Catty Maureen Dowd Attacks the Republicans' Wives

Now that miserable failure TimesSelect is no more, it's easier to access New York Times columnists.

Thrilling. The unwashed masses can once again read their "wisdom."

Maureen Dowd mainly takes on Rudy Giuliani in her Sunday column. But "Uxorious or Spurious?" isn't just about Giuliani and his relationship with the NRA.

As usual, Dowd veers off into odd name-calling and very personal attacks.

Rather than sticking to commentary about the GOP candidates and the issues, she shamelessly slams their wives.

I don't know if it's laziness on her part, but it seems that she lifts lines from her diary and slaps them in her columns. Some things are better left unsaid. Dowd hasn't learned that.

If she wants to claw at Giuliani, he's fair game. Fine.

However, I don't see why she has to draw blood from his wife and the wives of the other GOP candidates.

First, Dowd accuses Fred Thompson of exploiting his beautiful wife to win approval with the NRA audience.

Fred Thompson had already spoken to the group, recalling palling around with Charlton Heston, shooting skeet with some good ol’ boys from the N.R.A., and hanging out at gun stores and gun shows.

After guns, sports, Moses and a reference to his young ’uns, there was only one other ingredient needed for Flintstone Fred’s testosterone cocktail: a sexy blonde. Introducing his wife, Jeri, he drawled, “I think she’d make a much better first lady than Bill Clinton.”

Because Jeri is an attractive woman, does that mean that she shouldn't campaign for her husband or join him at appearances?

I find the lib media to be particularly vile in the way that they belittle her and treat her like an object.

When Dowd gets into the cell phone call that Giuliani took from his wife Judi during his speech to the NRA, she goes way beyond analyzing that incident and brutalizes Giuliani's wife. (By the way, I think the call has received a ridiculous amount of attention and analysis.)

Dowd writes:

First The Times’s Marc Santora noted that it wasn’t the first time Rudy had interrupted an appearance to take a call from his Princess Bride, as Vanity Fair dubbed her. He did the same thing in June in Hialeah, Fla., with more mushy talk during a rally.

This suggests either that Friday’s call was staged to humanize the dictatorial former mayor, or that Rudy is afraid of Judi’s digital wrath, or that the candidate is still struggling with how to integrate his third wife into his campaign, after her puppy-killing, husband-hiding, cabinet-sitting rough start.

Dowd seems to be taking a cue from Hillary Clinton's pal Tom Vilsack by joining him in going after Giuliani's personal life. It's not smart for liberals to make the private lives of the candidates an issue, considering Hillary is likely to be the Democrat nominee.

Dowd attributes the NRA phone call moment to either Giuliani's castration by Judi or his efforts to work this supposedly evil woman into his campaign.

Simply put, Dowd's analysis is really ugly and uncivil, really unnecessary.

Dowd doesn't stop there. She describes Mitt Romney's wife and children this way:

The episode also provided ammunition to Mitt Romney’s camp, which sensed an opportunity to highlight their candidate’s scary-perfect wife and scary-perfect kids.

I am really sick of liberals referring to good people as "scary-perfect," "Stepford Wives," etc.

If they can't find something to criticize, then the liberals criticize the fact that there's nothing to criticize.

I don't think conservatives would get away with being so cruel to the wives of the Democrat candidates. I would lose respect for them if they engaged in such attacks.

It's a double standard. Same old, same old.

For all their self-proclaimed enlightenment, overflowing with respect and compassion, liberals don't hesitate to mercilessly slam women.