Maureen Dowd: World Turned Upside Down?

Here's the key paragraph from Maureen Dowd's scathing editorial this morning, SMOKING DUTCH CLEANSER:

SMOKING DUTCH CLEANSER
[snip]
Instead of just going after the 9/11 fiends, as W. promised with his bullhorn, the president and Vice President Strangelove have cynically played the terror card to accrue power and sidestep blame. They have twisted our values, mismanaged crises, fueled fundamentalist successes and violence around the world, and magnified a clash of civilizations.
[snip]

Seems to me that in order to win in November the Democrats must heap enough shame and obloquy upon the fear mongers' fear card strategy to make Rove think long and hard about the political price they will have to pay every time they invoke their deceitful and dishonorable "All Terror, All the Time" reelection strategy. It's going to be a long uphill battle, but absolutely necessary to the electoral success of the Democrats.

They simply must cast the Bush gang as dishonorable, as unmanly. And I believe that Hillary Clinton may actually be able to do this more successfully than a male candidate.

W's quasi-steely look, his semi-macho swagger is all pose. Protected by his family and his money, he's never actually had to prove his "manhood." Hillary on the other hand has been through the right's sulphorous fires and come out the other side even stronger. By passing this public test by fire she has been revealed as strong, powerful, and persistent. Her mental toughness is an earned toughness, not just a collection tough guy mannerisms like those of W., the poseur.

On a side note, I think it's a very good sign therefore that Dowd is invoking Hillary's language about the Republicans' "playing the fear card."

By the way, "smoking Dutch cleanser" is what Arlen Specter suggested Attorney General Gonzalez must be doing if he thinks he can actually justify torture and warrantless spying.