Psychobabble

NewsBusters has a transcript of Keith Olbermann interviewing Maureen Dowd, a conversation between two paragons of liberal vacuity. Dowd reduces political-philosophical ideas to new age psychobabble. Here she is on Cheney and Rumsfeld:

What this is about, Dick Cheney wants to throw off all of these rules. He wants to go to war without permission, he wants to torture without permission, he wants to snoop without permission because he and Rummy were Ford officials at a time when presidential power shrank. They felt emasculated. They did not like it. They stewed about it for 30 years. Now they are trying to do everything they can to expand presidential power. So they're doing exactly what they want to.

On Clinton:

…when Bill Clinton would deceive, he would throw in a semantic clue that let you know he was deceiving. 'I did not have sexual relations with that woman.' We knew what he meant by that. You know, 'I did not,' about dope, 'I didn't break the laws of this country.' So it was sort of poignant and endearing. He would let you know he was lying, and then the right wing would come down so hard on him and overpunish him.

I guess she is saying the Republicans should have ignored Clinton because he is a pomo liar who shows a self-awareness of his lying as he lies. Instead, those thick-headed right-wingers were too obtuse to pick up his semantic clues, so they just treated his lies as lies.

And on Bush:

…he's just in a completely different reality. You know, they call us the 'reality-based community,' and they create their own reality, and so Bush is just in a bubble. And when you're in the bubble, you don't know you're in the bubble.

Cheney and Rumsfeld were emasculated, Bush is in a bubble -- it’s so much easier than thinking about the issues.

(HT: Michelle Malkin and Pajamas Media)