Eleanor, Eleanor, Eleanor….

…Take your dress down from over your face!

Some may have noticed that I am a little tough on Maureen Dowd, but truly, like Hamlet, I am cruel only to be kind…she is so joyless, and I want her to get happy; I do have compassion for the gal and I really would like to see her reclaim her deteriorating writing skills.

But this Clift woman…egad! She aspires to Dowd-ish venom but hasn’t quite the nerve for it; rather, she takes Chicken-Little-esque hand-wringing to new levels with every column. One reads her and gets an image of a woman gasping for air with every tap of the space bar. She’s like a cross between Miss Havisham and little Brandon de Wilde at the end of “Shane”…one imagines her straggling about her digs wearing a faded “Clinton-Gore” tee shirt, dragging a bit of toilet paper on her heel and moaning, “Bill, come back! Come back!”

There are many things we take for granted, like the 40-hour week, clean air and clean water, that are the result of congressional initiatives to overcome the powers of the state. Over the last two decades, as the courts have become more conservative…wrrrrack! wrrrrack! The sky is falling…the sky is falling…I’m melting…I’m mellllllting!

Eleanor. Girlfriend. This is something I know we’re never supposed to say to anyone, but I must say it to you, and please take it in the generous spirit in which it is meant: Take a relaxing bath. Have a strengthening brandy. Read some cheap bodice-ripper of a novel and then break open your piggy bank, find some pectorally-gifted young man and HAVE YOURSELF A WEEKEND!

I guarantee you – things will look better on Monday.

And if they don’t…repeat as necessary.