The Most Offensive Thing I've Read Recently

In today's New York Times, Maureen Dowd writes perhaps the most offensive editorial I've read in a long time; and I wade my way through the Washington Post's editorial page every so often. My favorite part:

"As de facto veep for Bill, she had enough leverage over him, due to his shenanigans, to co-opt huge chunks of policy and personnel decisions.

But in a return engagement with Obama at the top, could she really wake up every day in the back seat and wish him well, or would she just be plotting? (Fourteen vice presidents have ascended, after all.) Wouldn’t she be, in Monty Python parlance, the Trojan Rabbit behind the gates?"

So, let's see...first of all she's power hungry (ala 'de facto veep;' and what happened to Al Gore, you might ask. Well, in Dowd's world, he apparently doesn't exist.) Then she's a blackmailer ('leverage over him'), who knew about his infidelity and used it to force him to give her 'huge chunks' of power. Huh, too bad we already did power hungry.

Now we're getting into the good stuff. If Senator Obama were to choose her as his running mate, she would be 'plotting' to ascend to the presidency, as have fourteen vice presidents before her. So, let's take a look at those vice presidents: five were elected to the presidency, one ascended after the president sprinted out of town a day ahead of impeachment (Niiiiiixon) and eight, yes, eight, more than half of those gentlemen, ascended to the presidency upon the death of their predecessors. So, is the implication supposed to be that she would ignore the duties of the vice president, focusing on preparing for her next run for the presidency, or is it that she would take the job in the hope that a President Obama would be assassinated? Or, is she implying that a Vice President Clinton would take the job with the intention of poisoning the coffee?

Before you dismiss that as mere oversensitive paranoia on my part, remember that there are all sorts of rumors about 'The Clinton Body Count.'

So, to summarize, in two paragraphs, Maureen Dowd, a columnist for the New York Times, a paper that endorsed Senator Clinton, accuses that Senator of being a power-mad, blackmailing, scheming traitor, who would assassinate, or hope for the assassination of the President of the United States.

It's irresponsible to make such assertions, especially as they are based on nothing more than Ms. Dowd's own vitriol.