Maureen Dowd Sees Monsters, But No Irony Whatsoever...

Dirty Old Mo tries to get in on the two-minute hate the media is waging against the Tea Party, and actually puts out a better piece than most. Primarily because it is kind of funny, but mostly because our little liberal mistress of snark misses the irony completely. More's the pity, since she is the subject of the twist ending

Tea Party budget-slashers didn’t sport the black capes with blood-red lining beloved by the campy Vincent Price or wield the tinglers deployed by William Castle. But in their feral attack on Washington, in their talent for raising goose bumps from Wall Street to Westminster, this strange, compelling and uncompromising new force epitomized “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” and evoked comparisons to our most mythic creatures of the night.

They were like cannibals, eating their own party and leaders alive. They were like vampires, draining the country’s reputation, credit rating and compassion. They were like zombies, relentlessly and mindlessly coming back again and again to assault their unnerved victims, Boehner and President Obama. They were like the metallic beasts in “Alien” flashing mouths of teeth inside other mouths of teeth, bursting out of Boehner’s stomach every time he came to a bouquet of microphones. 

Nice job of touching all the cultural bases of the modern horror kaleidoscope, Mo. But you are missing something vital here. In almost all of the movies genres you reference above, the monsters did not pop out of nowhere, they was a root cause for their being, a rationale for their rampage, a reason for their rage.

"Real" vampires don't destroy credit ratings, they drink blood because they must to survive. Not unlike zombies, who's unfortunate circumstances force them to feed on human flesh. And of course the aliens in "Alien" were just a predator/parasite species, just trying to survive. In fact, very few of the aforementioned monsters Dowd compares the Tea Party to destroyed mindlessly. They destroyed to survive.

Of course - and here's my irony - one might wonder if liberals might best be described as vampires, draining the money out of the healthy public to keep an unwanted beast alive for a short time longer. Or if liberals can best be seen as cannibals, since they unabashedly vow to "eat the rich" in order to survive. And as far as mindless, who better fits the bill than the Dowdy Left, who, while watching the nation crumble under the liberal ethos, demand more and more of the same?

So perhaps the Tea Party is on a rampage. But who created this monster, Maureen? Is it possible that...you did? By supporting a government that takes more and more and provides less and less, a government that drains the nation's wealth while increasing it's own health, a government that has become more authoritarian and less democratic....haven't you unwittingly unleashed the Tea Party upon America?  And is not their swath of destruction, so to speak, absolutely necessary for the nation to survive?

You're a modern-day Dr. Frankenstein...except the Tea Party has a brain. Unlike their prey.  Hence their success in feasting on big government liberals....

I'm expecting an apology for what you have wrought, Miss Dowd...ah, who am I kidding? You're a liberal - all you need to do is to wet your eyes and whine "But I meant well!" to slide off the hook you wish to impale the Tea Party on....

One last bit from Dowdy's column:

As Jason Zinoman writes in his new book on horror films, “Shock Value,” "The monster has traditionally been a stand-in for some anxiety, political, social, or cultural.”

Irony, part deux: Poor Maureen doesn't even realize that the "Tea Party as monster" is a stand-in for her own political and cultural anxiety. Her niche - as liberal elitist - is about up, as her ideology is in the process of being soundly rejected. So our scared little girl writes of rampaging monsters to explain away her own fears of an onrushing social ennui....

Poor Mo. So afraid, so lonely. But don't worry. The monsters won't get you. They will, however, swallow your ideology whole, and leave nothing left but some muscle and bones.

Which is the way this story should end...