Amy's Robot

Maureen Dowd on Spain, France, Poland, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, Bush, Kerry, and Jane Austen

A typically all-encompassing column from Maureen Dowd today, in which she takes on a little more than one Op-Ed piece can handle (it's only 700 words, Maureen!) Still, a lot of good points.

The current administration is reacting to the recent Spanish elections with a lot of "By voting the current party out of office, the Spanish are letting the terrorists win!" Of course, what they mean is, "If you American pissants all vote the current party out of office, you'll let the terrorists win!" The thing is, the Spanish people never seemed to support the war, and they certainly don't like it now that we know about the global wool-over-the-eyes deceptions that led to it in the first place. The latest reason we're hearing for why the war happened was that we want to promote democracy and political freedom in all nations. Not, however, in renegade countries like Spain, where the people democratically stated their preferences in the victory of the Socialist, anti-war party.

Then she goes into some Pride and Prejudice metaphor in which Kerry is "Pride", as the snotty-nosed, condescending rich boy (who she says is Mr. Collins in the book, but isn't Mr. Darcy supposed to be the "pride" character?) and further promotes one of the more irritating co-opted catchphrases in international politics, unfairly stolen from The Simpsons. She characterizes Bush as Elizabeth "Prejudice" Bennet, the dogmatic, inflexible one, incapable of recognizing facts that differ from his assumptions. Not the most carefully thought out literary parallel, but maybe she can come back to it in another column in which she hasn't also taken on the political developments of many European countries.

categories: Books, International, Politics, War and Security
posted by amy at 2:21 PM | #