Times: Maureen Dowd Invokes the P-Word (Pharisee) in Her Attack on the Republicans

Why did Maureen Dowd ruin her otherwise spot-on strident critique of the current hi-jinks of the sanctimonious republicans by invoking the P-Word - Pharisees?

Pharisees on the Potomac
By MAUREEN DOWD

Like cats that have lost their whiskers, the Republicans seem off balance now that they have lost their talent for hypocrisy...continued...

We get the allusion to the Gospel Pharisees who were called "hypocrites" and a "brood of vipers."

The problem is that we Jews consider ourselves to be the heirs of the Pharisees. No, not the heirs of the caricature of the Pharisees that Matthew 23 describes in its vitriolic polemic. We are the derivative descendants of the actual historical Pharisees who were pious observers of the laws of the Torah.

Dowd is to be commended for calling out the repeat-offender republicans for their utter hypocrisies.

But she should leave us out of her critique. She should call down woes to the Republicans without getting all biblical on them.

And just one more thing for Maureen to consider. Republicans by no means have an exclusive franchise of hypocritical life-styles. Why not just admit that to get to the pinnacle in politics you are likely to be a sleaze-bag - spelled with a capital R or a capital D. That seems a safer message and assumption.

And you know what? The R-hypocrites don't care if you waste an op-ed criticizing their antics. It's one less column devoted to the discussion of the real issues that bedevil our country.

Move back to the issues Maureen and stop showing off your broad phylacteries - herein - your profound knowledge of the Bible (wink wink).

By the way, if you folks want to refresh yourseves on the attack that was launched on our ancestors in Matthew 23, try this site. Choose any translation that suits you and start from verse 13. It's ugly rhetoric.