Maureen Dowd, a New York Times columnist, and I have a sort of love-hate relationship with the added twist that she knows nothing about it. She writes really well but ever so often what she writes about makes me run screaming around the house, frightening the snakes and making the dogs think this is the Last Squirrel War Recreated. But then she suddenly writes something really good and funny again, like in her last column which is a spoof on Harriet Miers's girly adulation of George:
April 2004 "There is no other president who would have had the courage to allow torture, dude! (It's only too bad that Abu Ghraib rules out Alberto's chances of getting on the Supreme Court.) You are the best torturer ever!! xo, H."
June 2005 "Make sure you take a good, long vacation this summer! Last year, you only took two weeks. You are pushing yourself way too hard, Sir!!"
August 2005 "I've half a mind to come down there myself and chase that witch, Cindy Sheehan, off your property with an injunction!! Yours, with you in Christ, Harriet."
September 2005 "In all this fuss about that bad-girl buttinsky Katrina, no one else seems to have noticed - not even Karen - that you've achieved your bold vision of losing that seven pounds. That extra week of mountain biking was so much more important than people realize. You're the most chiseled commander in chief ever, and the most rad guitar player ever!!"
October 2005 "How can I thank you, Sir? I never, ever expected the Supreme Court. Phat! I hope Clarence doesn't make me watch 'Debbie Does Dallas' again. That movie is so anti-Texas! I miss you already!!
The Harriet Miers blog is funny, too, though probably not written by Dowd (or Miers, either). All these teach us how to be a yes-woman most excellently. Too bad that I know real people who speak like that at ages past the teenage years, because it is accepted behavior in some circles. For women, at least.