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| Dowd feels so forensic |
| 2001-10-17 |
I am typing this wearing long black leather gloves. It's not so easy to type wearing leather gloves. But I had to stop wearing the latex gloves I got at the drugstore on Monday. They made me feel so forensic. Amid the plague panic, with what appears to be a terrifyingly sophisticated anthrax strain sent to Tom Daschle; with Senate staffers getting nose swabs as their building's ventilation system was checked for spores; with news organizations getting Cipro and security guards; with The New York Post featuring a cover of Abraham Lincoln seated in his Memorial wearing a gas mask — I felt the need for a more stylish sort of sterility. Osama bin Laden had already made women in New York and Washington rethink wearing high heels and skirts to the office, in case they have to clamber through wreckage. Now anthrax terrorism is forcing us to wear rubber gloves and surgical masks if we want to open our mail. Dowd once again proves herself one of the great comediennes of our time. Who, other than Lucille Ball, could have conceived the picture she paints with a few deft strokes? Who else could have so subtly nudged us into comparisons of the sniveling Flower of Liberalism she has created with the heroism of Barbara Olson? |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |