There is no doubt in my mind that Maureen Dowd, OpEd columnist for the New York Times, would have made an exquisite torcheress during the Spanish Inquisition. Take a look at her latest flogging of Sarah Palin. But the problem with torturers is they don’t know ‘enough’. Flogging Sarah Palin is counter-productive because it just incites the Legions known as the Base to greater devotional fervor while making the middle and moderates, both men and especially women, more likely to sympathize with Sarah. What Madame Dowd should do is consider an examination of why the word “liberal” has become an epithet for nearly half the US electorate.