It’s hard to believe that the website Dowd Report exists, especially when part of their mission statement is to “[g]et featured in a mainstream media report about obsequious fansites that border on or even cross the line dividing genuine fandom and creepy stalkerhood.” Back in 2008, the site actually dedicated a column to a defense of Maureen Dowd’s role in the Earth Tones Al debacle. It’s hilarious to read, as they miss the entire point of the criticism. The problem with Dowd’s coverage of the 2000 campaign wasn’t that she originated the Naomi Wolf story but that she perpetuated and reinforced it. She acted like it was more important that we know Al Gore was a bad campaigner than it was for us to know why the outcome of the election mattered. Yet, as soon as Dowd was confronted with the actual Bush-Cheney administration she acted liked she was horrified. Maybe she should have been able to predict the coming disaster rather than act like a fashion columnist.
Speaking of which, when will Dowd compare Romney’s robotic nature to Gore’s? Or ask if he’s a humanoid?
But Booman, Romney is a BUSINESSMAN! A BUSINESSMAN!
That comment was supposed to include this YouTube video, but didn’t show up right. Or maybe it did, depending on your browser situation. It didn’t for me at first but now it works. Odd.
But seriously, this is the normal propaganda formula whenever an election comes around. You call the Democrat Man effeminate. It always happens and is usually works.
To me it’s pretty hard to paint Obama as a girly-girl though. Of course, they will also try to paint him as the “Angry Black Man” at the same time. How’s that for irony?
But Mitt Romney is a BUSINESSMAN! A BUSINESSMAN! (See my other comment with YouTube video.) That clip always comes to mind every time I see Mitt! Romney.
No, the call white male Democrats effeminate. They usually stop short of crude and homophobic caricatures, but no sort of boundary of decency exits for this President. That’s why you have the crude attacks mostly from white liberals questioning his “manhood”. White men are painted as effeminate. Black men are completely emasculated.
It’s hard to believe Maureen Dowd exists. Let alone that she has a job. Let alone what her job is.
And I would imagine that any big fan of Dowd is also a big fan of missing the point.
She is just as necessary to the Modern Media Establishment as Mark Halperin is, considering what class of people pays to keep the Modern Media Establishment going. We’re stuck with her until regular working class people matter again.
and into the present.
What you’re really upset about is that she goes around saying that the emperor has no clothes.
you’re filling the same role as Dowd. You’re both Neros.
Maureen Dowd is probably THE classic example of what Jay Rosen calls “savviness”. The funny thing about being “savvy” in the American journalistic sense is that it has nothing to do with actually being right. It has to do with creating the impression that one knows something that most people don’t know, something that only “savvy” people know.
Probably the only group of people in the US who really think in terms of savviness are the Village people of our nation’s capital. Unfortunately, this is the audience these journalists are writing for. Which is hardly surprising, since they have spent the best years of their lives working to be admitted as full-fledged members of the Village of Savvy.
In reality, all other Americans don’t know, or haven’t thought of these things as being important, for the simple reason that they are not important. Savvy journalists seek out particular kinds of triviality that help to create this image of savviness. Of course these are almost always irrelevant and distract attention from anything important. Hence it’s really not surprising that savvy journalists rarely understand what’s going on. I would think Maureen Dowd really was horrified with the actual Bush-Cheney administration. I doubt she’d ever really thought about what it might be like. That’s not what she’s paid for.
The illusion of inside knowledge through novelistic fictional detail = savviness?
Something like that. I was actually thinking that the savvy journalist imagines him/herself as a fictional journalist in a nonexistent novel and then. on any given topic. writes what he/she imagines that super-savvy fictional journalist would write. Not so much on the basis of any special knowledge, but on the basis of a privileged insight, or savviness. In the novel, of course, they would always turn out to be right. So they probably don’t even care, or maybe even notice, that in reality they’re almost always wrong.
Still wasting bandwidth on Dowd, I see. And on her fan sites. Some folks just live too close to New York.
You should dip into some other publications occasionally, like the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Greenville (SC) News-Peidmont, the Birmingham News, the Nashville Tennesseean, the Jackson (MS) Clarion-Ledger, the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the Dallas Morning News and….and ignore the syndicated columnists (except maybe to note who they carry).
Dowd might give Rush Limbaugh and other conservative talkers ideas for lines of attack, but she herself does not set the theme.
And you might notice that folks like Dowd are not thrilled by any Southerner who violates the ignorant hick stereotype. Which is why they loved LBJ. And W. And now Rick Perry. And Jesse Helms. What couture does Mr. GoodHair wear? …crickets.