Maureen Dowd:

I always enjoy hearing about how a teenage Dick Cheney stood off to the side with buckets of water to put out Lynne's flaming batons.

But there was an even better moment during Claire Shipman's two-part "Good Morning America" interview at the Wyoming ranch this week. Trying to humanize Dr. No, ABC was let into the inner sanctum to watch Cheney take his 4-year-old granddaughter on her first solo horsie ride and hear how he's teaching his granddaughters to do fly-fishing.

Shipman asked the vice president "his greatest guilty pleasure."

While Cheney was pondering, his wife quickly interjected that it was fly-fishing, stopping what we all know would have been his answer.

His greatest guilty pleasure, of course, is global domination.

It's always amusing to watch Republicans try to get down. At convention time, they stop bilking Joe Lunchbox to act like Joe Lunchbox.

How awkward was it in Columbus, Ohio, on Wednesday, when W., hanging out with Jack Nicklaus, noted that his grandfather had been born there?

"So I'm here to ask that you send a homeboy back to Washington, D.C.," the president said to a GOP audience that wouldn't know a homeboy from a Lawn-Boy.

How you livin', dawg?

And speaking of dawgs, whuddup with that video of Barney debating that French poodle Fifi Kerry about taxes? By the time the twins finished their White House valley girl routine, and Karl Rove, Andy Card and Karen Hughes went all giddy in the Barney convention sendup, the arc of the convention was clear.

Highly scripted screwball moments designed to soothe fears that the Bushies are bullies are alternating with high-octane, turbocharged moments designed to stir up fears that the country won't be safe without those Bush bullies.

Unlike the arrogant Boston Kerry strategists, who focus-grouped and dial-a-metered their convention to death, scrubbing most of the direct attacks on President Bush, the arrogant Austin Bush strategists have encouraged their non-girlie-men speakers to put the pedal to the metal and flatten the poor Democrat who was windsurfing through his free fall.

Despite the fact that the economy is cratering, Iraq is teetering, Afghanistan is reverting to warlords, Dick Cheney is glowering at the world, the war on terror has created more acts of terror, Ahmad Chalabi is an accused Iranian spy and the Pentagon has an accused Israeli spy, Republicans felt so good about themselves this week that when Arnold Schwarzenegger said he was inspired to become a Republican by Richard Nixon, Republicans on the floor exploded.

When Tricky Dick is a hot applause line, they're feeling cocky.

Republicans are political killers. They are confident that Americans, in a 9/11 world, are going to be more drawn to political killers who have made some "miscalculations" on Iraq, as W. put it, than with a shaggy-haired Vietnam War protester whom Bush 41 compares to Hanoi Jane.

"I still have great difficulty with his coming back and making those statements before the Congress and throwing medals away," the president's father told Don Imus on Wednesday

Republicans have learned that plunging ahead with a course of action, even if it becomes obvious it's wrong, is an easier political sell than flip-flopping, even if it's right.

When the president slipped, admitting that the war on terror is unwinnable -- perhaps recognizing that terror's a tactic, not an enemy -- he had to be saved later by Laura Bush, who fixed his misstep into nuance. Then Kerry made the mistake of responding in Bush black and white, calling the war on terror winnable.

While Democrats whined about the meanies and their Swift boat attacks, the GOP juggernaut rolled on.

Just as the "third party" ad effort has been personal, ferocious and misleading, so have some of the attack speeches here. Wednesday night, Dick Cheney stomped on John Kerry the way he's stomped on the world.

In fact, he stomped on Kerry for trying to get along with the world. "Sen. Kerry denounces American action when other countries don't approve -- as though the whole object of our foreign policy were to please a few persistent critics," he sneered.

President Bush flew into New York and went to an Italian community center to eat pizza with Queens firemen. The homeboy was having a ruthless, but effective, week.

Copyright 2004 New York Times