I Love Maureen's Bile in the Morning

I do not subscribe to the Sunday print edition of the New York Times, but for some reason my carrier gives me advance sections with Saturday's delivery, and then delivers the rest of the paper on Sunday morning. I don't complain. I'm a hard copy newspaper reader and will die that way.

The Sunday Opinion section as a whole is the most pessimistic compilation of opinions you can compile. I love just reading the headlines to get a sense of how I shouldn't even be looking forward to tomorrow living in this country, let alone spend the rest of the day in it. But I digress. 

I've always told my daughter's you need cranial calluses when you read the news. You have to take it with more than a grain of salt. You need Kevlar.

I grew up in an apolitical household. Neither of my parents ever uttered a word that could lead me to conclude where their sentiments sat with either the Republicans or the Democrats. Neither voted; neither was registered to vote. They were both WW II veterans, but seemed to voice no opinions on any daily events or utterances.

I always suspected my father didn't vote because in that era the jury duty rolls were taken from the voter registrations. Don't register, no jury duty. It's not that way these days, but that worked for him. My mother hardly spoke of anything, so I never knew what she was thinking.

My own political views can fluctuate, despite having registered for a party. I don't always vote for the party I'm registered under. But there are others, many in fact, who are ironclad in their easily identified party affiliations and anger toward certain elected officials.

The political cartoonist gave us the still indelible images of Republicans being drawn as elephants and Democrats as Donkeys. My mnemonic aid is D, Democrats, Donkey. The images have prevailed since the 19th century, even if given a modern rendition.

I always tell my girls that there are usually about 50% of the voting population that voted for the current president, and 50% that didn't. Divided country? Try the Civil War.

I'm thinking Nixon's second term might have been a so-called landslide. And as we all should know, that didn't end well, despite his massive popularity at the start of the term.

I love reading Maureen Dowd when she decides to write. She doesn't let a pejorative adjective go unused when stomping on Republicans and President Trump. It's delicious, not because there might be agreement, but because it's great to see words used so well.

She pulls in such great metaphors for her column. In this Sunday's column, Trump, Iran's Newest Hostage,  she opened with a parable to an O Henry short story, "The Ransom of Red Chief." I wonder if she's ever been to Pete's Tavern on 18th Street and Irving Place in NYC, the age-old, landmark tavern where O Henry sat and wrote many of this stories. There's a good looking photo of O Henry in a back dining room, that probably leaves the modern crowd wondering who that is.

Maureen usually sends me to the dictionary to suss out the meaning of a word she's used that I don't know the meaning of. I've commented on this before. This Sunday's column makes a reference to..."President Trump went along with Bibi Netanyahu's Panglossian case..."

Okay, you got me: Panglossian describes a person or viewpoint that is excessively, naively, or blindly optimistic, maintaining a positive outlook regardless of hardship, adversity, or evidence to the contrary Originating from Voltaire’s Candide it derives from Dr. Pangloss, who believes in "the best of all possible worlds"

If nothing else, we know Maureen is well read.

Maureen reminds us of how long she's been a reporter. She makes a reference to her first big story of covering the Iranian hostage crisis in 1981. That's 45 years ago. Nearly 60% of the U.S. population is under 45 years old. Maureen herself, apparently not going gently into any night, and not taking any buyouts offered by the NYT, is 74 years old, three years younger than myself. We remember the same presidents.

No doubt Maureen's Sunday column was filed well before the shootings at Saturday's dinner in Washington, the third attempt to end Trump's life, with the possibility of collaterally harming others who might get  in the way.

My edition of the Sunday Times is an early edition. There are four dots on the volume number and dateline (fewer dots indicate later editions) that indicate the earliest of editions. There is no mention of the shooting. We know it didn't succeed.

The shooter's name, Cole Allen, sounds like someone from a western, or a semi-finalist on American Idol. The memory of his name will fade over time.

Maureen proves prescient when she closes her column with, "According to a Washington Post analysis, 'Trump has invoked the ballroom on about a third of the days this year.'"

Yep. And after the shootings, he did again.

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