An ape sits where Abe sat

I do not have a NY Times subscription, so I found this in today's edition:

The nation’s capital in the future is not a pretty sight after having been destroyed in The Political Fight of 2013.
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: October 5, 2013

A PLACE ONCE CALLED WASHINGTON

AN ape sits where Abe sat.

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Really? I am assuming that "Abe" refers to President Lincoln, and "The Political Fight of 2013" refers to President Obama's shutdown of 17% of the federal government.

A subscriber tells me that Dowd was not intending to call Obama an ape, but instead trying to use some sort of confused metaphor about Mad Max landing on the Planet of the Apes. I don't know about that, as Dowd is so incoherent that she rarely makes her intended point clear. I am just commenting on her article, as published in the NY Times. And it says that an ape sits where Abe sat in Washington.

Meanwhile, this anagram is making the rounds:

President Barack Obama = An Arab backed Imposter