Doctor K and Mayor Moose

"Let the end of days come, but may I not live to see them", because they will be filled with so much conflict and suffering."

-The Talmud.

Park Avenue Diplomacy
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: September 23, 2008

Maureen Dowd doesn’t think much of Henry Kissinger. Here is her description of him in her latest column:

How the mighty 85-year-old Henry the K has fallen from his days chasing Jill St. John and running the world to his hour briefing of a 44-year-old Wasilla hockey mom who may end up running the world.

But she has been this dismissive of Doctor Death and his favorite Bond Girl since at least 2002:

When he was dating Jill St. John and Liv Ullmann and preaching that power is an aphrodisiac, he even coyly called himself ''a secret swinger.''

In Walter Isaacson's biography, ''Kissinger,'' the same words cascade: ''deceitful,'' ''disingenuous,'' ''paranoid,'' ''insecure,'' ''temper tantrum,'' ''flatterer,'' ''two-faced'' and ''secretive.''

Tiffany Case made another appearance in this 2007 column with a fictional quote giving advice to Dubya:

Henry Kissinger oils his way across the floor. “Mr. President,” he rumbles through the door, “it’s not so bad bungling a war. I got to date Jill St. John.”

Dowd seems overly hard on the former Batman villainess, when she could also pick on other former Henry the Kiss flames like Marlo Thomas or Candace Bergen. And part of Dowd’s point is how the mighty have fallen.

I don’t agree with those muttering darkly that the picture of Gov. Sarah Palin with a perky smile and shapely gams posing with a pleased Henry Kissinger, famous for calling power the ultimate aphrodisiac, is a sign of the apocalypse.

It isn’t even a sign of the apocalipstick.

Maureen now holds the record for the worst Palin lipstick pun put to print, a pretty noteworthy accomplishment. The point was to point out Palin’s potential preoccupation with Pentecostal preaching.

Governor Palin knows a lot about the End of Days from her years at the Pentecostal Wasilla Assembly of God, which had preached (after a war in the Middle East about light vanquishing darkness) that Alaska would be a shelter for Rapturous “saved” Christians at the end of times when they ascend to heaven.

“Rapturous” being yet another pun, this time on the Christian vision of the apocalypse from the Book of Revelations.

But Dowd doesn’t just pillar Palin, she saves enough scorn for Dubya to attempt a Dowdversion® and mix a metaphor, neither very successfully.

After losing its moral superiority abroad with phony evidence for attacking Iraq, the U.S. has now lost its moral superiority in the financial arena. Once more, W. took the ball, carried it off the cliff and went biking.

Maureen finishes up with Bill Clinton hypothesizing in advance why Palin might help McCain win. After all, the Big Dog is a leading authority on the attractiveness of rural women with big hair.

“I come from Arkansas. I get why she is hot out there,” he said authoritatively, adding: “People look at her, and they say, ‘All those kids. Something that happens in everybody’s family. I’m glad she loves her daughter and she’s not ashamed of her. Glad that girl’s going around with her boyfriend. Glad they’re going to get married.’"

She sees that as part of the continuing Subtle Sabotage Strategy of the Clintons accusing Bill of...

... still sulking and plotting for 2012.

And the Clintons making another run in 2012 would be a sign of the Apocalypse.