Bob Woodruff and the attitude of Maureen Dowd

I woke up this morning, poured myself a cup of coffee and sat down to read my Sunday Washington Post. The Style section had a big feature on the two new telegenic young anchors that ABC had selected to replace the late Peter Jennings, Elizabeth Vargas and Bob Woodruff. Good article.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/28/AR2006012801187.html

I then hopped online to check my email and noticed the headline ABC's Woodruff serioulsy hurt in Iraq. You've probably have already heard that Woodruff and his colleague, cameraman Doug Vogt were riding along in a humvee when the vehicle hit a IED (improvised explosive device), shattering the vehicle and causing shrapenel wounds to the head of both men. An Iraqi soldier was also hurt in the blast. Woodruff and Vogt are in serious condition and it said that the next few days will be critical regarding their outcome.

Woodrull is barely a month into his stint as co-anchor with Vargas. He's 44, married with four children. Trained as an attorney, he decided that the like reporing better, so he switched careers, began in a small market and worked his way to Washington.

I then began to remember a piece I read by the New York Times Maureen Dowd. She decided that ABC wasn't quite ready yet to have a woman anchor by herself, so she wrote "ABC teamed Ms. Vargas with the pretty-boy android Bob Woodruff." That was last December, long before the recent tragic events.

The NY Times now has something called "Times Select" in which it want people to fork over money to read articles form its columnists. So I Googled "Bob Woodruff", "Maureen Dowd", and "android". Here one place I found the article.

http://fbihop.blogspot.com/2005/12/maureen-dowd-can-mommy-know-best.html

Back to the point. Pretty-boy android Bob Woodruff.

That's a sexist derogatory remark. I know that many do not see that anti-male remarks such as this as being sexist, but that's exactly what it is. OK, Woodruff is a good looking guy. I'll also add that Vargas is a very attractive woman. For that matter, I'll also add that Dowd is quite attractive herself.




Isn't she beautiful?

But that android Bob, who worked his way to the top is now lying in a hospital in Ramad, Iraq. God knows how extensive his injuries are. We don't know yet what type of life he will lead, if he'll ever be able to maintain his career in journalism.

But we do know that Dowd has written a book "Are Men Necessary?". Apparently it's about the difficulties that high-powered women have getting dates in Washington. In interviews I've seen her give right after the book was released, she always assured the interviewer that she, of course, had no problem getting dates. But are men necessary? To me Maureen, yes we are. Very much so, thank you. Just like women are.

I say that before the likes of Maureen Dowd judge the professionalism of the likes of Bob Woodruff, Ms. Dowd should take leave of the salons of Georgetown and get her butt in a humvee and roam the streets of a insurgency hotbed area in Iraq.

I'd call Maureen a bimbo, but that would be sexist. So I'll just call her an self-absorbed idiot.

And let's all pray for Bob Woodruff and Doug Vogt.

You've Got to Be Kidding:

Dad: Clooney made Abramoff daughter cry

OK, I can understand how a father can get riled up and protect his son and feel for is granddaughter...and I can understand how a daughter could be hurt about all the bad things being said about her dad. But had grampa stopped to think what his beloved son did to his clients, to the concept of clean government, to all of us? Frank Abramoff, the son you raised, Jack, is one materialistic jackoff.

And you're granddaughter is now only at the earliest stages of her suffering. Thanks to her dad.

Losiing Their Hearts and Minds and Our Souls

Losing Hearts and Minds
I woke up this morning to the main headline in my Washington Post saying "U.S. Strike On Al Queda Top Deputy Said to Fail". I thought, damn. We missed getting that terrorist zealot Ayman Zawahiri. I had briefly heard of the incident the night before while I was watching the football playoffs.

Then I read a bit more and I was horrified. We had not only missed our target, but we had killed seventeen innocent people, including 6 children.

I then thought a bit more...

We're not at war with Pakistan. This was not Afghanistan before the fall of the Taliban. In other words, the seventeen were not unfortunate collateral damage of a specific war.

The location that we hit was not a terrorist camp or a cave hideout, but a Pakistani village. Yes, there are many villages and villagers that are very sympathetic to al Queda and its goals. But this was a village - again, in a country that we are not at war with - and a village that had families, that had chldren, or for that matter full fledged adults that could not in anyway defend themselves from an incoming US missle.

It was also reported that tens of thousands of Pakistanis stageda an angry anti-American protest, shouting "Death to America!" and "Death to Musharraf!" Would we not feel differently in this country?

While it didn't ignore the tragedy, the article seemed to concentrate more on the missed opportunity of killing Zawahiri and the geo-political fallout from the deaths of innoents. The reporters seem to have compiled this article from Kabul, a couple of hundred miles away in Afghanistan.

The only thing I can say in defense of what happened is that apparently the Pakistani intelligence services helped us out in this effort - a sign that we're not just bombing indiscriminately.

But I can't help but think how actions like this wil win over the 'moderate Muslims'.

This is a story that will likely be soon forgotten about by the American media and of course, the American people, as we soon turn to what happened to the next missing attractive woman or we wonder who will capture our collective hearts and be our next "American Idol".

The AFA vs. Ford

The American Family Association is once again threatening the Ford Motor Company fo a boycott of dealerships if Ford continues to advertise in certain gay-oriented publicatons. This is disgusting.

Ford is selling cars, not aligning itself with political issues. The extent of the closemindness of the AFA and the potential political power of the AFA is unsettling.

Instead of concentrating on where a major company places a partiular ad for a car, why doesn't the AFA concentrate on, say, helping the poor?