Maureen Dowd is concerned

Christ, she's a tool.

Besides referring to "others" who "worry" that Michelle Obama is "emasculating" her husband -- this from the Queen of the Heathers, who has made a living portraying Democratic candidates as weak and narcissistic -- she gets to wrap the specter of a dubious land deal on the candidate...a double bonus for the former Pulitzer winner!

Michelle conveys the appealing idea that she will tell her husband when he’s puffed up or out of line. She aims high — she ordered her husband to stop puffing on cigarettes as he started campaigning. But then, why didn’t she see the red flags on the Rezko deal?

In order to get a bigger yard for their new house on Chicago’s South Side in 2005, the Obamas got into what the senator now confesses was a “boneheaded” real estate arrangement with a sleazy political dealmaker named Tony Rezko, who has been indicted on influence-peddling charges.

On Monday, The Chicago Sun-Times reported more shady Rezko news: “Obama, who has worked as a lawyer and a legislator to improve living conditions for the poor, took campaign donations from Rezko even as Rezko’s low-income housing empire was collapsing, leaving many African-American families in buildings riddled with problems,” from a lack of heat to no lack of drug dealers and squatters.

Mr. Obama riposted that “it wasn’t brought to my attention.” But isn’t that where a dazzling, tough, smart and connected wife could help a guy out?

Now, that's the kind of important stuff we need to know in this presidential campaign. Nevermind that it's a non-story, and the Sun-Times has been trying to blow this Rezko thing into the next non-story Whitewater for months now, with no success. But it's just the ticket for Dowd syndrome. And to really wrap it up, blame it on Obama's too-powerful, too-rich, emasculating wife. A veritable trifecta.