MoDo Ju Jitsu

by dday

Maureen Dowd today does a little behind-the-back move that you might not notice if you’re as dumb as she thinks you are. She kicks off her column by explaining how salt-of-the-earth and chip-off-the-old-block she is, lest you have any false assumptions that a longtime New York Times op-edder would be anything but the common man (or woman).

I’m not bitter.

I’m not writing this just because I grew up in a house with a gun, a strong Catholic faith, an immigrant father, brothers with anti-illegal immigrant sentiments and a passion for bowling. (My bowling trophy was one of my most cherished possessions.)

My family morphed from Kennedy Democrats into Reagan Republicans not because they were angry, but because they felt more comfortable with conservative values. Members of my clan sometimes were overly cloistered. But they weren’t bitter; they were bonding.

They went to church every Sunday because it was part of their identity, not because they needed a security blanket.

See, she’s jus’ folks, as evidenced by the upbringing in that hick town known as Washington, DC. And the 30 years in journalism, including 15 as the head Mean Girl on the cocktail weenie circuit, hasn’t changed her either.

Now, watch for the behind-the-back move:

Obama did not grow up in cosseted circumstances. “Now when is the last time you’ve seen a president of the United States who just paid off his loan debt?” Michelle Obama asked Tuesday at Haverford College, referring to Barack’s student loans while speaking in the shadow of the mansions depicted in “The Philadelphia Story.”

But his exclusive Hawaiian prep school and years in the Ivy League made him a charter member of the elite, along with the academic experts he loves to have in the room.

See, Obama was changed, fundamentally, by his ascendancy to the higher climes of American life, and now he’s an elitist who looks down on the rabble.

This, of course, has most certainly not happened to Maureen Dowd. Just other people who have the same story as she does.

Even on her own trivial, willfully stupid level, Dowd can’t keep the story straight.

(Also, see Molly Ivors who gives MoDo the usual thrashing. This whole “Obama talks to Iowans about arugula, heh” meme has come right out of the fever swamps, and nobody bothers to mention that he was talking to arugula farmers, which is just one of the splendid points Molly I. makes, and you shouldn’t miss it, especially for the “insufferably shallow superannuated cheerleader” crack.)

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