"Feminism has come and gone, and women now routinely puff their lips, inflate their chests, dye their hair and dress with sultry abandon."
Oddly, there was no mention by Maureen of the use by women of Botox (global market expected to reach annual $2.9 billion by 2018 at a CAGR of 14%) to eliminate wrinkles.
Dowd, who had her 60th birthday in January of this year, appears to have a furrow-free forehead. How does she do it? I'm two and a half years younger than Dowd, and there is no mistaking the grooves over and around my weary brown eyes. Admittedly I have worked on farms, suffered a plethora of military exercises in the desert, and continue to endure the vicissitudes of a wife and three children, all contributing to signs of aging, but please, Maureen, tell us the secret to your youthful mien. I'm certain your readership deserves to know.
But more to the point, I wonder whether Romney's choice of Paul Ryan as his running mate has finally elicited a crease in Dowd's brow.
Commenting on Ryan's appearance in her op-ed in today's Times, "When Cruelty Is Cute" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/15/opinion/dowd-when-cruelty-is-cute.html), Maureen writes of the Republican vice presidential candidate, "He’s the cutest package that cruelty ever came in."
Dowd proceeds to shower vituperation upon poor Paul. Asking, "Who better to rain misery upon the heads of millions of Americans?," Dowd demeans Ryan's affinity for "Atlas Shrugged," claiming that "Randism is a state of arrested adolescence."
Mocking the concern of Ryan and "his fellow conservative Cassandras" with the "debt bomb," Dowd would have us know that Ryan is "a numbers guy whose numbers don’t add up." Yet nowhere is there any attempt by Dowd to deal with the numbers, and regrettably, this would-be opinion piece is little more than a bloated ad hominem attack.
Allow me to set the record straight: I am pro-choice and am in favor of gay marriage, positions diametrically opposed to those of Ryan. Moreover, there is much detail lacking with respect to the manner in which Ryan would cut the US federal budget and deficit.
However, only a fool could ignore the mountain of debt that has been created by the Obama administration and which threatens to bring America to its knees.
Unfortunately, the American budget will need to be cut, and although there is plenty of room for argument as to which expenses need to be slashed, ultimately this will be unpleasant for many.
Impose higher taxes on America's wealthiest? Sure, they should share in the burden, but all, including Obama, acknowledge that this doesn't even come close to providing a solution.
I am not an aficionado of "Atlas Shrugged." Rather, I am a fan of Edward de Bono's "Lateral Thinking for Management" and believe that proffering and considering a multitude of ideas can give rise to creative solutions.
I also think that in order to solve America's debt problem, it first must be acknowledged - something that Ryan has brought to the fore in the 2012 presidential election, but something that Dowd does not deign address in her op-ed.
How much of an unreasonable "package of cruelty" is Paul Ryan? Listen to Erskine Bowles, the Democratic co-chair of the Obama Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and decide for yourself.
