Maybe I can start occasionally reading Maureen again

My home page is RCP. It's a good spectrum of opinion, including columnists I have fundamental disagreements with, like Paul Krugman and Maureen Dowd.

Paul & Maureen were both infected with a severe case of Bush Derangement Syndrome during the Bush years, though, and after reading way to many rabid articles by both columnists, I decided I just couldn't read them anymore. They went on a "no go" list, which I seldom violated and always regretted when I did.

Even though I admittedly have sort of a crush on Maureen ... well, her head shot anyway. A pretty Irish lass, she is, even though we'd probably end up in a death match with our thumbs crushing each others' throats. (Yes, Morgan, I know you disagree with me on the "pretty Irish lass" thing. What can I say? I'm a weak man.)

But as she seems to have a few surprisingly harsh words for President Obama (perhaps she was a Hillary Democrat? Or maybe she shook her head and is seeing a bit more clearly) I violated my "no go" rule once again. Besides, I hadn't seen her pretty mug in a while.

RCP often re-titles a headline ... usually with something from the article. The RCP title was "Tough Talk From the Teleprompter" -- which I liked. (As an aside, doesn't it creep people out just a little that perhaps Obama is a talking machine that is programmed by a group of people with an agenda who hand picked him as their PR boy -- programmed through that very teleprompter? But I digress.)

The actual headline on her article is "No Boiled Carrots", a reference to what sounds like an old Irish saying her father used to use "Never bolt the door with a boiled carrot". Which I also like. Maureen, you're growing on me. We still have fundamentally different worldviews, but it appears there may be more overlap than I had once imagined.

Maureen is upset about money being thrown down the bottomless pit, and upset that if we were going to throw money down a bottomless pit that Mr. Obama should have attatched a few strings to it, like "hey, if you couldn't afford to pay bonuses before we gave you the money, you ain't payin' afterward or you ain't gettin' it." Which I agree with.

If we didn't want the money used for bonuses, we should've said so in the "contract". We didn't, and I doubt that legally there's anything we can do about it. Which I doubt will stop the administration from trying. Such things didn't stop FDR from going after people who made money on things that were legal but later the government decided it didn't like. But ... something about "no ex post facto". Part of our founding ideology dogma principles. (Can we talk about "principles"? I know, they're not scientific. But polls are. Sort of.)

So... a Maureen Dowd article that shows we have some common ground. Too bad I'm already married. ;-)