LUNCHTIMEBLOGTIME!

maureen dowd's daily dose of clinton castigation begins today with the following:

I think Hillary truly believes that she and Bill are the only ones tough enough to get to the White House. Jack Nicholson endorsed her as “the best man for the job,” and she told David Letterman that “in my White House, we’ll know who wears the pantsuits.” But her pitch is the color of pitch: Because she has absorbed all the hate and body blows from nasty Republicans over the years, she is the best person to absorb more hate and body blows from nasty Republicans.

dowd's aversion towards the clinton family is based upon the notion of positivity, or in the clinton's case, a severe lack thereof. furthermore, she seems to subscribe to the notion that your ability to lead the country should be described in terms of what you aspire to accomplish, as opposed to the opposition you've successfully defeated many times over.

on some level, it's hard to disagree with having a "positive" attitude. this country is looking forward, has adopted apathy in place of enthusiasm, and people want to think in positive terms about our country's future. however, presenting her veiled sponsorship of obama in terms of his toughness, which the clinton 'machine' has coincidentally helped to nurture, is only making hillary a more viable if not more plausible nominee.

she continues with this:

Better the devil you know than the diffident debutante you don’t. Better to go with the Clintons, with all their dysfunction and chaos — the same kind that fueled the Republican hate machine — than to risk the chance that Obama would be mauled like a chew toy in the general election. Better to blow off all the inspiration and the young voters, the independents and the Republicans that Obama is attracting than to take a chance on something as ephemeral as hope. Now that’s Cheney-level paranoia.

i hope she's not implying the republican base would give obama a reprieve because he isn't a clinton. from an amateur political junkie, that sounds downright foolish. sorry, ms. dowd. your sarcasm is not convincing me.

this article as well as other indicators have led me to believe the press depicts the youth as a traditionally uninspired and disrespected block of the american public that is finally excited to get involved with politics, ONLY because obama is an inspiring candidate. moreover, they're suggesting that if obama doesn't win the democratic ticket, all the youthful vigor he's managed to inspire will evaporate as quickly as it emerged.

if voting turnout among my demographic decreases because hillary manages to win the ticket, so be it. i'm comfortable taking the cynical approach because those people who were so eager to "get involved" are the same people would would subsequently go back to their old habits of apathy and indifference once they didn't get their way. this is one of the most irritating characteristics of people my age. it makes my blood fucking boil.

simply stated, we're inexperienced, we're naive, and we're hopeless hopeful. a good portion of the country's youth doesn't even know who won the civil war. architectural interns don't sign construction documents, one of the partners does. our parents tell us not to have kids early. why? because education is a process and we're not prepared {yet} to holistically understand there's more to a candidate than inspiring speeches and guerrilla-style political posters.

members of the press like maureen dowd insult voters**, both young and old. aligning thyself with the smug and morally superior left in the light of scare tactics resembling "cheney-level paranoia" does nothing but irritate the very readers she is presumably attempting to reach. moreover, by criticizing hillary clinton for selling her strengths, she's adding an powerfully divisive tone to the political stew; something the democratic party, if it genuinely aims to win the white house, does not need.

**i plan on reading her column every day.