I’d parody Maureen Dowd, but it can’t be done. Read today’s column and see if you can come up with anything shallower, snider or more blinkered or petulant than this. “Maybe the Bush policy on Empire & Pre-emption allows us to decide not only who can run a country, but what are the proper issues for other nations’ election debates.” That sounds like something you’d see posted on some far-out message board, not a newspaper with editors. “Only the Saudis get away with disobliging the administration on Iraq without being frozen out. They’re like the spoiled, foreign princesses in high school, dripping in Dolce & Gabbana and Asprey, who drive their Mercedes convertibles into the magic alpha circle.” Yeah, that sounds just like my high school. Never mind that part of the point of going after Iraq is to make the Saudis both less indispensable and less comfortable . . .