Written on Monday, October 13th, 2008 at 8:49pm by Alan Bedenko | 18 Comments

Barracuda Borealis

This is the bulk of Maureen Dowd’s column in today’s Times:

Bellum Gallium

Manes Julii Caesaris paucis diebus aderant — “O, most bloody sight!” — cum Ioannes McCainus, mavericus et veteranus captivusque Belli Francoindosinini, et Sara Palina, barracuda borealis, qui sneerare amant Baracum Obamam causa oratorii, pillorant ut demagogi veri, Africanum-Americanum senatorem Terrae Lincolni, ad Republicanas rallias.

Rabidi subcanes candidati, pretendant “no orator as Brutis is,” ut “stir men’s blood” et disturbant mentes populi ad “a sudden flood of mutiny,” ut Wilhelmus Shakespearus scripsit.

Cum Quirites Americani ad rallias Republicanas audiunt nomen Baraci Husseini Obamae, clamant “Mortem!” “Amator terroris!” “Socialiste!” “Bomba Obamam!” “Obama est Arabus!” “Caput excidi!” tempus sit rabble-rouseribus desistere “Smear Talk Express,” ut Stephanus Colbertus dixit. Obama demonatus est tamquam Musulmanus-Manchurianus candidatus — civis “collo-cerviciliaris” ad ralliam Floridianam Palinae exhabet mascum Obamae ut Luciferis.

Obama non queretur high-tech lynching. Sed secreto-serventes agentes nervosissmi sunt.

Vix quisque audivit nomen “Palinae” ante lunibus paucis. Surgivit ex suo tanning bed ad silvas in Terram Eskimorum, rogans quis sit traitorosus, ominosus, scurrilosus, periculosus amator LXs terroris criminalisque Chicagoani? Tu betchus!

“Caeca ambitio Obamana,” novum rumorem Palina McCainusque dixit. “Cum utilis, Obama laborat cum amatore terroris Wilhelmo Ayro. Cum putatus, perjuravit.” McCainianus bossus maximus Francus Keatinx vocat Obamam, “plebeium,” et ut iuvenum snifferendum cocaini minimi (“a little blow.”)

Cum Primus Dudus, spousus Palinanus, culpari attemptaret “Centurionem-Gate,” judices Terrae Santae Elvorumque castigat gubernatricem Palinam de abusu auctoritatis per familiam revengendum.

Tamen Sara et Ioannes bury Obama, not praise him. Maverici, ut capiunt auxilium de friga-domina, hench-femina, Cynthia McCaina Birrabaronessa, (quae culpat Obamam periculandi suum filum in Babylonia), brazen-iter distractant mentes populares de minimissimis IV 0 I K.ibus, deminutione “Motorum Omnium,” et Depressione Magna II.0. Omnes de Georgio Busio Secundo colossale goofballo. “V” (because there’s no W. in Latin) etiam duxit per disastrum ad gymnasium.

Gubernatrix (prope Russia) Palina, spectans candidaciam MMXII, post multam educationem cum Kissingro et post multam parodiam de Sabbatis Nocte Vivo atque de Tina Feia, ferociter vituperat Obamam, ut supralupocidit (aerial shooting of wolves) in Hyperborea.

Vilmingtoni, in Ohionem, McCain’s Mean Girl (Ferox Puella) defendit se gladiatricem politicam esse: “Pauci dicant, O Jupiter, te negativam esse. Non, negativa non sum, sed verissima.” Talk about lipsticka in porcam! Quasi Leeus Atwater de oppugnatione Busii Primi ad Dukakem: “non negativus, sed comparativus.”

A very rough translation here.

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18 Comments

  1. Prodigal-Son says:
    October 13, 2008 at 9:55 pm

    Thank you for reproducing this, Pundit. I’m going to save it and keep it, so people ask why liberals are accused of being elitist, I have tangible evidence.

  2. Jeff says:
    October 13, 2008 at 11:38 pm

    That article/column was really annoying—in either language.

  3. The Humanist says:
    October 13, 2008 at 11:58 pm

    “elitist” = anything that makes Republicans think harder and longer than “God Bless America” and “You’re with us or against us

    This nation has been overrun by an idiocracy that values thuggery over intellectualism.

  4. Buffalopundit says:
    October 14, 2008 at 5:29 am

    That has become among the fundamental problems with the contemporary Republican Party – the idea that knowledge and its pursuit is “elitist”.

    That is, indeed, a shame.

  5. Ward says:
    October 14, 2008 at 7:08 am

    Hahaha Homilist — nice GOP dig.

    This Republican prefers the comment on the comment by a classicist who doesn’t have to farm out her Latin to a guy from Rutgers.

    Kinda makes muh haid hurt, but I read it ennyways tuh make you think all us Neanderthals ain’t as dumb as Mesi.

    http://timesonline.typepad.com/dons_life/2008/10/are-we-rome-tu.html

  6. The Humanist says:
    October 14, 2008 at 9:00 am

    @Ward – which party created the “elitist” smear to apply to an opposing candidate with a higher education?

    Which party saw three out of its ten candidates for President raise their hand proudly when asked “Who here does not believe in evolution?”

    Which party has waged a half-century long battle on public education, underfunding and undermining it at every turn while championing Trojan Horses like “school vouchers”?

    Which party claims “socialist indoctrination” is occurring at colleges and universities across the land and counts the nutjob David Horowitz as a fellow traveler? No, not David Horowitz the consumer guy from “Fight Back!”, but David Horowitz, the former 60’s radical who transformed into a neoconservative, racist blowhard who now claims that Muslim student groups are funded by Al Queda to bring jihad into heart of American higher education?

    Which party put Sarah Palin up as a VP candidate and expected people to take her seriously?

  7. Ward says:
    October 14, 2008 at 10:07 am

    Uh, yuh got me there Homilist. I dunno, cuz I only read anti-elitist blogs and lissen ta Rush. Guess I gotta go back to kollege an’ git me some diversity — ya know, where they believe in having both radicals and liberals on the same campus?

    Seems to me you’re channeling Randi Weingarten and Eugene V. Debs (now, where do I remember his name from? Oh, yeah–kollege.) When you’re through spending $17,000 per pupil to graduate 47% of the kids in Buffalo city schools, can the taxpayers please have some of it back to try and actually educate a few of them? Underfund this! When you speak, do Phil Rumore’s lips move much?

    I dunno the answers to all yer tough questions. I only got room to know the answer to one question. What party has been able to get only one person elected President two times in a row during the last sixty-four years? (Hint–he’s known primarily for having relieved himself in the Oval Office sink.)

  8. Prodigal-Son says:
    October 14, 2008 at 10:39 am

    Pundit – you are right that the major flaw of the current Republican party is the idea that intellectual rigor is “elitist.” The party of the Heritage Foundation, George Will and thinking conservatives has denigrated into hate-mongering and appeals to the baser instincts of the base.

    But translating a column into fake Latin is not about making people think (as Humanist contends), or the pursuit of knowledge, as you say. Its about snobbery, and Dowd, the utter defintion of a self-absorbed elitist, is such a NY Times snob, she makes Paul Krugman look like “Beautiful Mind” John Nash.

  9. hank says:
    October 14, 2008 at 11:12 am

    I wouldn’t let that fucktard bitch blow me. Chances are she’s as useless in bed as she is a columnist.

    Abscondae Illegitimo

  10. Jim H says:
    October 14, 2008 at 12:25 pm

    Elitist is someone that includes “can gut a moose” and “was mayor of Wasilla, AK” (we live in Buffalo, folks, hardly the center of the universe) as serious cticism.

  11. Bill Altreuter says:
    October 14, 2008 at 4:32 pm

    Dowd is just mailing it in at this point, isn’t she.

  12. Jon Splett says:
    October 14, 2008 at 4:47 pm

    Sorry, but the repubs are right for once.

    Writing a column in latin IS elitist and doesn’t do anyone any good.

    Americans aren’t as stupid as they seem but they aren’t as ‘cultured’ as the left wants them to be either. What value does that column have for the average guy on the street picking up the Times? All that says to them is ‘I know more than you because I took a dead language in college’.

    It’s completely possible to be intelligent without being smug and the sooner a certain section of the ‘liberal elite’ learn that, the further they’ll take their cause.

  13. Snarky Snarkmore McSnarkamaphone says:
    October 14, 2008 at 5:35 pm

    it’s not elitist; it is, like most everything coming from that one’s mouth or pen, simply asinine…

    … much like the pejorative use of the word “elite,” as if somehow having an elite military unit is ok but, not elite leaders, elite judges, elite journalists, etc. Elite is not a synonym for condescending or snobby, nor should it be. But republicans are the masters of reframing the debate in their own terminology (see: death tax v. estate tax and numerous other examples).

  14. Prodigal-Son says:
    October 14, 2008 at 6:03 pm

    Splett – couldn’t have said it better myself. Wonder if we’ll ever agree again.

    Snarkster – Elite is fine. Elitist and elitism is not. Call it parsing your words, but connotation and specificity exist for a reason.

  15. Chris O'Brien says:
    October 14, 2008 at 7:03 pm

    This column reminded me of that critical information which I retain from three years of high school Latin, “Semper ubi sub ubi.”

    Mom is so proud!

  16. Pauldub says:
    October 14, 2008 at 7:15 pm

    Dead on Jon…

  17. mike says:
    October 14, 2008 at 7:51 pm

    These comments just go to show how many idiots live here in western new york, except hank, he’s the moron who moved.

  18. dougk says:
    October 14, 2008 at 10:12 pm

    tempus fugit, momento mori!

 

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