Darby O'Gall

No Boiled Carrots
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: March 17, 2009

Like a good Irish lass, Maureen took St. Paddy’s Day off, but it was a working holiday for her as she covered Obama’s latest address on the financial bail-outs.

On St. Patrick’s Day, the president spoke a bit of Gaelic, dyed the White House fountains green and talked about his distant relatives in the tiny Irish town of Moneygall, aptly named since money and gall are the two topics now consuming him.

Gawker notes that the Moneygall pun was used in her Irish Times interview, but in these tough economic times, who can blame her for a little recycling. She continues with the Blarney theme with an extended leprechaun metaphor.

But Mr. Obama is still having trouble summoning a suitable flash of Irish temper at the gall of the corrupt money magicians who continue to make our greenbacks disappear into their bottomless well.

And she digs into her well of quaint sayings from the Old Sod to quote her Irish dad:

[Obama] should keep in mind one of my dad’s favorite Gaelic sayings: “Never bolt the door with a boiled carrot.”

Now there is a mental image for the ages. Normally, this is a carrot and stick metaphor, but the executive excesses have got her blood boiling. And while other columnists are content to brandish pitchforks, Maureen has the oxcarts rolling up to the guillotine.

He’s got to lop off some heads.
{snip}
Mr. Obama belatedly tried to stop the tumbrels that began rolling toward the Potomac after Larry Summers went on Sunday talk shows to assert that there was nothing the administration could do about the blood-sucking insurance monstrosity’s venal payout.

Summers, who inspires lusty dreams of A.I.G. tormentor Eliot Spitzer, asserted that the government “cannot just abrogate” contracts with financial vampires.

All this blood sucking and carrots makes be think of Bunnicula.

What President Obama should have said to the blood-sucking bums at A.I.G., many of them foreigners who were working at the louche London unit, was quite simple: “We stopped the checks. They’re immoral. If you want Americans’ hard-earned cash as a reward for burning up their jobs, homes and savings, sue me.”

Which rolls right into the combo Alliteration Alert™ and Crossword Clue® since 'louche' not only fits well with London but also means 'immoral'. One thing this crisis is doing, it’s making Maureen dig deeper into her thesaurus than ever. She's as mad as hell and she's willing to make the March Madness metaphor to prove it.

[Obama's] lofty team of economic rivals is looking more like a team of small forwards and shooting guards.

And there is nothing a righteous financial fury to make Dowd get her Irish up.

Maureen The Irish Rose

In honor of St Patricks Day, Maureen Dowd gave an interview with her sister to the Irish Times website. She also unearthed this photo of her at the age of two that appeared in the Washington Post. What a cute shamrock on her dress.

In the article, she talks about the Irish lad that got away:

Somewhere in Australia there's an Irish lad called Rowan McCormick who broke Maureen Dowd's heart. When she went back in the early 1970s to visit her homestead in County Clare, hard by the majestic Cliffs of Moher, she met him and fell madly in love.

{snip}

Sadly, like most summer romances, Dowd’s didn’t work out, and her beau departed for Australia. But when she was Down Under a few years back on a book tour she put out an all points bulletin and he came running.

Alas, he was married now and settled down. Dowd still sounds disappointed.

The Dowd patriarch nearly didn't make it to America from Ireland:

Michael from Clare was the son of a poor farmer in a poor country, the second child in the family named Michael after the first died. He was booked on the Titanic in 1914, but his mother cried all night and he couldn’t leave her.

Once in America, her dad became a cop that hung around a neighborhood bar (no Irish stereotypes at work there) where he found love:

The cop and the barkeep's daughter were both champion Irish step dancers. In 1934 they married; the age difference was 18 years. They raised five kids together – Maureen, the youngest, Michael, Martin, Kevin and Peggy.

From her mother's side, angry politics runs in Maureen's blood:

Her mother was an Irish rebel. In the 1970s Peggy Dowd led a demonstration at the British Embassy after Bloody Sunday when 14 were shot by British forces in Derry. To her eternal satisfaction the then British ambassador had to sneak in through the underground garage.

A tradition she carries on:

The old Irish rebel still lives on in the daughter. Mike Quill, the great union leader and 1920s IRA activist, is alleged to have told the immigration man letting him into America that, “if there’s a government here I’m against it.” Sometimes it seems Maureen feels that way too.

Ain't that the truth. So on this Saint Paddy's Day, raise a pint and toast "Maureen Go Bragh!"