MONDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2012
A famous name you won’t hear: Maureen Dowd’s column in Sunday’s Times was truly a piece for the ages.
In our earlier post, we forgot to mention one point. Perhaps because the piece was so bad, the New York Times extended a favor to its brilliant star columnist:
No comments were allowed with Dowd’s column! When’s the last time you saw that practice adopted with a New York Times op-ed column?
By dint of its world-class illogic, Dowd’s column ought to go straight to the Smithsonian.
(Shorter Dowd: Susan Rice should have revealed classified information when she went on those Sunday shows! And she should have agreed with that Libyan pol! Libyan pols can't be wrong!)
Beyond that, the column extended Dowd’s decade of misogyny—a decade of misogyny directed at Democrats only. (Only Clark Hoyt dares tell.)
You’d think the liberal world would put up its dukes when a columnist behaves the way Dowd does. But you won’t hear Maureen Dowd’s name tonight on The One True Liberal Channel.
People, it just isn't done.
Lawrence O’Donnell won’t mention her column. Neither will Rachel or Chris or Big Ed—no, not even Al! The channel’s new group of Kool Kidz won’t mention Dowd’s name either.
Krystal and Joy-Ann will keep their traps shut. Joan Walsh will have seen no evil. If Ezra and Chris Hayes are on, they’ll make it a silent night too. David will have no idea.
Go ahead—reread Dowd’s nasty, ridiculous column. (Warning: Moronic word-play ahead!) Ask yourself what kind of political movement simply accepts such calumnies when they are aimed, in a nasty way, at its biggest female stars.
The answer is simple: The career liberal world accepts such conduct! The Times provides good jobs at good pay, and Dowd is a very powerful player within its broken-souled firmament.
Career liberals simply accept this crap, hoping we liberal rubes won’t notice. They accepted this all through the Clinton-Gore years. They are happy to lap it up now.
Go ahead! Reread that ridiculous column, then watch your favorite TV stars. Sheriff Joe may get mentioned tonight.
Broken-souled Dowd never will.
While I appreciate the excellent job Bob S. does in documenting Dowd's atrocities, it's not clear to me why I should expect MSNBC hosts to single out Dowd for criticism. I don't think anybody serious pays any attention to her, or has since the 1990's, or that Dowd has any influence beyond a small group of avid fans (whose existence is attested in the comments online, when they're allowed -- and even so, critical commenters often outnumber her fans). In other words, Dowd is no Limbaugh in terms of her influence on the national scene (the larger public, at least). In general, people don't go to the NYT much at all for its national political coverage, and national politics are pretty much all that MSNBC's Maddow et al. concern themselves with.
ReplyDeleteOh, my goodness, you're dumb!
DeleteDowd's columns are often picked up by Sydney, Australia's major broadsheet, 'The Sydney Morning Herald'.
DeleteHer bile spreads far and wide.
CeceliaMc: Thank you for the intelligent comment. You should feel proud of your contribution to constructive discourse.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous: Her bile spreads to Australia. That's too bad. It doesn't spread very far in the US, as far as I can tell. Of course, she does have some "followers" and sycophants, mostly in the Village but beyond it as well. But not enough, it seems to me, for anyone to expect liberal commentators to waste their time refuting her. (In contrast to, say, Limbaugh.)
Btw, I hope no one is under the impression that anyone in their right mind would label Dowd herself as liberal?
Of course no one in their right mind would consider Dowd to be a liberal. Why we wouldn't do that anymore than we'd think the NYT to be a standard-bearer within the media and the field of journalism, in general.
DeleteNo, we'd surmise that a conservative radio host sets the standards within the editorial meetings, the interviewer's questions, the talk at the Capitol Hill bar or the next cocktail party and within the chattering class elites.
Why? Because he has more hinterland audience and goodness knows these folks set the tone for Meet The Press and This Week, in a way a New York Times columnist could only dream of doing.
So why bother to take down a pathetic columnist like Dowd? That was might point exactly.
ReplyDeleteBecause opinion-misters who are influential, respected, and widely read in the imedia/journalism industry (say...Michael Savage or Ann Coulter...) carry guns.
DeleteHow well armed is Dowd? Not very, is my point. Bob S (and others all over the internet) recognize her for what she is, as do most NYT readers. Not clear to me (and Bob S. does not try to explain) why Rachel Maddow and others should expend limited, valuable airtime on taking down an obvious airhead with little influence (Dowd is simply not comparable to Savage or Coulter or Limbaugh for influence, from what I can tell). All I ever said. Jeez.
DeleteJeez, indeed...
DeleteThe Susan Rice story continues to highlight all the main points Bob has been talking about for years now. From the talking heads on sunday mornings to the vast majority of op-ed commentators and so many of the familiar voices of the right and left I have witnessed all the examples of either bias or third rate journalism and pure laziness that Bob has discussed on this site. Everything you need to know about the condition of the modern media is exposed in this story that never should have raised a single eyebrow.
ReplyDeleteMaureen Dowd suffers from, among other things, apophenia, the condition of perceiving meaningful connections between things where none exist. That she sought to capitalize on the coincidence of Condoleeza Rice's last name vis a vis Susan Rice's last name reveals a very low-level lizard brain mapping meaning through rudimentary patterns with no high-level analysis applied. Apophenia is common in some forms of paranoia; it is occasionally enlightening for a creative artist; it is bad news in a journalist.
ReplyDeleteWell, it's not like the Congressional Black Causus is going to make a peep when Maureen Dowd offers up the construct of two little ambitious black girls selling out to 'The Man'.
Deletemch,
ReplyDeleteYou really don't argue with dear Cecelia. For all the queenly Peggy Noonan demeanor, the cuckoo eventually comes out of the forehead. Cross her, and you're stupid, moronic, an operative(!!?).
That aside, Ce &Co. simply can't conceive of a media outlet -- or person, for that matter -- which questions right-wing dogma but isn't "liberal". Cecelia doubtless also thinks Thomas Friedman is a liberal.
As for Dowd and Collins -- shameful though it is they occupy space on the op-ed page of what's probably the most read newspaper in the English-speaking world, their influence on the national discourse does appear to be invisible. In this respect, Fox, as an actual driver of Republican policy, is unique, and has no equivalent in the world Democratic politics.
That said, I for one am bored to death with daily critiques of Fox -- we know what it is, by now -- and am similarly bored, as are you, with critiques of Dowd and Collins.
The Rice matter would also seem to be uniquely irrelevant at this point, however much it absorbs the fictional show of our national politics. Power and policy is elsewhere.
Then again, it's so much easier to slog these idiots, than look (for example) at NYT reporting critically, before the lies are revealed (e.g., Judith Miller), rather than after, when it's too late.
And in that case, Cecelia would find nothing of interest here. Which might be counted another great virtue.
Oh, no. I'd find it of interest that Judith Miller is gone from the NYT.
DeleteYour non-liberal Friedman, Collins, and Dowd, not so much.
Anonymous, you're right. At least the structure of Dave in Cal's arguments is coherent, and I figured out a while back that he was best ignored
ReplyDeleteI'm sure several people have had to talk him off buildings over your doing that.
DeleteSometimes I agree with Dowd, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I find her insightful. Same for Friedman, Krugman, Scarborough, Haas. Why vilify her when you disagree? Maybe you don't like her prose. Maybe it's her personality. I think there is more to it Bob, than just her content.
ReplyDeletehey concern troll,
DeleteWhat, specifically was the "vilification" here that you so object to?
Why is it worse (or even remotely comparable in awfulness) to Dowd's actual work in this case?