But Does He Lactate?

¿Quién Es Less Macho?
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: February 24, 2008

¿Quién Es Más Macho?:
A Spanish-language game show in an old Saturday Night Live skit. Bill Murray played the host, and contestants were asked to guess which of two actors was more macho (I believe Senor Montalban consistently came out on top.) In the end, immigration agents arrested everybody.
- everything2.com

Maureeen Dowd does not want to discuss Republican candidate innuendo as long as there is still Democratic candidate infighting, so she eschews soiling where she sleeps by jumping on the Times’ sexed up lobbyist scandal and instead goes once more to the Hillary/Obama well and makes this observation:

And when historians trace how her inevitability dissolved, they will surely note this paradox: The first serious female candidate for president was rejected by voters drawn to the more feminine management style of her male rival.

This unleashes her longest torrent yet in the feminization of Barack. Lets sort the various adjectives, adverbs, and witty phrases by gender. We at the Dowd Report have added a new shade to the quote palette and are highlighting phrases that feminize Barack in pink. First we have Hillary as a cigar chomping war monger and Obama as a dainty seamstress.

Hillary was so busy trying to prove she could be one of the boys — getting on the Armed Services Committee, voting to let W. go to war in Iraq, strong-arming supporters and donors, and trying to out-macho Obama — that she only belatedly realized that many Democratic and independent voters, especially women, were eager to move from hard-power locker-room tactics to a soft-power sewing circle approach.

Which sets up this weeks Dowdversion® where she twists a metaphor beyond recognition:

Less towel-snapping and more towel color coordinating, less steroids and more sensitivity.

Only in DowdWorld is hanging out with the Heisman Trophy winner an emasculating sign of wimpiness. In her mind, Barack even throws (or refuses to throw) like a girl (video available here):

At the University of Texas on Thursday morning, Obama proved that he was not a cowboy in overdrive like W. when he demurred at throwing a spiral because his pass might not be as good as the Longhorn stars’.

Dowd also exhibits her Pride and Prejudice to get off a cheap pun:

At first in Austin, Hillary did not channel Jane Austen. She tried once more to cast Obama as a weak sister on his willingness to talk to Raúl Castro.

The Democratic Party is often called the “Mommy Party” and Dowd takes the metaphor literally:

Among her other cascading woes, it turns out that Hillary is not able to manage her political family’s money. Like a prudent housekeeper, Obama spent the cash he raised — including from his continuing relationships with small donors — far more shrewdly, on ads rather than on himself.

Hillary on the other hand is a hard living breadwinner that can’t control the purse strings and Dowd updates the drunken sailor metaphor for the 21st century:

Hillaryland spent like a hedge fund manager in a flat-screen TV store. Her campaign attempted to show omnipotence by lavishing a fortune on the take-no-prisoners strategists Howard Wolfson and Mark Penn, and on having the best of everything from the set decoration at events to Four Seasons rooms. In January alone, they spent $11,000 on pizza, $1,200 on Dunkin’ Donuts and $95,384 at a Des Moines Hy-Vee grocery store for get-out-the-vote sandwich platters.

But total domination in the snack arena does not cut the mustard.

And speaking of not cutting it, Maureen has mentioned Hillary Clinton in her last eleven columns (January 20 was touch and go with only two sentences, but it still counts). Your guess is as good as ours as to when this Hillarobsession of Dowd's will take a breather.