The left: burnt or dead?

Here is today's Maureen Dowd column from the New York Times (login required: get one here.) It illustrates perfectly the problem with some Democratic thinkers right now (especially newspaper columnists with good, secure jobs.) This column is all negative. While I think that, strictly speaking, nearly everything Maureen Dowd says is true, there are still fundamental problems with her presentation.

First, her tone is condescending, as if everyone who disagreed with her was a backwards moron.

About W, "It's hard to think of another president who lived in such meta-insulation." Meta-insulation? Is that what Kant put in his basement?

Twisting one of the military's slogans around, she says "So fighting them there means it's more likely we'll have to fight them here?"

The column purports to be about this woman, but it's just another excuse for Dowd to say all the things she's been saying for a year--there were no WMDs, the war was wrong, Bush takes too much vacation, etc. GREAT. But what are we going to do about it? Why did all the Democratic senators roll over and die during the lead-up to the war? What was our response to 9/11? What were we going to do about Iraq, the UN scandals, and the morally bankrupt, two-faced conduct by the European nations in their dealings with the Middle East?

This column is the equivalent of Rove saying that liberals prepared to offer therapy after 9/11 while conservatives prepared for war. I would also like to note, in closing, that I wouldn't call Down's column biased, just as I wouldn't call Rove's divisive comments biased. I'd call them both pathetic.