Posted 5:42 PM by Robert

W[h]ither Big Mo?

Since the November election Maureen Dowd has scribed two columns, for November 6 and 10, neither of which offers a peep about the Election Day triumph of the man and President she has dubbed the "Boy Emperor." (Get it? She "dubbed" Dubya?! It's like the fancy word play Big Mo gins out, huh? I should also get a Pulitzer for this, just like Big Mo did!) And before the elections, Big Mo just could not bring herself to write a column that didn't revolve one way or the other on what Republicans were doing or thinking, especially Mr. Bush and his Administration. Sheesh, back then, Big Mo even saw the sniper terrorizing the Washington, DC, area, as an opportunity to discuss various attempts to turn events to political advantage.

Not now. Now Big Mo is busy, busy, busy providing asinine, credulous cover for nutty Saudi politicos! Sample: [The minister of education, Mohammed Ahmed Rasheed and half a dozen deputies,]were defensive about American suspicion of the religious hard-liners' influence on boys' schooling. "Why don't you go to Israeli math textbooks and see what they're saying — `If you kill 10 Arabs one day and 12 the next day, what would be the total?' " demanded one deputy. Agreed another: "If 5 or 8 percent of our curriculum has to be changed, then 80 to 90 percent of the content of American media has to be changed." Big Mo - she who drips acid commentary whenever Secretary Rumsfeld speaks, even if he speaks only obvious truth - expresses no skepticism about the statements of these dorks.

But the daring Big Mo loses no time in reducing Saudi society to terms she really understands: "Saudi Arabia has some remarkable women, but you won't find them helping to run the country; the toilet seats at the Foreign Ministry are routinely left up." Yes, indeed. The implied observation is that the Saudis don't have sexually segregated washrooms at the Foreign Ministry the way we do in the United States. Or did those nasty men make Big Mo use the men's room? Please, Big Mo, give us the essential details! She even writes, in her sole reference to a Republican in this column: I missed John Ashcroft desperately. Sad.

Presumably the deployment of Saudi toilets can hold Big Mo's attention for only so long, and she will eventually return to her love of American politics. Then she can fill us in on how November 5 never really happened, or how it was all the result of some "testosterone drenched delusion" or some other Big-Mo-trademarked type observations.

Until then, her most recent columns suggest that she obtained an extra large prescription of Prozac or the like before fleeing TOO the Middle East. Now that's someone who's taking this election hard.

Really hard.