IP: Maureen Dowd today... in the NY Times

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

Sorry I cannot send the whole article but copyright you know. Subscribing to
the NYT on line is free and well worthwhile djf

From: John Markoff <markoff () nyt com>
http://www.nytimes.com/library/opinion/dowd/011099dowd.html

WASHINGTON -- Now that impeachment has moved to the Senate, the greatest
deliberative body since Roman times, Peter and Dan and Tom and Tim and Cokie
and Greta keep telling me I should be awestruck by the solemnity and majesty of
the occasion. 

"As moving as this was to watch on television," intoned Peter Jennings, "and it
was moving . . ." 
They talked in sweeping terms about this moment in our lives we would never
forget, a day that would be recorded in bold print in American history, about
how the President's plight suddenly seemed real. "They know this is dead serious
when you hear 'Hear Ye, Hear Ye,' " said NBC's Tim Russert. 

Well, Sue Me, Sue Me, but Hear Ye, Hear Ye failed to send shivers down my
spine. 

If I were describing the occasion, I would not use the words moving, solemn,
majestic, momentous, real, dead serious or bold. 

I would use the word old. I might use the word dead. I would not talk about the
extraordinary hush, but about the extraordinary mush. 

Call it the Revenge of the Grumpy Old Men.