These broken-souled losers can’t help it: In fairness to Maureen Dowd, she really couldn’t help it.
Two others had already said what follows. So she had to type it up too:
DOWD (8/26/12): So now comes the Big Reveal?People, she just couldn’t help it! First, her own New York Times featured the Palinesque stripper, at the top of a news report. Then, the New Republic followed suit—reporting from bumblefuck, Florida.
Not the stripper in Tampa made up to resemble Sarah Palin, but something far more intriguing.
Will Mitt Romney use his Florida convention to finally peel away the layers of opacity and show us who he really is?
Nah.
How dare they crowd in on Lady Dowd’s turf? Feeling angry and more entitled, she deftly completed the hat trick.
Just so we’ll understand our tribe’s values: Have you seen a single progressive complain about this? Even once?
As we often do at such moments: We thought of Gurov, Chekhov’s aging roué, who “wanted to enjoy life so badly and it all seemed so simple and amusing.”
In a truly beautiful portrait, Gurov moves beyond his contempt for women very late in life. (The Lady with a Lapdog.)
"Have you ever seen a single progressive complain about this? Even once?"
ReplyDeleteYou, dear, sir. You.
Like 99.99 percent of the progressives who passed over it, I would regard it as weak joke at the expense (sort of) of a crass has been. It is the Daily Howler's own odd interest in this Palin stripper that seems kind of strange.
ReplyDeleteWhat Greg said. And CeceliaMc, I have no idea where you live, the people you know, the things you read, but you obviously live a rather sheltered existence if you think progressives don't "complain about this" and -- more important -- don't disdain what conservatives have managed to get many people to call the "liberal"or "progressive" media. Bob S's particular analyses are of some interest to some "progressives," but only of some interest in large part because he himself has such a blinkered view of what serious "liberals" and "progressives" actually take seriously. For instance, I don't think any serious liberals/progressives have EVER taken Dowd seriously. Now and then she says something interesting (as she actually does in this column, if you don't confine your notice of it to her Palin line, as Bob S does). Fine. Usually she's tediously only one cut above the tabloid headlines in the supermarket line. Who doesn't already know this?
ReplyDeleteI'm more than eager, relieved, and pleased to take your word for that, mch.
DeleteOn that you can rely.
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Deletemch,
DeleteWould you name, say, eight Big (broadcast, cable, and print) Media regulars whom you would say "serious 'liberals' and 'progressives' actually take seriously"?
Or is your point that "serious 'liberals' and 'progressives'" don't take any Big Media regulars seriously (or certainly no more than six or seven of them in total)? What about those voters who, though they are not in any serious sense, do think of themselves as "liberals/progressives," whom among the Big Media regulars do you think they take seriously?
I would think there are a whole lot more not so serious liberals/progressives than there are serious ones and, therefore, whom the not so serious types are listening to will prove quite consequential to the future of the serious liberal/progressive movement.
CMike, I see and appreciate your point. But really, how many people of any "liberal/progressive" self-identification would characterize Dowd as liberal or progressive? I truly think very few. The Beltway bubble of people who use these words stupidly are people of influence, and they shouldn't be ignored altogether, but you realize how misleading Bob Somerby's focus on the Dowd's and the Collins's is when you read a comment like CeceliaMc's.
DeleteIn any case, all the analysts say this election (like all others in recent memory) hinges on "undecided" voters, some very large percentage of whom identify themselves as "independents."
I wish Bob S would distinguish more carefully in his posts between "progressive/liberal" politicians, columnists/pundits (and here, between self-identified liberals and those whom the Villagers have decided to dub liberals), and voting pubilc. Too often he elides something a Dowd or even Krugman writes with all liberal/progressive readership, for instance, apparently unable to imagine that other liberals besides himself have some powers of discernment.
Wow...you just won't take "yes" for an answer, huh?
DeleteSomerby asks what progressive has spoken out against stories (snark, really) about a Palin imitator stripper which seem to reserve judgment on this sort thing. (Can you imagine that being the case if a Mrs Obama act was a headliner?)
I then answer (with gratitude) the obvious that Somerby did just that here on this blog.
You then rush in to assure me that progressives DO complain about this sort of thing and I reply that I'm glad to hear that. Yet this is not enough because I somehow failed to launch into a screed on how Dowd and the NYT aren't really liberal in the first place.
Well, I'm sorry, but you're going to have to make that tenuous case on your own. I thanked Mr Somerby for his unfailing decency, and I assured you that I am more than happy to believe the best about people.
Frankly, that's as obliging as I can get.
CeceliaMc, it may well be due to my own limitations, not yours. Or the limitations belong to both of us: sometimes certain people just have trouble communicating with one another. But I understand neither the argument you are offering here (not entirely, anyway), nor do I interpret your earlier comments in the way you claim I obviously should have. Not obvious to me. Maybe it's that we understand Mr. Somerby's posts somewhat differently, simply on the level of his basic points. Maybe it's a matter of tone. "On that you can rely," for instance, sounds to me sarcastically dismissive (even if I cannot pinpoint the argumentative point of the sarcasm).
DeleteWell, that's not how I intended it to sound.
DeleteNaturally I want to believe that others share my opinion about this. I don't know why you'd think I would just discount your assurance.
And Dowd's tabloid ways can (as only tabloids can) sometimes get to the heart of the matter:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/15/opinion/dowd-when-cruelty-is-cute.html?_r=1
Meanwhile, esteemed news organisation - Gawker - has done the job on Mitt Romney's finances. Who needs the NYT?
ReplyDeletehttp://gawker.com/5936394/the-bain-files-inside-mitt-romneys-tax+dodging-cayman-schemes?tag=gawker-exclusive
As with Matthews clock cleaning of the RNC flack, even a stopped clock etc.... But what ANYONE must do with the media is take relevant reporting or commentary where you can find it. This Palin thing, I would speculate, has little to so with Palin and obviously nothing to do with Progressives. It's the lazy notion that anything having to do with the Porn world is a grabber, local TV news uses porn relentlessly...
ReplyDelete