In their own separate but not unique ways, Maureen Dowd and Judith Miller have come to symbolize for me the decline of our media,their servility to power and their willing suspension of disblief in matters concerning the powerful.That they are members of the staff of NYT makes their stories very relevant to the ways our Press operates in the age of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Libby.And sheds light on the activities of many other sycophants and wannabes.
Judith Miller,in my opinion, is not a journalist at all but a propagandist for the Netanyahu-Sharon wing of the Israeli state.Their sole aim is to discredit and demonize the Palestinians/Arabs/Muslims wherever they may be.In this quest, Miller, along with the many other propagandists masquerading as PNAC members and Bush administration honchos, has managed to plant stories with the cachet of the NYT appended to them gaining instant credibility in our national discourse.This was, of course, the reason, she was selected by Rumsfeld and Cheney to spread lurid tales about Saddam Hussein’s possession of WMD’s without any evidence. And to spread lies about any international agaencies that called her stories into question.The intimacy between her and Libby revealed in her correspondence is a dead giveaway to me of the type of journalism practised by this mole.On the one hand, we have the true believer Judith Miller eagerly awaiting her next assignment and the other, is Libby, who, in his own way, is also a true believer using his powerful position at the top of the Washington pyramid to carry out the tasks that he himself laid out in the manifesto of the PNAC along with his propagndist pals Kristol and Sagan.The lies they spouted came straight out of Uncle Leo Strauss’ playbook that they, as the Elite, were entitled to lie to the Masses ( that is We).I am sure they will continue to believe to their dying day that the lies that resulted in the deaths of countless thousands was, in Judy’s immortal words, “I was proven f—-ing right”.
Maureen Dowd is another sad case of a basically intelligent person who let her vanity and self absorption get in the way of seeing clearly the evil represented by the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal.She has obviously spent a great deal of time in acquiring the
power and prestige of being the op-ed contributor of the NYT representing the so called Woman’s point of view.Over the years, she has interpreted that to mean trivializing every serious topic with her own brand of cutesypoo double entendres, name dropping and the like.It is jarring sometimes to read her op-ed columns and see references to brand names like Prada,Fendi and the numerous shopping expeditions she has undertaken in the middle of her dissection of Al Gore’s political campaign.She completely missed the boat on Al Gore’s serious contributions to our economy,politics and technology because she was a woman on the make who wanted to be one of the cool kids wanting to be seen in the company of powerful men. That blinded her to the clear warning signs about Bush’s incompetence and his chicanery.
After having sedulously pursuing these power perks, she has now come out with a self pitying article in the NYT magazine about how men do not want to date women like her who are influential, powerful and intelligent. In that one sentence, she has betrayed the inner emptiness that has corroded her. Even after discovering that her vain pursuit of power has landed her at a dead end, her self sbsorption is total.She is unable to see that the problem is not with men or others of either sex,it lies within Maureen.
Both these women will need a spiritual rebirth away from their pursuit of power and “access” and identification with the powerless and suffering people to make them whole.They have all the advantages of money, power and recognition that they can use in better ways to serve others rather than serve power mad megalomaniacs like Cheney and Rumsfeld.Wise men over the millennia have warned us about becoming too attached to material wealth, power and ego satisfaction and these two women would be well advised to think about those words.
“All is vanity;there is nothing new under the sun”–St.Augustine.