Maureen Dowd and Katrina vanden Heuvel must have had coffee yesterday and brainstormed.  Because I'll be darned if their articles today don't strike the very same themes (not similar themes, the same).

Checkout their articles' headlines in today's Washington Post (vanden Heuvel) and New York Times (Dowd).

"Paul Ryan: Cruel, not Courageous," blares vanden Heuvel's header.  "When Cruelty is Cute," goes the typically catty Dowd's headline (But, shhh!  Under all that loathing, Dowd might just have a double-secret crush on Ryan.  Dowd calls Ryan "the cutest package that cruelty ever came in."  Maureen's just jealous that she didn't get Paul first!)         

The two mainstream media girls are all huffy about Paul Ryan's wanting to stick it to your grandma and grandpa - or so they claim.  Yep, Paul Ryan's a big old meanie.  The girls think Ryan's a meanie because he wants to reform Medicare, versus chopping $700 billion from the program to shove seniors (and everyone else without money, power, or connections) into the unworkable government-run health care scheme offered by the compassionate and ever-cool President Barack Obama.

Both girls slam Ryan for being an intellectual fraud, a lightweight cloaked as smart - the ultimate putdown hurled by East Coast and college town snobs at anyone not like them.  And Paul's an ideologue, to boot (no ideologue in your pedigrees, eh, girls?)

Here's what the copycat girls write.   First vanden Heuvel:

In short, beneath that Ken doll head of hair, behind the carefully cultivated image of a brave pseudo-policy wonk, lies a cruel ideologue.

Then Dowd:

He's [Ryan] Scrooge disguised as a Pickwick, an ideologue disguised as a wonk. 

Ouch! 

Now, girls, shouldn't your editors expect more from you, like originality?  And, Maureen, the Scrooge line - that's so about Newt and the 90s.  That's just taking the old baddie epithet off the shelf, dusting it off, and plunking it into your copy when you're too lazy to think.  Shame on you.

Now, I shouldn't take up any more of your time, girls.  The Democratic National Committee is about to have one of its - massive - conference calls for friendlies in the media - you know, to ration out this week's talking points.  Can't have you girls miss the call.  Can't have you stuck for something to write in your next columns.

Oh, and Maureen, if Paul's baby-blues ever look into your rather muddy brown eyes, don't go all squishy.  Stand tough, girl!