PLEASE SHOOT ME

I deeply regret that I didn't get around to predicting that Maureen Dowd would develop a deep crush on Scott Brown, but I assure you I knew this column was coming -- go back to 2003 and see how impressed, non-snarky, and sympathetic she was after meeting that year's unexpected, dreamy red-conqueror-in-a-blue-state, Arnold Schwarzenegger: "It was impossible not to feel sorry for the guy," Dowd insisted as Schwarzenegger explained why a woman-bashing scene in one of the Terminator movies isn't sexist, and you could practically hear Dowd warming up to do a karaoke version of "He Hit Me (and It Felt Like a Kiss)."

No, I'm much more upset to read this:

As the president scrambles to freeze some spending and unfreeze his persona, Obama strategists hope that, in some weird way, Brown will help revive the president's fortunes.

They say that if Brown turns out to be as independent as Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, he can help the president bypass the conservative troglodytes on the Hill and pull Obama out of his slump.

Yeah, right -- Collins and Snowe have been so helpful on health care and Gitmo and financial reform. Their help made the stimulus so substantial and effective.

I wouldn't care if this were just Dowd speculating -- but if there are really "Obama strategists" talking like this, they should be sent packing, for gross incompetence.