Does Maureen Dowd Read the Newspaper?

I rarely read her column but since this one triggered my Weekly Standard Google alert… Has Dowd given up on doing her own research — or even staying informed on current events — in favor of listening “raptly when President Obama plays the constitutional law professor”? Dowd tells her readers that Condi “never stood up against Cheney and Rummy for either what was morally right or what was smart in terms of our national security.” If only that were true, but had Dowd bothered to talk to anyone who was ever affiliated, even tangentially, with the last administration she would not be under the impression that Condi was some delicate flower who failed to assert herself in debates over national security policy. And then Dowd dives into the debate over Winston Churchill’s war crimes:

As Mr. Obama said in his news conference, it is in moments of crisis that a country must cleave to its principles. Asserting that “waterboarding violates our ideals,” he said he had been struck by an article describing how Churchill would not torture prisoners even when “London was being bombed to smithereens.” “And the reason was that Churchill understood, you start taking shortcuts and over time, that corrodes what’s best in a people,” he said. “It corrodes the character of a country.” Class dismissed.

Obama’s misquotation of Churchill touched off a fascinating debate this week about the British leader’s wartime record, but Dowd doesn’t mention any of that, excising the phony quote entirely in favor of portraying Obama as a history professor, too. Taking shortcuts really does corrode what’s best in a people — or a columnist.

Related Content