Maniacally Funny Maureen

(Newser) - When John F Kennedy Jr founded George magazine, many upbraided him for not trading more valuably on his clan’s mystique. But when sister Caroline aims for a Senate seat, Maureen Dowd writes in the New York Times , she’s “blasted by a howl of ‘How dare she?’” The Senate is already a den of patronage, Dowd notes—and the Kennedy scion is a better choice than most. More »

(Newser) - For Maureen Dowd, the election of Barack Obama means more than just an end to the Bush years; it's a chance for Washington itself to regain its moral standing. Outside the White House on election night—"there was no U-Haul in the driveway"—the New York Times columnist considers the monuments of her hometown, which "have lost their luminescence in recent years," and what an Obama-led capital would look like. More »

(Newser) - Before Karl Rove, Maureen Dowd reminds us, it was Lee Atwater who masterminded the Republican smear campaign, and his demolition of Michael Dukakis was his greatest, dirtiest success. Atwater painted the 1988 candidate as a weak Harvard-educated elitist with a weird last name, a man who supported "the Scary Black Man" and was not on "the American side." Watching John McCain's ugly campaign, the New York Times columnist asks simply, "Sound familiar?" More »

(Newser) - Straight talk not only got New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd banned from the McCain-Palin campaign planes, reports the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette , it got her marooned in Pittsburgh. After writing a scathing satire of Sarah Palin's candidacy—harsh but hardly unprecedented for the gleefully snarky writer—a stunned Dowd was left behind in the middle of a campaign swing, forcing her to overnight in a local hotel while the rest of the press pack traveled on. More »

(Newser) - Paul Newman was an unapologetic liberal, Maureen Dowd reminds us in a column on the actor who was also her teenage crush. He made Nixon's enemies list for supporting Eugene McCarthy and opposing the Vietnam War, and had "traits that have been in short supply in the Bush administration," Dowd writes: "shrewdness, humility, decency, generosity, class." He also taught the clueless-in-the-kitchen reporter how to make a good salad. More »

(Newser) - Maureen Dowd hops a plane to Wasilla, Alaska, where Sarah Palin will hold her first interview as a VP candidate this weekend. Media types might be flocking to the Last Frontier, but Palin has been sequestered from the press, brushing up for her sit-down with Charles Gibson. She's the Eliza Doolittle of the race, "pulling the political equivalent of an all-nighter." More »

(Newser) - Sarah Palin has brought an “onslaught of wild soap opera storylines” to the McCain campaign, and his party is defending itself by insisting that “life happens,” Maureen Dowd observes in the New York Times . Palin already has a Troopergate, a pregnant teen daughter, and a National Enquirer headline —and the party that once attacked such narratives is now using them to its advantage.