The Washington Cool Girl Pronounces on Terrorism
By Werther*
As we have said many times before, Washington and its national media apparat are "wired" to default to Right Wing positions, regardless of what the public supposedly decides in elections. Today's Exhibit A for that proposition is high school cool kid Maureen Dowd, [1] who thinks the government has to move heaven and earth and the Constitution be damned to keep her safe from ubiquitous, universal Terrorism. She thinks this thought in a vacuum, of course, since reflecting on how Washington got into a vicious cycle of action-reaction in the Middle East in the first place is a taboo subject among politicians, the media, and the camorra of think tanks dependent on defense contractors and DOD handouts.
The chief butt of her cliquish, adolescent scorn is the President, who admittedly is hardly one of our personal favorites. But note the basis of her derision: it is not any specific policy decision he has actually made while in office, whether with respect to domestic security, the Afghanistan escalation, or support for Middle East proxies. No, what really rankles her is that Obama did not come before the TV cameras immediately after the Christmas Day bombing attempt and give the flighty, childlike American people a histrionic display of macho toughness. What she really means, of course, is that pandering via the media — the media of which she is a part — is the acid test of presidential statesmanship.
More likely, such an action on Obama's part would have simply further ratcheted up the already hysterical overreaction of politicians, the media, and the American public to the incident. Al Qaeda and affiliated terrorist organizations draw strength from publicity and fear as a living organism draws strength from oxygen and nutrients. What does more for their public image and recruiting potential throughout the Muslim world: a display of calm and a methodical, well thought-out response on the part of the United States government, or a panicked, fearful overreaction that could cripple commercial aviation and further diminish the supposed freedoms which al Qaeda supposedly hates?
For all her guying of George W. Bush during the latter's disastrous tenure, Dowd's purported irreverence is simply high school girl sarcasm, unsupported by any depth of understanding or wisdom. Despite her facetious denial of holding Bush up as a role model vis-à-vis Obama in their different ways of handling terrorism, she overtly refutes her own premise by suggesting that Obama is too cool, cerebral, and unemotional to handle terrorism: "But it's not O.K. to be cool about national security when Americans are scared." Rather, he needs "to be the strong father who protects the home from invaders, who reassures and instructs the public at traumatic moments." Can the reader think of anything more infantilizing than a public that needs to be "reassured and instructed" by a blustering John Wayne caricature?
Ever the wise-cracking Washington soiree hostess, Dowd's upbringing in a Catholic girl's school ultimately shines though. The old reflexes are still there, as the helpless school girl automatically projects parental qualities on positions of authority, be they ecclesiastical or temporal.
* Werther is the pen name of a Northern Virginia-based defense analyst.
[1] Maureen Dowd, "Captain Obvious Learns the Limits of Cool," New York Times, January 9, 2009.
Posted by Werther on January 10, 2010 10:59 AM 
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Comments
The column discussed was a perfect example of M. Dowd's juvenile take on the world. Her POV seems to always come from this direction and it begs the question as to why she ranks in the upper tier of American columnists.
More to the point, that ranking explains just about all one needs to know about the so-called Mainstream Media.
Posted by: Rance Spergl | January 11, 2010 5:59 PM
Enough has come out about the Xmas day bombing attempt to realize that this individual was actually being assisted at the airport
to ensure that he got on the plane. There are also the reports that the whole thing was being videotaped on the plane very indiscreetly.
The Israeli airport security company ICTS International N.V. appears to be a Mossad cover. It was in charge at Amsterdam on Xmas, as well as when the shoe bomber boarded at the end of 2001, and all three airports on 9/11.
[That does indeed raise some vexing questions, particularly regarding ICTS. I believe Helen Thomas asked about them at a recent White House briefing, but was brushed aside. g.]
Posted by: nick | January 15, 2010 1:13 AM
Thank you for this column. I, too, like the previous poster, can't understand why anyone would think highly of Dowd. Her ego is on display in every piece. She fancies herself a feminist voice, but actually hates women. (I'll never forget the column declaring that male doctors marry female nurses because they want a less intelligent person gazing adoringly at them. Putrid.)
Posted by: Rachel | January 15, 2010 3:24 PM