tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post4825635659077699427..comments2024-03-28T18:30:05.058-04:00Comments on the daily howler: INVENTING THE OTHER: Serena's all wrong!<b>bob somerby</b>http://www.blogger.com/profile/02963464534685954436noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-12329757988660630132013-06-27T08:07:36.065-04:002013-06-27T08:07:36.065-04:00Maybe eventually you'll have something named f...Maybe eventually you'll have something named for you too, son. Some kind of synonym for "useless troll." <br /><br />"Dicism" perhaps -- and yes that would be a "hard c."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-83595144321785149082013-06-26T22:07:09.767-04:002013-06-26T22:07:09.767-04:00MEW is a feminist. Feminists are notorious for abu...MEW is a feminist. Feminists are notorious for abusing the rape issue, distorting quotes or just making up shit about critics. MEW is no exception. She also censors critics. <br /><br />The idea that a woman could admit to using the word nigger in a private conversation 30 years ago, agree that it was wrong and still lose her job is an absurdity. Meanwhile a woman like Nancy Grace can ignore vast swaths of exculpatory evidence to wrongly insist that a group of men are guilty of gang rape and no one says boo about her getting to keep her job. That's utterly twisted. <br /><br />Al Sharpton falsely accuses people of rape and 25 years later gets his own cable show. <br /><br />God, I hate being a liberal. Hieronymus Braintreehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05303938809800287873noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-55096154264945818542013-06-26T19:50:45.121-04:002013-06-26T19:50:45.121-04:00"Should the pseudo-liberal world adopt perfec..."Should the pseudo-liberal world adopt perfection as our standard of judgment?"<br /><br />Why not, Somerby? You do. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-75991664335323797012013-06-26T19:17:18.171-04:002013-06-26T19:17:18.171-04:00Only if he's the master of his domain.Only if he's the master of his domain.Tom Cheronesnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-68929815422785158932013-06-26T17:48:49.852-04:002013-06-26T17:48:49.852-04:00Good post, Cliff. Although "Creeping Dowdism...Good post, Cliff. Although "Creeping Dowdism" and "Dowdification" are both named for Maureen Dowd, they're entirely different journalistic practices. It says something about Dowd's writing that two distinct bad ways of doing journalism bear her name.David in Calnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-52926439028265474312013-06-26T16:39:55.936-04:002013-06-26T16:39:55.936-04:00"punish those who are less pure and less subl..."punish those who are less pure and less sublime than they are"<br /><br />Great self-desciption, Bob. Don't you get lonely being the only honest and pure person in the world?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-8961485825896337282013-06-26T13:44:26.484-04:002013-06-26T13:44:26.484-04:00Creeping Dowdism is not as DinC describes it - he ...Creeping Dowdism is not as DinC describes it - he is merely describing journalistic hackery.<br /><br />Courtesy of Mark Judge:<br /><br />The best piece about Dowd’s effect on the media is still “Creeping Dowdism,” a 1992 piece written by Katherine Boo in the Washington Monthly. Boo notes that by the early 1990s Maureen Dowd’s aloof, smirking, superficial and too-cute style in the New York Times had infected the rest of the press corps. A little of this fizz was fine, Boo wrote, but it had gotten to the point where it was corroding any kind of earnestness: “Coursing through stories of [Dowd’s] sort is a fundamental doubt about the beneficial possibilities of the democratic process. It’s so phony, says the subtext, that I’m not going to try to wring out any meaning. Instead, I’m going to amuse you.” Boo then observed how the Times’ Elizabeth Kolbert concluded from watching a debate between Bill Clinton and Paul Tsongas that “one cannot help feeling somehow implicated in their dispute. Perhaps, one wonders, it is time to find them professional counseling.” Boo: “Kolbert’s metaphor is as revealing as it is patronizing. Locking in on the posturing, she actually seems to believe that what they’re arguing about — which happened to be the taxation of entitlements for the affluent as a means of cutting the deficit — is as private a matter as a marriage dispute. In this conception, and it’s not just Kolbert’s, politics is not about affixing an imprint on a country or the world. It’s a wholly self-serving, inner-directed enterprise.” <br />The endgame, Boo writes, is a press corps that resembles a high school locker room: To these bored and overexposed insiders, everybody eventually begins to seem absurd, predictable, incapable of sincerity, inspiration, or meaning — undeserving of being “taken seriously.” A game it is, then. Whoever pens the most metaphors wins. <br />What’s so dreadful about that? Well, there’s the tiresome matter of the people — what Dowd calls “the Joe Sixpack constituency.” Sure, it’s useful to them to know that politicians’ proposals for tax relief or health care or education always involve a healthy dose of calculation, absurdity, and melodrama. But — should we even have to say it? — when one of those politicians (however ridiculous) is elected, his proposals (however cynical) may have a real effect on their lives. Joe Sixpack knows this, and duller stories in the dailies outline it clearly: Polls and focus groups show that voters are very worried about the economy, the quality of public schools, and the cost of health care — and they’re frustrated by the apparent inability of politicians to get serious about those issues. Yet even when explaining the national disgust with glib politicking, the popular yearning for discussion of real issues, Dowd can’t resist sing-songing: “They say they want leaders with candor, not leaders who pander.”<br /><br />Finally, the TDH archive is replete with many, many, many, many more examples of Creeping Dowdism. Just type "creeping dowdism" or "maureen dowd" into the search box and press "enter [or its equivalent]." <br /><br /><br /> Cliff Irvingnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-82929039030945196152013-06-26T11:47:07.227-04:002013-06-26T11:47:07.227-04:00When a public figure is quoted accurately but misl...<i>When a public figure is quoted accurately but misleadingly, part of what she said is quoted, and her actual words are used. But other parts of her statement get dropped, perhaps changing her overall meaning.</i><br /><br />Maureen Dowd notoriously omitted parts of quotes in order to change their meaning. Thus <a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=dowdification" rel="nofollow">the practice has been named for her.</a> Like Thomas Crapper, Dowd is now a part of the language. David in Calnoreply@blogger.com