<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META content="MSHTML 6.00.2800.1400" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV>Dowd's open today:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>"George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have always used the president's father as a reverse lodestar. In 1992, the senior Mr. Bush wooed the voters with "Message: I care.'' So this week, Mr. Cheney wooed the voters with, Message: You die.</DIV> <P>"The terrible beauty of its simplicity grows on you. It is a sign of the dark, macho, paranoid vice president's restraint that he didn't really take it to its emotionally satisfying conclusion: Message: Vote for us or we'll kill you."</P> <P><<A href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/09/opinion/09dowd.html?hp">http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/09/opinion/09dowd.html?hp</A>></P> <P>Reminds me of Michael O'Donoghue's anti-corporate lines he wrote for SNL, most of which were censored:</P> <P>Exxico: We're Changing The Way America Cuts Its Throat</P> <P>Exxico: Selling Your Future So We Can Live Like Pigs Today</P> <P>Exxico: Give Us Your Money Or We'll Destroy Your Planet</P> <P>Exxico: Stay Out Of Our Way Or We'll Kill You</P> <P>Exxico: We Got Karen Silkwood, And We'll Get The Son Of A Bitch Who Wrote This</P> <P>Ah, Michael -- what a field day you'd have today . . .</P> <P>DP</P></BODY></HTML>