Maureen Dowd Gets With It 1-1/2 Years Later

Open Letter to Maureen:

In your 9/9/09 column, "Less Spocky, More Rocky" you divided politicos into three parts, like all of Gaul (remember your Catholic School Latin?). The loco Right, Obama the meek, and "the far left". Who speaks for the unemployed, the foreclosed, those driven into bankruptcy by health care and student debt? Would you consider them "the far left"? If you correctly accuse Obama of countenancing "death panel" epithets, then you as a columnist with a bully pulpit should be cautious of whom you term "the far left".

Is Bill Moyers of "the far left"? Was President Nixon, who wanted some form of government health care (as your colleague Paul Krugman wrote ) of "the far left"? Was President Johnson, who lost the South over the Civil Rights Act, of "the far left"? (By the way, if Obama was presented with the Civil Rights Act, he would have negotiated it down with the late great Strom Thurmond. 3/5 of a vote, anyone?) If the media blithely labels anyone with empathy for regular people as "the far left", then we as a civilization with morals instead of dollar signs are sunk.

By the way, you came late to the party. From 2/2008, my work:

Teflon Obama and
Teflon Obama (Cont'd)