The Mind of Maureen

WHEN he was accused of not joining sufficiently harshly in the intellectuals’ denunciation of Senator McCarthy and McCarthyism, Peter Viereck replied: “I am against hysteria, but I am also against hysteria about hysteria.”

In the months after the House impeachment hearings were launched, the establishment media’s consistent line was that the House prosecutors and Kenneth Starr were men in the grip of sexual obsessions and a witch-hunting hysteria. To be sure, President Clinton may have been lecherous, dishonest, and irresponsible. But these private sins were of little account in comparison with Starr’s and the Republicans’ public offenses. And though many pens were dipped in the finest vitriol to condemn these crimes, none etched more acidly than that of the New York Times’s Maureen Dowd.

About the Author

John O’Sullivan

John O’Sullivan is a senior fellow at National Review Institute and a contributing editor of National Review.

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WHEN he was accused of not joining sufficiently harshly in the intellectuals’ denunciation of Senator McCarthy and McCarthyism, Peter Viereck replied: “I am against hysteria, but I am also against hysteria about hysteria.”

In the months after the House impeachment hearings were launched, the establishment media’s consistent line was that the House prosecutors and Kenneth Starr were men in the grip of sexual obsessions and a witch-hunting hysteria. To be sure, President Clinton may have been lecherous, dishonest, and irresponsible. But these private sins were of little account in comparison with Starr’s and the Republicans’ public offenses. And though many pens were dipped in the finest vitriol to condemn these crimes, none etched more acidly than that of the New York Times’s Maureen Dowd.