Most weeks I read her columns when they're published in print, on Sundays, and invariably she ruins my Sunday. Granted, as of about a month ago, I read them at work and since I didn't particularly get a whole lot of satisfaction from my job, becoming frustrated on a political level was at least something I could handle. Anyway, I waited almost an entire day before giving in to the masochistic urge to read the Feng Shui Princess of Georgetown this week and good lord did she not disappoint.
Her point - and I wish I were kidding here - is that Obama is both a Clintonesque political centrist and that his biggest flip-flop so far was to regret his decision to put his daughters on Access Hollywood because they revealed to a stunned and distraught nation that the Democratic nominee does not care for ice cream.
There are also these two classic moments which I will look back on with either uncontrollable rage or hilarity depending on the outcome in November:
Whether Obama was irritated that he had slipped up and exposed his daughters or was annoyed that his kids were exposing more delicious details about his finicky, abstemious tastes, we’ll never know.
...
The bad news and the good news is that Obama can be opportunistic. He’s more pragmatic than dogmatic. He’s flexible and a bit of a situationalist. If Bill Clinton weren’t still sulking, he would appreciate Obama’s emulation of his style in ’92, taking a bit from the left and a bit from the right.
The self-pitying Bill and the self-flagellating Barack both need to take a cue from the Obama girls.
I'd like to point out that if you're coming down on a political candidate for being potentially elitist, don't use the word "abstemious", okay? Also, as Ives points out in the entry I linked to earlier - even as someone who has no kids and has no plans to have kids in the near future - I would love for MoDo to find one parent who has never second guessed themselves as a parent. It seems to me to be done more out of care than pathological regret, but whatever.
Also, the italicized note at the end, "Thomas Friedman is off today." is too precious for words. I'm glad she brought her A-game to fill Tommy's air bubble with the necessary hot air.
