Althouse: "Proving that the library is more a monument to Laura’s artful airbrushing than W.’s artless leadership..."

May 25, 2013

"Proving that the library is more a monument to Laura’s artful airbrushing than W.’s artless leadership..."

"... there’s a swank Café 43 with fancier fare than W.’s cherished PB&J’s, and a gift shop featuring Laura’s favorite books, from Dostoyevsky’s 'Brothers Karamazov' to Truman Capote’s 'Music for Chameleons.'"

67 comments:

Unknown said...: I read about 5 paragraphs and had to quit. This Maureen Dowd person is demented.; 5/25/13, 5:29 PM
Ann Althouse said...: Yeah, but I thought there was some potential to talk about "The Brothers Karamazov" in connection with the presidential politics of the last dozen years.; 5/25/13, 5:32 PM
MathMom said...: When I think about "artless leadership", I think about Obozo.; 5/25/13, 5:38 PM
MadisonMan said...: W's cherished PB&J's what?

How W is trying to run away from his Presidency if he's opening a library dedicated to describing it?

Dowd's column is so very incoherent. And I'd talk about the Brothers Karamazov, but I have never read a Dostoevsky novel.; 5/25/13, 5:40 PM
Ann Althouse said...: @Madison Man Well, here:

https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pol116/grand.htm

At least read "The Grand Inquisitor" chapter.; 5/25/13, 5:42 PM
ricpic said...: Is that woman tickling W's statue's hand?!; 5/25/13, 5:43 PM
Paco Wové said...: "I have never read a Dostoevsky novel."

Well, I hate to be a snob, but sex with you is right out the window, then (vide No. 17).; 5/25/13, 5:46 PM
SteveR said...: She falls into the pattern of praising Obama by talking about Bush. And by excusing the first four years. Yeah now its time to get started.; 5/25/13, 5:47 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 5/25/13, 5:48 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: In a speech at the National Defense University, Obama talked ... he concluded with a slap at W.: “Our victory against terrorism won’t be measured in a surrender ceremony at a battleship or a statue being pulled to the ground.”

Maureen Dowd is so far gone she doesn't realize Bush said that, more than once.; 5/25/13, 5:51 PM
Chip S. said...: However artful Laura's airbrushing may be, she's not in Jackie O's league.; 5/25/13, 5:57 PM
Phil 314 said...: Well, she hit all the talking points.; 5/25/13, 5:58 PM
Phil 314 said...: Well, she hit all the talking points.; 5/25/13, 5:59 PM
Unknown said...: If Dowd has a coherent point what is it?

A foolish and ill considered column about people and events she doesn't understand.; 5/25/13, 6:03 PM
Michael said...: Dowd is making up with the boyfriend and the mean things she stupidly blurted last week about his incompetency. None of which did she really mean.; 5/25/13, 6:10 PM
edutcher said...: It's not just a river in Egypt, is it, MoDo?; 5/25/13, 6:11 PM
Levi Starks said...: wow, she really hates Bush, she must be a racist; 5/25/13, 6:13 PM
Levi Starks said...: wow, she really hates Bush, she must be a racist; 5/25/13, 6:14 PM
gadfly said...: Fyodor Mikailovich Dostoevsky is much harder to read than MoDo - so if we cannot abide the NY nitwit, what chance is there with a Rusky?; 5/25/13, 6:35 PM
Jason said...: Ho ho ho ho. These people still think Obama grew up "hardscrabble." Ha ha ha ha! At PUNAHOU! HAHAHAHA!!!!; 5/25/13, 6:43 PM
Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...: OK, Althouse, I get it.

I never would have thought to read the New York Times. After all your posts linking NYT articles, I now know why.

Enough with the NYT, already.; 5/25/13, 6:50 PM
CatherineM said...: Hardscrabble my Aunt Fanny! How does growing up with your upper middle class Bank VP grandparents and attending THE prep school in Hawaii = hardscrabble?

Dowd thought, oh, I can squeeze one more mocking Bush column with the library opening. Easy peezy.

Whenever I think if MoDo, I think of her dumbass column on Saudi Arabia. She was shocked SHOCKED that she wasn't allowed to walk around by herself in that country even though she's an AMERICAN! What a dumb dumb; 5/25/13, 7:09 PM
Anonymous said...: What if eternity is nothing but a bathhouse full of spinsters?; 5/25/13, 7:09 PM
rhhardin said...: Bush's nickname for Dowd was Cobra, probably for the basket.; 5/25/13, 7:31 PM
Cody Jarrett said...: Since when was barry a ConLaw prof?

Fucking hell.; 5/25/13, 7:36 PM
Cody Jarrett said...: You can be forgiven for thinking you’ve wandered into the Gore presidential library when you come upon a wall devoted to protection of the ocean and odes to “vital wetlands” and “marine habitats.” Who knew W. was passionately on the side of the humphead parrotfish?

Umm...I did.

I guess that makes me smarter than MoDo.

Then again, my dog's ass is smarter than MoDo.

But Ann thinks she's a beautiful person I guess, cuz we keep getting bludgeoned by her every week.; 5/25/13, 7:39 PM
Clyde said...: No waterboarded jihadi was as tortured as poor Ms. Dowd was by having to go to that museum in Texas and pretend to be polite while there. Who says that people don't get what they deserve?; 5/25/13, 7:46 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: Ah, that river in Egypt again, its life's blood, known for its tributaries, the Projection River, and the Displacement River, and the Sublimation River, all fraught with dangerous wildlife and natural hazards. The Rationalization River and the River of Repression. I have traveled these waterways in museums and libraries and studied their arts. But I must not leave out the series of Reaction Formation Cataracts, and the southernmost portion reaching into Sudan, Regression Creek.; 5/25/13, 7:47 PM
LYNNDH said...: And Bush did more to fight AIDS in Africa than ANY OTHER President.

And he can ride a real bike, not the trike that Obama rode.; 5/25/13, 7:48 PM
Carl said...: There's that great line from "Good Morning Vietnam": in more need of a blowjob than any white man in history.

If I ever learn what the equivalent is for a woman, I'll know better how to characterize Maureen Dowd. Saying she writes as if she's so constipated it would take a team of fifty thousand rotifers with diamond teeth two full weeks to bore her colon clean doesn't seem to fully capture the queasy combination of full-on virago hate and please please like me homecoming queen runner-up that infuses her droolings.; 5/25/13, 7:59 PM
Michael K said...: I certainly hope Maureen is home in NYC when the Iranian nuke goes off in NY Harbor.; 5/25/13, 8:02 PM
Xmas said...: Obama cannot escape Bush's legacy as long as he continues to top the blemishes of the Bush Presidency.

More drone bombing than Bush. Worse unemployment than Bush. Prisoners kept in Guantanamo longer than Bush. More civilians killed than Bush.; 5/25/13, 8:13 PM
Sam L. said...: MoDo, being MoDo, is Mo Dumb. And Mo ignoring of what Benghazi Barry is and is not doing.; 5/25/13, 8:20 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Dowd is making up with the boyfriend and the mean things she stupidly blurted last week about his incompetency. None of which did she really mean.

That makes sense.; 5/25/13, 8:23 PM
Ambrose said...: I actually read Brothers Karamazov last year. The whole thing too, not just the Grand Inquisitor. You can get a lot of good books for free on Kindle. Not bad at all. Do you think our President ever read it in that hardscrapple Hawaiian private school?; 5/25/13, 8:25 PM
Anonymous said...: I had some hardscrapple once. I don't recommend it.; 5/25/13, 8:34 PM
Michael Haz said...: Maureen Dowd. Remember when she was sober and happy?

Me neither.; 5/25/13, 9:05 PM
JAL said...: You know, I am pretty sure W knows how to read.

Eric Metaxes casually mentioned something about him reading his biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

When is someone going to tell Dowd that Harvard Business School has people read and write?; 5/25/13, 9:17 PM
Kev said...: (the other kev)

Dumping that stupid bitch may have the smartest move Michael Douglas ever made.; 5/25/13, 9:25 PM
Mark said...: Dowd must have gotten a call from the IRS.; 5/25/13, 9:31 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: I hope they made this hateful MoDo buy an dmission ticket to get into the Library.; 5/25/13, 9:35 PM
Anonymous said...: Dostoyevsky Robot says:

“What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.”

Jean-Paul Sartre robot says":
"Hell is other people."; 5/25/13, 9:54 PM
Anonymous said...: Dostoyevsky Robot says:

“Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.”

George Michael Robot says:
People....
You can never change the way they feel.
Better let them do just what they will.
For they will,
If you let them steal your heart.....; 5/25/13, 9:55 PM
Anonymous said...: Dostoyevsky Robot says:

“Talking nonsense is the sole privilege mankind possesses over the other organisms. It's by talking nonsense that one gets to the truth! I talk nonsense, therefore I'm human”

John Lennon Robot says:

"I am the Walrus: goo goo g'joob"; 5/25/13, 9:55 PM
Anonymous said...: Dostoyevsky Robot says:

“Man only likes to count his troubles; he doesn't calculate his happiness.”

Kraftwerk Robot says:

"I am adding
And subtracting
I'm controlling
And composing
I'm the operator with my pocket calculator
I'm the operator with my pocket calculator"; 5/25/13, 9:56 PM
Anonymous said...: Dostoyevsky Robot says:

“The soul is healed by being with children.”

Michael Jackson Robot says:

No Comment.; 5/25/13, 9:56 PM
Anonymous said...: Dostoyevsky Robot says:

“Right or wrong, it's very pleasant to break something from time to time.”

Bob Dylan Robot says:

"The pump don’t work
’Cause the vandals took the handles"; 5/25/13, 9:58 PM
Anonymous said...: Dostoyevsky Robot says:

“It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently.”

Sam The Sham And The Pharaohs Robot say:

"Matty told Hatty about a thing she saw.
Had two big horns and a wooly jaw.
Wooly bully, wooly bully"; 5/25/13, 10:01 PM
Anonymous said...: Dostoyevsky Robot says:

“We sometimes encounter people, even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight, somehow suddenly, all at once, before a word has been spoken.”

Divinyls Robot says:

"I close my eyes
And see you before me
Think I would die
If you were to ignore me
A fool could see
Just how much I adore you
I get down on my knees
I do anything for you"; 5/25/13, 10:03 PM
Anonymous said...: Dostoyevsky Robot says:,

“I say let the world go to hell, but I should always have my tea.”

David Lee Roth Robot says"

"Goddamn it lady, you know I ain't lyin' too ya, I'm gonna tell you one time."; 5/25/13, 10:19 PM
Anonymous said...: Note to Self:

Why did it take me So Long to Discover the David Lee Roth Robot?; 5/25/13, 10:21 PM
Anonymous said...: Dostoyevsky Robot says:,

“To go wrong in one's own way is better then to go right in someone else's.”

David Lee Roth Robot says:

"Yeah, we're runnin' a little bit hot tonight
I can barely see the road from the heat comin' off
You know what I'm sayin'
Ahh, I reach down between my legs n' ease the seat back"; 5/25/13, 10:24 PM
Anonymous said...: Ann Althouse Robot: Law Professor.

David Lee Roth Robot: "Hot For Teacher."

I Will Not Connect Those Dots.

But I am Picturing Ann in the Passenger Seat of a Lime Green 1978 Camaro.; 5/25/13, 10:31 PM
n.n said...: So, Dowd looks down upon people who eat PB&J. Is that why she prefers Obama, because he eats like a king, while his subjects suffer a progressive impoverishment?; 5/25/13, 10:46 PM
Anonymous said...: Dostoyevsky Robot says:,

“We're always thinking of eternity as an idea that cannot be understood, something immense. But why must it be? What if, instead of all this, you suddenly find just a little room there, something like a village bath-house, grimy, and spiders in every corner, and that's all eternity is. Sometimes, you know, I can't help feeling that that's what it is.”

Patti Smith Robot says:

"Manky."; 5/25/13, 10:48 PM
Paddy O said...: "in connection with the presidential politics of the last dozen years."

The Idiot might be a better choice for Bush (and not because of the seemingly insulting title); 5/25/13, 11:25 PM
Paddy O said...: I had a Dostoevsky phase about ten years ago. Really good phase to be in.; 5/25/13, 11:27 PM
John henry said...: So what books did MoDo read this week?

If she is going to criticize other's reading habits, she should share her own.

FWIW: I am currently rereading, for about the 5th time, LeCarre's The Honorable Schoolboy.

John Henry; 5/25/13, 11:52 PM
JAL said...: If Bush's leadership was "artless," what is Obama's?

Artful?

More like ham fisted "detachment."; 5/26/13, 12:10 AM
AlanKH said...: Maureen Dowd is sulfuric acid in a skirt.; 5/26/13, 3:57 AM
hoyden said...: There is a finite, non-zero probability that MoDo will say something noteworthy. The odds are much better reading the comments here and skipping the article.

Thanks, folks.; 5/26/13, 7:42 AM
Unknown said...: Gadfly said, "Fyodor Mikailovich Dostoevsky is much harder to read than MoDo...."

I can't agree with that. I've read to the end entire novels by Dostoyevsky but couldn't make it halfway through Dowd's snarky gibberish.; 5/26/13, 9:31 AM
Limited Blogger said...: Visited yesterday. Watched the clip of Bush 43 on 9/11 with a bullhorn, speaking from his heart, not from a teleprompter.

FYI -- Unlike the Oval Office mock-up in Clinton's library, which is roped off, you can go right in Bush's Oval and sit behind the desk.

And "Cafe 43" is not swanky or expensive. It is small, with 2 cheerful employees, offering Starbucks coffee, bottled water, cookies, and sandwiches.; 5/26/13, 12:18 PM
James Graham said...: Only MoDo would write a column about W in a week when even the MSNBC robots are criticizing President B O.; 5/26/13, 12:35 PM
Baron Zemo said...: Haters gotta hate.; 5/26/13, 1:39 PM
Baron Zemo said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 5/26/13, 1:39 PM
Mitch H. said...: I stole my sister's copy of Brothers Karamazov back in college. Well, borrowed. Damn fine book. Ivan's sections are pure poetry, Alyosha's too damn pure to tolerate except in small doses, and the rest of the family are tedious time-wasters that bloat the book beyond its natural length. But the "Grand Inquisitor" and that section about the tortured child make the rest of it worth the read.

Since 43's been known to read Camus, I find it odd, the insinuation that the book is Laura's pick, and not George's. Is that an actual thing, or just Dowd being Dowd?; 5/27/13, 4:09 PM