Maureen Dowd: Just Give It a Go, Joe

[dalton99a]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/27/opinion/sunday/biden-press-conference-republicans-voting-rights.html

Just Give It a Go, Joe
It’s not the old days. The G.O.P. is not your friend, Mr. President.
By Maureen Dowd
March 27, 2021, 11:00 a.m. ET

...

Biden should do what he can to help Senate Democrats dilute the filibuster. And he should insist on the passage of the voting rights bill the Senate designed to target the voter suppression efforts enacted in Georgia, just a preview of what’s to come in other states. Nine years after first graders were mowed down at Sandy Hook, couldn’t he finally make progress on the nation’s most shameful issue — blind worship of the AR-15?

As Fintan O’Toole wrote in The New York Review of Books in a piece titled “To Hell With Unity,” it must be dawning on Biden that “the willingness of most congressional Republicans to endorse Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the November election and their unwillingness to convict Trump for his role in the violent putsch of January 6” proves “there can be no illusions of accord, or even of civilized dispute.”

Republicans are grasping to find something to throw at Biden. Their only ammo is weak: tabloid trash about his son and the absurd idea that Joe is out of it, a smear that only became more risible after watching Thursday’s news conference. He was calm, despite the monumental nature of his plans. He seemed to know his own mind — a nice contrast with his predecessor, who was out of his mind.

Republicans are out of touch with their own voters, many of whom seem to like free money and the possibility that Biden, unlike Trump, actually wants to go big on infrastructure, rather than frittering away his days hitting the links and tweet-trashing Bette Midler.

“Republican voters agree with what I’m doing,” Biden said.

The president knows that the American identity is on the line.

“I predict to you,” he told reporters, “your children or grandchildren are going to be doing their doctoral thesis on the issue of who succeeded, autocracy or democracy, because that is what is at stake.”

[JohnSJ]

1. Biden knows what is at stake and doesn't need Dowd's patronizing advice to something he is well

aware of. Perhaps her advice directed toward Manchin and Semina would be more appropriate

[Mike Nelson]

2. Yikes!

... that was pretty good, from Mo Dowd. And, she did not include a dig at Hillary! (At least, not in the part shared here).

[dalton99a]

3. No mention of Hillary

There was mention of Bill:

Usually, the pressure of the presidency distills the occupant to his essence. Jimmy Carter became more preachy. Bill Clinton, more self-indulgent. W., more insecure. Obama, more professorial. Trump, more mendacious and maniacal.

[Mike Nelson]

5. A-ha!

... that's more like Maureen. At least, Trump got two "mores" - with alliteration.

[senseandsensibility]

4. When MoDo is good she is very very good

and when she is bad she is horrid. She was good this time.