of journalism!!! LOL! That is the BEST description of her. I'm going to use that. Thank you Strider!! I have a colleague here at work who is Chinese and we use to tease him about Wm Huang just to get him riled up. He complains that William is an $%#! embarrassment to Chinese people.

Posted by: Shoba Vakkalagadda at July 24, 2004 03:11 PM