Village Accountability

So, Maureen Dowd's plagiarism, Jack Shafer? Hey, she's handled it better than other plagiarists!

How about you, Howard Kurtz? Meh. She could have rewritten the sentence, so no biggie!

Torture, David Ignatius? We wouldn't have used it if it didn't work!

Nancy Pelosi didn't tell us about a classified briefing, and the CIA won't vouch for the accuracy of the documents showing the schedule of briefings, and the briefing notes "won't be crystal clear as to exactly what went on in the briefing", and the most anal retentive man in the history of Congress backs her up?

Burn her, the witch.

Whoops

We all know that Maureen Dowd has been writing one story over and over again for the last decade - Democrats are feminized losers - so I suppose that her blatant plagiarism of Josh Marshall represents an attempt at being original.

"More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when the Bush crowd was looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/opinion/17dowd.html?_r=1

"More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when we were looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq."

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/05/bubbling.php

I welcome her efforts to branch out (she actually calls for a full investigation of the torture regime in this op-ed). If she wrote it, we'd actually have a decent column here, aside from the Dowd-esque characterization of Nancy Pelosi as a "stammering child." Anyway, if you're going to steal, you could do worse than Josh Marshall. It would be fun to see Dowd behind a phalanx of flags answering questions about this incident, surely in the manner of a stammering child herself. But of course that would assume a certain level of media accountability.

Setting back Feminism Since 1983

I think there's a good article in this profile of Tina Fey by Maureen Dowd, but it's nowhere to be found on the page. Instead, I would rather read Fey's reaction to this mental patient with a notepad bursting into her house, demanding a cocktail (there are references to the alcohol they're drinking throughout) and asking questions almost entirely confined to her looks, her weight, her mostly unnoticeable scar, her love life, who she flirts with, and whether she was cool in high school. The questions reveal a series of insecurities so transparently that it reads like a psychiatric evaluation. I agree with Amanda that Fey comes off well regardless, but what I'd really like to hear from her is "Yeah, what the hell was that, a celebrity profile by Freud?"

While reading it, I thought back to the fact that there was a time when Dowd did sports reporting at the late Washington Star, worked the metro desk at the New York Times, and then served as a Washington correspondent. Was she probing key Congressmen about their sex lives as a corollary to the debate over the Clean Air Act?

Dowdification

It's high time that Maureen Dowd got slammed for her juvenile approach to politics, and her response was priceless:

“I’ve been twisting gender stereotypes around for 24 years,” Dowd responded. She said nobody had objected to her use of similar images about men over seven presidential campaigns. She often refers to Barack Obama as “Obambi” and has said he has a “feminine” management style. But the relentless nature of her gender-laden assault on Clinton — in 28 of 44 columns since Jan. 1 — left many readers with the strong feeling that an impermissible line had been crossed, even though, as Dowd noted, she is a columnist who is paid not to be objective [...]

“From the time I began writing about politics,” Dowd said, “I have always played with gender stereotypes and mined them and twisted them to force the reader to be conscious of how differently we view the sexes.” Now, she said, “you are asking me to treat Hillary differently than I’ve treated the male candidates all these years, with kid gloves.”

Aulisio, the reader who wanted a review of Times coverage, asked if a man could have gotten away with writing what Dowd wrote. Rosenthal said that if the man had written everything Dowd had written over the years and established himself as a sardonic commentator on the sexes, “I’d say the answer is yes.”

Of course, there is no such man, and I do not think another one could have used Dowd’s language. Even she, I think, by assailing Clinton in gender-heavy terms in column after column, went over the top this election season.

It's simply not true that "nobody" had objected. Here's conscientious objector number one. And excusing your own ridiculous behavior by saying that "why, I also feminized and degraded Democratic MEN for a long time too!" is barely even worth a response. Dowd, who ought to be writing Harlequin romances and summer paperbacks instead of having any impact on the American political scene, is absolutely toxic to intelligent thought in this country. She's very useful to those who seek to divide every election, who want a relentless focus on psychobabble and stereotypes instead of solutions and answers. To anyone with a brain she is a cancer.

It took putting an actual female in the race to make anyone notice just how offensive her sexist caricatures really were. But they've always been offensive --- and they've always been right in lock step with that stupid "mommy party/daddy party" crapola the wingnuts put to good use whenever they want to make Democrats look weak [...]

Again, the question isn't whether she should have treated Clinton any differently. It's that her entire worldview is toxic, both culturally and politically. She uses explicitly sexist and homophobic imagery that favors traditional authoritarian leadership to explain politics. She gets away with it because she has a rapier wit and is a physically beautiful person, thus insulating herself from the kind of criticism others would receive for writing this crud. But in truth she's a walking anachronism, more like a character in Mad Men than a modern sophisticate.

She is considered by many to be the top political columnist in the country (and her columns are often the most emailed articles in the Times.) Certainly she is Village Royalty. And that is undoubtedly one reason why people like Chris Matthews and Tucker Carlson felt that it was perfectly acceptable to say the things they said during this campaign. She's their misogymuse.

I'm not sure that Dowd has the same cachet among the public anymore, but entering the D.C. Village is like going to that small town where you flip on the radio and they're playing "new music from a band called The Who." Their antiquated worldview and anachronistic sense of who's important and vital is crippling democracy at the knees. And of course in many ways that's the goal.

MoDo Ju-Jitsu

Maureen Dowd today does a little behind-the-back move that you might not notice if you're as dumb as she thinks you are. She kicks off her column by explaining how salt-of-the-earth and chip-off-the-old-block she is, lest you have any false assumptions that a longtime New York Times op-edder would be anything but the common man (or woman).

I’m not bitter.

I’m not writing this just because I grew up in a house with a gun, a strong Catholic faith, an immigrant father, brothers with anti-illegal immigrant sentiments and a passion for bowling. (My bowling trophy was one of my most cherished possessions.)

My family morphed from Kennedy Democrats into Reagan Republicans not because they were angry, but because they felt more comfortable with conservative values. Members of my clan sometimes were overly cloistered. But they weren’t bitter; they were bonding.

They went to church every Sunday because it was part of their identity, not because they needed a security blanket.

See, she's jus' folks, as evidenced by the upbringing in that hick town known as Washington, DC. And the 30 years in journalism including 15 scouring on the cocktail weenie circuit while on the Times' editorial page hasn't changed her.

Now, watch for the behind-the-back move:

Obama did not grow up in cosseted circumstances. “Now when is the last time you’ve seen a president of the United States who just paid off his loan debt?” Michelle Obama asked Tuesday at Haverford College, referring to Barack’s student loans while speaking in the shadow of the mansions depicted in “The Philadelphia Story.”

But his exclusive Hawaiian prep school and years in the Ivy League made him a charter member of the elite, along with the academic experts he loves to have in the room.

See, Obama was changed, fundamentally, by his ascendancy to the higher climes of American life, and now he's an elitist who looks down on the rabble.

This, of course, has most certainly not happened to Maureen Dowd. Just other people who have the exact same story as she does.

Even on her own trivial, willfully stupid level, Dowd can't keep the story straight.

(Also, see Molly Ivors. This whole "Obama talks to Iowans about arugula, heh" meme has come right out of the fever swamps, and nobody bothers to mention that he was talking to arugula farmers, which is just one of the splendid points Molly I. makes, and you shouldn't miss it, especially for the "insufferably shallow superannuated cheerleader" crack.)

The Heathers Are Back

Yes, Maureen Dowd's ridiculous column chastising John Edwards for getting a haircut only makes sense in her world, where politics is like junior high school and she's the catty chick at the cool lunch table.

But I can't help but wonder if the American public, after suffering through a President who launches unnecessary wars, treats the Congress with contempt, asserts executive powers akin to kinghood and generally can be ranked right at the bottom of all chief executives in our history, has had enough with this kind of infantilizing, character-based, content-less media. John Edwards can get a $3,000 haircut with his own money as long as he doesn't spy on Americans without a warrant and send detainees to secret off-the-books prisons where they spend eternity in legal limbo.

I mean, this is absolutely true:

The idea that the Democrat is weak, effeminate, and just plain girly is more than just the attack the Republicans will use against Edwards, it's the attack they have used against every Democratic presidential candidate since 1968. It is the essence of Republican presidential politics, the plea to white men that if they vote Democratic, people might think they're light in the loafers. And it works because of the enthusiastic cooperation of commentators like Maureen Dowd, queen of the Heathers, casting her lighting bolts of snide psycho-sexual humiliation down on anyone who fails to win her favor. Quite worthy of the Times op-ed page, the most valuable piece of real estate in the pundit universe, don't you think?

But in a country where everyone knows that this government has driven us into a ditch, I wonder if haircuts are really going to matter to John and Jane Public. Maybe I'm dismissing the effectiveness of this demonization by feminization tactic, ably hyped by Ms. Dowd. But I think 2008 will be a campaign where issues matter. Of course, people will have to shut off the teevee for that to happen.

All Apologies

There's this ritual in Presidential politics of the gaffe, or hiring of someone untoward, followed by outrage and recrimination, followed by apology or firing. It's getting to be depressingly routine:

Republican presidential candidate Duncan Hunter has dropped two top South Carolina advisers a week after they were appointed because of their inflammatory statements about immigrants and religious minorities.

Hunter spokesman Roy Tyler confirmed Thursday that former GOP lieutenant governor candidate Henry Jordan and Horry County Auditor Lois Eargle would no longer serve as campaign co-chairs.

Eargle said the California congressman's decision was disappointing.

"I am so disgusted with politicians who do not have the backbone to stand up for the concerns of the American people," Eargle said in a statement provided to The Associated Press.

Does anyone credibly believe that Duncan Hunter was duped into hiring these two xenophobes in the first place? Of course not.

Then there's the case of the inconvenient word:

Republican Sen. John McCain announced his candidacy for president during a TV appearance, and then announced he will announce his candidacy again next month [...]

Discussing the war with Letterman, McCain repeated his assertion that U.S. troops must remain in Iraq rather than withdrawing early even though the war has been mismanaged.

"Americans are very frustrated, and they have every right to be," McCain said. "We've wasted a lot of our most precious treasure, which is American lives."

In February, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama described the lives of troops in Iraq as having been "wasted" but then apologized a day later for making what he called "a slip of the tongue" that he said was not meant to diminish their sacrifice.

There was the beating of chests from the DNC, followed by a McCain apology. But aside from the facts that everyone in the insanepsphere, who were so riled up about Obama's exact same comment, said nothing about McCain's, has any harm been done here? Whether you use the word "waste" or "sacrifice" (and I would say "waste" is more accurate), doesn't anybody NOT know what you're actually saying?

These bubbles of outrage are very easy for the press to cover and dissect. No reporting is required, just people spitballing back and forth about what the candidate should do and who won what round and will the candidate condemn the comments of such and such. It's a huge game of kabuki and it has nothing to do with the issues people actually need to hear. In some cases the press goes and creates the controversy they so desperately want to see (h/t FDL).

In an article for the March 5 edition of Newsweek about Maureen Dowd's controversial February 21 New York Times interview (subscription required) with Hollywood mogul David Geffen, a longtime donor to former President Bill Clinton and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) who is supporting Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, Evan Thomas reported that Dowd told the magazine, in Thomas' words, that during her interview with Geffen, "Geffen did not seem out to get the Clintons," adding: "Dowd says Geffen was initially reluctant to be interviewed for her column. … Dowd says she was the one who brought up questions about Bill Clinton's past as a campaign issue."

I'm a little ashamed that the blogosphere seems to be following the herd on this one, although the spikes in posts that Ezra sees could be attributed to people like me yelling about the meaninglessness of these fake controversies. I just wish we didn't have to go through this ritual of self-flagellation and public disavowal every day, and that we could actually weigh policy matters. And at any rate I think it's far too early to begin with.