SUNDAY: Dowd says the Democrats did the right thing!

SUNDAY, AUGUST 18, 2024

Her language says something different: In her column in today's New York Times, Maureen Dowd seems to say that the Democrats did the right thing.

In fact, she says so explicitly! This is the assessment she offers near the start of her gossipy column:

DOWD (8/18/24): A coterie of powerful Democrats maneuvered behind the scenes to push an incumbent president out of the race.

It wasn’t exactly “Julius Caesar” in Rehoboth Beach. But it was a tectonic shift and, of course, there were going to be serious reverberations. Even though it was the right thing to do, because Joe Biden was not going to be able to campaign, much less serve as president for another four years, in a fully vital way, it was a jaw-dropping putsch.

But at some point, when the polls cratered, Democratic mandarins decided to put the welfare of the party—and the country—ahead of the president’s ego, and stop catering to his self-regarding fantasy that he was the only one who could beat Donald Trump. Also, they all could know that Biden was slowing faster than he and his family and his inner circle were acknowledging.

According to Dowd, the Democrats who helped push President Biden out of this race had "decided to put the welfare of the country ahead of the president’s ego."

"It was the right thing to do," she explicitly says. But in that same sentence—in that same breath—she describes what they did as "a putsch!"

Dispirited citizens, What's in a word? This throwback column by a reawakened, earlier version of Dowd offers an instructive lesson with respect to that age-old question.

For many years, Dowd was a highly influential columnist—a highly influential scribe whose journalistic performance was often perhaps rather poor. In recent years, she has more often been phoning in her column.

She has stopped being the straw which stirs the drink! Today's column involves a return to what Nestor, the seasoned charioteer, once called "the old ways."

As it drags its way along, the gossipy column asks us to wonder about what Michelle Obama might have thought, and may still think, about Hunter Biden's relationship with the late Beau Biden's former wife. 

At one time, this was Dowd's place on the block. In a type of second adolescence, she has returned to that locale today. 

That said, what's in a word? For today, we restrict our lesson to that eternal question—and our lesson starts with the headline stop Dowd's column. Here's what that headline says:

The Dems Are Delighted. But a Coup Is Still a Coup.

Those Democrats didn't just pull off "a putsch"—the headline says they staged "a coup!" In fact, the headline says that two times!

Fellow citizens, what's in a word? With respect to the words in question, those fraught terms, all by themselves, convey an obvious impression.

In her own explicit language, Columnist Dowd says that those Democrats "did the right thing" with respect to President Biden's delusions.  For ourselves, we fully agree with each part of that assessment—but isn't the point of this musing.

Dowd says the Democrats "did the right thing." She also says that the Democrats "put the welfare of the country ahead of the president’s ego,"

That's what Dowd explicitly says—but rather plainly, her dramatic choice of words then contradicts that assessment.  

She says that what they did was a coup—a putsch. Inevitably, those words convey a wholly different picture—and one of those words sits right there, two times, in the headline atop her column.

Why would somebody write that way? Why wouldn't an editor challenge such peculiar double-writing?

Aside from the argument from lack of sharpness, we have no idea. We did decide to do this:

A highly evocative word—"coup"—sits in the column's headline. We can't say for sure who wrote the headline, but we decided to check to see if Dowd herself has used the word in her lengthy, gossip-strewn column.

When we checked, we saw that the word appears two times. Here are its two appearances:

DOWD: Democrat after Democrat who had been close to Biden before conspiring to push him out had to confess to cable anchors that they had not been able to talk to the president, who was sulking in his tent.

Party leaders whitewashed the coup by ornately extolling Biden.

[...]

DOWD: Even if the Democrats wanted to put their bad blood in the past, the Nasty Man at the top of the G.O.P. ticket won’t let them forget.

“Kamala wants NOTHING TO DO WITH CROOKED JOE BIDEN,” Trump ranted on Truth Social Thursday. “They are throwing him out on the Monday Night Stage, known as Death Valley. He now HATES Obama and Crazy Nancy more than he hates me! He is an angry man, as he should be. They stole the Presidency from him—‘It was a Coup!’”

Sad! In fact, the highly evocative word appears in the column two times. 

The first time it appears, it's being offered in Dowd's own voice. The second time, it appears in the voice of Candidate Trump, as he stages one of his current trademark rants.

Full disclosure! The notion that those Democrats staged a "coup" is a current Trump talking point. Also, it's being repeated every hour of every day by the message hounds on the Fox News Channel. We'd already seen this message angrily delivered this morning on Fox before we read Dowd's column! 

The claim that those Democrats staged a "coup" is part of current propaganda. Also, it doesn't seem to fit with Dowd's explicit assessment.

In fact, it seems to contradict her explicit assessment. But there it sits in her column's headline—there it sits two times! Many people who don't read the column will see the point affirmed.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep—but even at its highest levels, our mainstream press corps simply isn't amazingly sharp.

Dowd has reverted to gossip today. But dearest darlings, What's in a word? 

Also, as Casey Stengel once asked:

Can anyone here play this game?

A bit of background: If it was the right thing to do, does it really make sense to call it "a coup?" To call it "a putsch?"

Our answer would be an obvious no. Moving right along, we venture back into the past:

During the endless 2016 campaign, Dowd was much friendlier to Candidate Trump than to Candidate Clinton. That strikes us as an unmistakable point.

Along the way, she published a highly peculiar column in which she shared the last few words of the late Beau Biden. In a very strange bit of journalism, her unsourced account of what he had said became the instant source for an otherwise unsourced news report which sat atop the front page of the Sunday New York Times.

(Dowd's unsourced column appeared in that day's print edition. Atop page one, so did the otherwise unsourced "news report!")

Who could possibly have been the source for Dowd's unsourced account? Her unsourced report was highly unflattering to Candidate Clinton—but given the unusual, tragic subject matter, who could have been her source?

For today, we'll assume, perhaps incorrectly, that she actually had a source. By now, we've come to assume that her source may well have been Hunter Biden.

We didn't know about his endless problems and misbehaviors back then. We do know about them today. (For the record, President Biden has explicitly said that he wasn't Dowd's source.)

That mystery continues. In today's column, we see the return of an earlier version of Dowd. Dearest darlings, What did (and does) Michelle Obama possibly think about Hunter Biden's relationship with Beau Biden's former wife?

Also this, dearest darlings! As we negotiate this vale of tears, please riddle us this age-old point:

Dearest darlings! What's in a word?