What people are reading in the New York Times

Here’s the list of the most-read articles over the last two weeks:

1. Portrait of George Bush in ’72: Unanchored in Turbulent Time By SARA RIMER, Published Sept. 20

2. Falling Bodies, a 9/11 Image Etched in Pain By KEVIN FLYNN and JIM DWYER, Published Sept. 10

3. Documents Suggest Special Treatment for Bush in Guard By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE and RALPH BLUMENTHAL, Published Sept. 9

4. Op-Ed: Cheney Spits Toads By MAUREEN DOWD, Published Sept. 9

5. U.S. Intelligence Shows Pessimism on Iraq’s Future By DOUGLAS JEHL, Published Sept. 16

6. Cracking Under the Pressure? It’s Just the Opposite, for Some By ANAHAD O’CONNOR, Published Sept. 10

7. Cheney Warns of Terror Risk if Kerry Wins By DAVID E. SANGER and DAVID M. HALBFINGER, Published Sept. 8

8. This Time Bill O’Reilly Got It Right By FRANK RICH, Published Sept. 19

9. Op-Ed: Pre-emptive Paranoia By MAUREEN DOWD, Published Sept. 16

10. Op-Ed: Missing in Action By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF, Published Sept. 8

Interesting that Maureen Dowd figures twice. She’s quite a dame. Here she is on Cheney:

“It’s like that fairy tale where vipers and toads jump out of the mouth of the accursed mean little girl when she tries to speak. Every time Mr. Cheney opens his mouth, vermin leap out.

The vice president and president did not even mention Osama at the convention because of the inconvenient fact that the fiend is still out there, plotting. Yet they denigrate Mr. Kerry as too weak to battle Osama, and treat him as a greater threat.

Mr. Cheney implies that John Kerry couldn’t protect us from an attack like 9/11, blithely ignoring the fact that he and President Bush didn’t protect us from the real 9/11. Think of what brass-knuckled Republicans could have made of a 9/11 tape of an uncertain Democratic president giving a shaky statement that looked like a hostage tape and flying randomly from air base to air base, as the veep ordered that planes be shot down.”