Maureen Dowd: "Toadies"

It seems pretty clear that Bush's second term is going to be characterized by a staff of people who agree with him. Colin Powell is an honorable man who disagreed intensely with the opinions of Rumsfield, Wolfowitz and Cheney, reportedly describing them to Tony Blair as "f*cking crazies." He is also gone. Around the country, most people are getting used to the idea that the president is gathering people around himself who understand agree with where he wants to go and will help him implement his policies. That sounds REASONABLE to me. If he wants to listen to dissenting viewpoints, he can get someone to read him the editorial pages of the NYT. I don't see why once someone has told you 800 times that they disagree, that you should continue to invite them back in to tell you yet again.

I further don't see why career bureaucrats at State and CIA should be given carte blanche to undermine the political decisions of their boss. Ostensibly, these people are paid to be nonpartisan. Porter Goss thinks so, too.

Those ideas have Maureen Dowd and Joe Conason in an absolute hissy fit. "Crusted out nutbars and neocon crazies" are now running the show, with "panting enablers" "lackeys" and "toadies" as a supporting cast.

I really can't wait to see the hysterical lather coming when we get into talks re: Tax Code Overhaul. The prevailing sentiment, according to the Washington Post is that the main changes coming will be to shield most savings and investments from taxes, and remove the need for evaluating taxes from business decisions.

My view is that the more howling panic we see from nitwits like Maureen Dowd, the closer we are to doing the right thing. Ms. Dowd reminds me of the shortwave rants I used to be able to pick from Radio Albania. All she is missing is a yowl that the proletariat will soon rise up and crush the exploitative capitalist pigs, and socialism will issue in a paradise on earth. I actually heard that diatribe about the time some union members went on strike in Gdansk, Poland. He did not realize he was the mouthpiece for a set of ideas soon to be mocked around the world. He had caterwauled this nonsense for so long that agitprop was reality to him.