For once, Maureen Dowd has a column worth reading. That is because almost all of it is a letter written by her brother, explaining why he thinks differently than his sister, and is happy about Bush's victory. After reading the brother's letter,  it is even more difficult to understand the hatred and viciousness that regularly spews  from Dowd's columns, in which she portrays her political opponents as barbarians who  behave like the invaders in the Capital One TV commercial. Dowd's brother's letter is calm, and provides a far less scary vision of red state America than Dowd regularly attempts to provide in her twice weekly assaults on readers' intelligence.   Does Dowd really find her brother scary? Or is some of this resentment against her brother's political worldview really a more basic envy, that he has a family, and at 50 or whatever, Maureen Dowd only has her column to come home to.

Richard Baehr   11 28 04