The most meaningful part of Maureen Dowd’s column today came at the end.
Frank Rich is off today.
That little announcement imparted more pertinent information than anything Dowd had to say, or than anything she has had to say in the entirety of this presidential contest. But I’ll share some of Dowd’s wisdom with you just to see if you know how to hold down your food.
In The Wall Street Journal, Amy Chozick wrote that Hillary supporters — who loved their heroine’s admission that she was on Weight Watchers — were put off by Obama’s svelte, zero-body-fat figure.
“He needs to put some meat on his bones,” said Diana Koenig, a 42-year-old Texas housewife. Another Clinton voter sniffed on a Yahoo message board: “I won’t vote for any beanpole guy.”
The odd thing is that Obama bears a distinct resemblance to the most cherished hero in chick-lit history. The senator is a modern incarnation of the clever, haughty, reserved and fastidious Mr. Darcy.
Like the leading man of Jane Austen and Bridget Jones, Obama can, as Austen wrote, draw “the attention of the room by his fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien. …he was looked at with great admiration for about half the evening, till his manners gave a disgust which turned the tide of his popularity; for he was discovered to be proud, to be above his company, and above being pleased.”
The master of Pemberley “had yet to learn to be laught at,” and this sometimes caused “a deeper shade of hauteur” to “overspread his features.”
I don’t think political commentary can really get any worse than this. I have an open mind, but I think this is the absolute bottom, beneath which it is not possible to go. Sure, some political commentary is dishonest or mindlessly partisan, but at least it is attempting to do work. Namely, those pieces are attempts to get someone elected. Dowd’s work attempts no work. It amounts to nothing more than a figurative grabbing of one’s own genitals which is then put on display for the rest of America to laugh at.
Dowd’s columns during the Clinton years were often brilliantly witty (although how she treated Gore was abominable). But her writing jumped the shark some time ago.
How does one put a New York Times columnist out to pasture?
Dowd’s columns are nothing but stream of consciousness
wanking highlighting Maureen’s own sexual needs.
As a result, all male candidates have to rise up to Maureen’s standards of a purple novel hero who comes in and sweeps the heroine off her feet.Anyone who doesn’t rise up this standard is not Presidential material by definition.
Females, either spouses or candidates fare even worse in Maureen’s World.
A candidate like Hillary Clinton poses a threat because of she has attracted and held a man for many years,something Maureen has failed to do.And, in this case, Hillary’s man is someone Maureen would like to party with.
Her column on Barack shows right away where her head is at.She wants the man who is already spoken for.In essence her column on Barack should be seen as an invitation to foreplay for Barack.And,if he plays along, Maureen will feel empowred and,like Circe,the greek goddess who turned her victims to stone, Maureen’s scorn can be measured in decades.
She is sick for attention.I just wish she took her charms,if there are any, and went away.
It appears you’ve got her figured out real good!
Thanks for saving me the trouble: I haven’t read her columns for years, with the odd exception now and then.
Isn’t it interesting that the only female voice the Times allows regularly on its op-ed page is one whose signature is having jettisoned its intellect, to be stranded in emotions, desire and resentment being chief among those?
not as inane as her/dowdess/, perhaps, but a wanker, nonetheless…george will is still shrill:
Obama Eloquence Fatigue…read it on an empty stomach.
Obama’s too smart. He’s too eloquent. He’s too smart.
So settle for crotchety mediocrity–vote McCain.
Newsflash to Dowd:
The election will be decided on the core issues – the fundamentals, topped by economic pain.. more foreclosures; no the housing bill won’t help the millions and there’s a 30-40% food price increase due next month. How will we pay to heat our homes this winter.
Dowd needs to get connected. The media is part of the problem.
“The election will be decided on the core issues – the fundamentals…“
Are you sure?! It sure isn’t looking that way to me. All I seem to be hearing about these days is whether Obama is too thin, or two articulate, or too aloof, or elitist. I’m not hearing ANYTHING about issues.
I miss the good old days when she was behind a pay wall and we didn’t hear about her at all. Perhaps we could simulate that?
I try to avoid her “work” only because I dislike banging my head against the wall.
Frank Rich is off today.
But Maureen is always “on”.
So Dowd is lower than nadir?
He is clearly Mr. Knightley.
it’s the one thing dowd knows how to do. it’s called “sex-panic”.
she’s not even all that good at it.
I remember one column she did a few years back that compared the Bush family to the Corleones of The Godfather fame. I liked that.
Nowadays, not so much.
I find her attractive, though.
Tabloid in one of the nation’s premier newspapers.
Bottom line: used to turn right to the editorial page to read her. At some point, began to turn right to her column to see if she’d morphed back to her sometimes-relevant former self. Now, I eventually take a quick look at the title and opening lines, just as I do with Brooks and Kristol, size it up, then move on to something worth the trouble. Rarely has there ever been a steeper plunge in relevance by a columnist, and that’s saying a lot considering the vacuous MSM.