Painting a Political Picture

The lioness of Chappaqua is hot on the trail of the Chicago gazelle, eager to gnaw him to pieces, like a harrowing scene out of a George Stubbs painting. (Maureen Dowd in The NYT).

Popcorn Done, Is This Race Over Yet?

One Obama adviser moaned that the race was “beginning to feel like a hostage crisis” and would probably go on for another month to six weeks. And Obama said that the “God, when will this be over?” primary season was like “a good movie that lasted about a half an hour too long.” (Maureen Dowd in The New York Times).

And ...

Obama, like the preternaturally gifted young heroes in mythical tales, is still learning to channel his force.

Girdles, Peaches & the Surge Twins

It’s obvious that the Surge is like those girdles the secretaries wear on the vintage advertising show, "Mad Men." It just pushes the fat around, giving a momentary illusion of flatness. But once Peaches Petraeus, as he was known growing up in Cornwall-on-Hudson, takes the girdle off, the center will not hold. (Maureen Dowd in today's NYT).

And ...

The Surge Twins seemed competent and more realistic than some of their misbegotten predecessors, but just too late to do any good. They’re like two veteran pilots trying to crash land the plane.

Dowd Watch: Weighing in on Gore

It’s no wonder Al Gore is a little touchy about his weight, what with everyone trying to read his fat cells like tea leaves to see if he’s going to run. (Maureen Dowd in The NYT).

Dowd Watch: Tete a Tete Aftermath

“The French are like children who love to be beaten. Sarkozy is saying, ‘Go do your homework or I’ll beat you.’ The French need to be told that.” (Maureen Dowd in The NYT quoting a French woman about the presidential election of Nicolas Sarkozy over Ségolène Royal).

And ...

Or as an elegant Parisian woman who voted for Sego warned guests at a postelection dinner party, “He’s like a little Donald Trump.”

Dowd Watch: Notes from the Ségosphere

It’s hard not to be drawn to a presidential candidate with a name like a Bond girl, a smile like an angel, a figure that looks great in a bikini at 53, a campaign style like Joan of Arc, and a buffet for the press corps brimming with crustless fromage sandwiches, icy chocolate profiteroles, raspberry parfaits, red Bordeaux, espresso and little almond gâteaux. (Maureen Dowd in The NYT about French presidential candidate Ségolène Royal).

And ...

But the infatuation dampened, like a spring romance.

And ...

On stage, she channeled a divine aura, levitating her arms like a Blessed Virgin statue, presenting herself as a glowing beacon against the forces of darkness, a k a Nicolas Sarkozy.

On the Home Front: With Support Like This ...

“I am always a little amazed at the response that people get when they hear from Barack,” [Barack Obama's wife, Michelle,] told the crowd at the Beverly Hilton, as her husband stood by looking like a puppy being scolded, reported Hud Morgan of Men’s Vogue. “A great man, a wonderful man. But still a man. ... (Maureen Dowd in The NYT).

McCain, a Political Cat That's Off Balance

Mr. McCain is stuck on the bridge of a sinking policy with W. and Dick Cheney, who showed again this week that there is no bottom to his lunacy. The senator supported a war that didn’t need to be fought and is a cheerleader for a surge that won’t work. It has left Mr. McCain, an Arizona Republican, once the most spontaneous of campaigners, off balance. He’s like a cat without its whiskers. (Maureen Dowd in The NYT).

The Surge Is Already Paying Dividends. Thanks.

The Dowd simile watch:

The American military’s cocky heroes were supposed to sweep in and carry off a poor, grateful Iraq to security and bliss, like Richard Gere did Debra Winger in the finale of “An Officer and a Gentleman.” (Maureen Dowd in today's New York Times column, Love Among the Ruins).

And ...

One reporter who writes about the war told me he thinks of the American entrenchment in Iraq more like a marriage that’s run out of gas, but you decide to stay together because of the kids. (Dowd).

And ...

Some women say that the Surge will not work because it’s like starting over with an old boyfriend: you think you’ve learned the pitfalls and can resume with more success — you can set benchmarks! — but instead you’re swiftly ensnared by the same old failures. (Dowd).

And ...

They may still speak diplomatically, but in body language, Condoleezza Rice and her chosen new deputy, John Negroponte, radiate irritation with the Iraqis, as though they are the most irksome of cousins or in-laws who have long overstayed their welcome, or children who not only don’t thank you for presents but also leave the playroom a mess. (Dowd).

And ... the clincher

With the Surge, as with the invasion of Iraq, W. is like the presumptuous date “who reserves a hotel room and then asks you to the prom,” as my friend Dana Calvo put it. (Dowd).

In Search of Intelligent Life in D.C.

Sounding as naked of essentials as Britney Spears, the new intelligence oversight chief [Democrat Silvestre Reyes, another Texan] pleaded that it was hard to keep all the categories straight. (Maureen Dowd in today's The New York Times on Reyes's inability to answer simple questions about Al Qaeda and Hezbollah.)

And ...

If Mr. Reyes had been reading the newspaper, he might have noticed Mr. [Jeff] Stein's piece on The Times's Op-Ed page two months earlier, in which, like a wonkish Ali G, he caught many intelligence and law enforcement officials, as well as members of Congress, who did not know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite. (Dowd).

From Rising Souffle to a Rented Mule

"... Never have I seen so much swoon for so little biography. If he can make something out of this [Ed Rogers, the speaker, revealing Obama's middle name, Hussein, on "Hardball"], it proves he's very thin-skinned and he ain't ready. Hillary will beat him like a rented mule." (Maureen Dowd quoting Rogers, a Bush 41 official, in her New York Times column today).

[See "The Obama Souffle," Nov. 20th post below]

The White House Chief of Denial

[Tony] Snow has said this is not a civil war because the fighting is not taking place in every province and because Iraqis voted in free elections. But that's like saying that the Battle of Gettysburg only took place in one small corner of the country, so there was no real American Civil War. And there were elections during our civil war too. (Maureen Dowd, The New York Times).

Christmas Morning & the Manbot

I woke up this morning feeling somewhat like I used to as a child on a Christmas morning, eager to see what not Santa, but the election, had brought. I was not unhappy with the results. (A Heathen’s Day blog).

Like some out-of-control manbot, Vice says they will continue “full speed ahead” in Iraq, no matter what voters say. (Maureen Dowd, New York Times)