Hot babe wonk alert. On this morning's Imus show. Fans and grumblers agree: Maureen Dowd's twice-weekly column on the opinion page of the New York Times is one of the most valuable pieces of real estate in American journalism. From that perch, she dissected the impeachment of President Clinton and won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary for her "style, insight and faultless instinct for hypocrisy in high places." Democrats cringed at her take-no-prisoners assessment of the self-made man from Hope brought down by his own hubris. Now it's the Republicans' turn, as her first book, "Bushworld: Enter at Your Own Risk," climbs the best-seller list. Just out from Putnam, it's a collection of columns framed by her quirky Shakespearean take on the Bush administration. The first section of the book, titled "The Old King Is Deposed: In Which the Black Sheep Usurps the Dutiful Brother," opens with a 1992 column called "Poppy Packs Up." A section titled "The Regents Enter: In Which the Old King Encircles the Dauphin With His Trusted Counselors," includes the columns "Freudian Face-Off, " "Bushfellas" and "A Babysitter for Junior." The relationship between George W. ("43") and his father ("41") fascinates her most. She has observed the two at close range since her days as the Times' White House correspondent during the first Bush administration (1989-93). In the introduction to her new book, she writes: "With each passing day of the Bush restoration, it became clearer that we were entering the primal territory of ancient myth, in which the son must define himself by vanquishing the father." "I didn't want my first book to be columns, but this was a rare opportunity," she said, citing what she calls the compelling "story arc" of the Bush family, plus what she sees as egregious behavior on the part of the current administration. "The Bush administration had misled people so much that 80 percent of Fox viewers believed there was a link between Iraq and al Qaeda. When it turned into a dark, hyperpower, apocalyptic, bullying administration, it became a fascinating tale," Dowd said. "I'd always loved Joseph Campbell's writings on myth, which is what 'Star Wars' is based on." (When you hear pundits refer to Vice President Dick Cheney as Darth Vader -- the dark father -- Dowd said it first.) "This is the greatest father-son story," she said. "They're going to be studying this for a long time." That would extend "Bushworld's" shelf life as an alternative history or, as Dowd sees it, a corrective. After Cheney's GOP convention speech last week, Dowd told CNN host Aaron Brown: "Everything they say is the opposite of the truth." After getting an earful from eager-puppy pundits earlier in the show, Brown seemed relieved by her bluntness. "When Bush said the war on terror was unwinnable, it was the first time he darted out of Bushworld," she said this week. "But terror is a tactic and you can't win against a tactic." Dowd may distract with her humor, but those are boxing gloves she's wearing, and she's got a lethal left. Her coquettishness, which can put men, in particular, off guard, seems to clear the way for her to say what others are too skittish to utter. "The son campaigned on 'compassionate conservatism' and a humble foreign policy," Dowd said. After he took office, she was astonished when "he started blowing off the Atlantic alliance that his father and grandfather had worked on, instead of going after Osama bin Laden." Her style infuriates some and delights others, as does her free range of cultural references, drawing on everything from Shakespeare's tragedies (her college specialty) to Orwell to Hollywood comedies. A self-proclaimed "equal- opportunity skeptic," she notes that the Clintons may soon be in her scopes again. "If Bush wins, that's the beginning of Hillary's campaign," Dowd, 52, said by phone last week from a room at the Four Seasons in New York, where a handful of girlfriends were madly helping her groom for a post-convention TV appearance. "I've made a lot of fashion mistakes," she said, noting that David Letterman recently asked her why she was dressed for the prom and Don Imus told her she looked like a Charlotte Hornets cheerleader. Her problem, she explains, is that she wears mostly vintage clothes, and that means floaty dresses and beaded sweaters. Her friend the New York Times reporter Alessandra Stanley had just called to say "No Siegfried and Roy," which means no sequins. Dowd noted that to be safe, she borrowed a dress for the CNN appearance from her pal Michiko Kakutani, the Times' book critic. We had to ask: What are Bush's chances? "I never make predictions." Did the Republican convention push him over the top? "It was like watching a Doberman gnawing on a rag doll." from http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/09/09/DDGUT8L37R1.DTL

Correction, she's on *tomorrows* show.