COMING ATTRACTIONS

Maureen Dowd, the NYT columnist, recently penned a piece about Hillary Clinton becoming Obama's successor, a real possibility if the American electorate don't soon awaken from their long slouching-towards-Brussels slumber.  

"Don't need your well-thought-out advice. Though I thank you all for being kind. I can make mistakes myself just find," go the words of a popular song some years ago.

Now this is not so much about Dowd. Or her column. She's a big girl and can spew her drivel without any help just fine. And here's a brief example. 

Dowd, trying to cast the old-take-no prisoners Hillary into a softer, more-human-electable light, writes "... her new haircut sends a signal of shimmering intention: she has ditched the skinned-back bun that gave her the air of a K.G.B. villainess in a Bond movie and has a sleek new layered cut that looks modern and glamorous."

Somewhere on this planet there's still a substance known as truth, though one usually doesn't expect to find it coming from anyone remotely associated with the NYT. Skinned-back bun or otherwise, no slight intended, Hilliary in her best days couldn't pass for a K.G. B. villainous in a short short let alone a Bond film.

So let's get real. The real concern isn't Dowd's column. Everyone by now knows what and where she is. Here's the real concern, a comment sent to Dowd from one her followers.

The problem, as I see it, is that we need, desperately, a Democratic president who will be a Democratic president. That is to say, we need the successor to Barack Obama to be unafraid of pushing for statutory changes that would help the labor movement, go after climate change, do something about the hollowing out of public education, and restore a real progressive cast to the tax code. I know that entitlements have to be tinkered with and I, personally, don't have a problem with doing that. But it is not realistic to expect long-term political success for the Democratic party if it continues down the path of Republican-lite, catering more to Wall Street than the middle class that so desperately needs a return to the policies of the 1930s-1960s that built it.

Now what part of that-we're-going-to-shove-it-down-your-throat-whether-you-like it-or- not agenda don't you recognize? There are some sick puppies out there. And make no mistake they intend to bring that sickness to a venue near you.

To set the record real we don't have a dollar's worth sympathy for either party. Both are more bankrupt than the country.  And if our informal surveys are even slightly accurate, millions of other Americans feel the same. They just have not been pushed to the point of expressing it yet.

But then that's why theaters everywhere show those coming attractions.