The Maureen Dowd you've never seen

NY Times columnnist reveals her first great love, her family's Irish ties and her take on Obama, Bush, Biden and Geffen

“I thought it was sad that the poor people who raised him weren’t there for his inauguration. He’s incredibly young, but they had all passed.”

As for any Dowd criticism of Obama? “He doesn’t like being made fun of. He’s not able to bat it back like JFK could. He gets a little prickly.

“He can be a little starchy,” she adds, like when Vice President Joe Biden cracked a joke about Chief Justice John Roberts muffing the lines on the swearing in ceremony, and Obama fixed him with a cold stare,

“But this is where he’s not Irish at all, and Biden and people say he’s not sentimental at all, and in a way that’s a really good trait in a leader.  He cuts to the chase,” she says.

“Biden’s line about him is one that everybody uses about him, and it’s that he travels light, and it’s interesting because when you see him there’s no cloud around him, he’s not carrying a bunch of papers, everything is about traveling light.

“The BlackBerry was the one thing he actually kind of wanted. He has Reggie Love (his body man) who comes with the Nicorettes and cigarettes. On the campaign Reggie had cigarettes -- it was a big secret --, but I think that it’s hard to stop smoking and run for president at the same time. It’s too much.

“Yes, Obama travels light emotionally, physically. The way Gordon Brown was treated for instance. During his recent visit the British were upset, but Obama is not a sentimental person not like he’s giving that love to anyone else. Obama is very detached.

“But Americans know he is trying, trying very hard, and these are huge problems he is facing.”

As for Vice President Biden, Dowd is also a big fan.

“I love Joe Biden. I knocked him out of the race in ’88 when I reported that he plagiarized Neil Kinnock’s speeches.

“The fact that he ree-stablished a relationship with me, and before he was appointed, a friend and I had an off-the-record lunch with him, and you know, it’s an Irish thing, he was being all Irish.

“I was sitting thinking ‘If I were him I wouldn’t have me here,’ but I kind of admired his ability to move on.”

As for Obama’s predecessors Bush and Cheney, she says they “started out to be bullies to scare the world and be a hyperpower, and they accomplished that intention.”

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Nster.com