maureen dowd: what IS this woman's problem anyhoo?

Have you ever seen this little princess on C-SPAN? AWFUL.

The only explanations for her prestige are that she has blown all the right people or has polaroids of all the right people in compromising positions.

She is the ultimate wiseacre, and she's not even funny. She's not amusing. Her gimmick is old, tired, and stale as fuck. There is absolutely no excuse for running her column in a paper like the Times. She's so bad, she makes Bob Herbert look good.

FYI - I'm pretty sure she spent some time in DC as a reporter on the Hill.

She needs that job at Vogue very badly, so she can pretend like she's the Homecoming Queen forever.

modo is some sort of frankenstein's monster -- as if someone spliced together the Heathers and yer garden-variety lawng-guyland hausfrau, and set it loose on the world.

"Maybe the former supreme allied commander should stop fretting over his style"

"It's discouraging to see presidential campaigns succumb to the makeover culture"

I mean the whole thing is about how Clark is thinking about sweaters too much!! (And by extension, what anthony said: how the semiotics of television can engulf a candidate's message)

(I'm no MoDo fan, but this is thread is a little over the top, no?)

agreed -- that's part of the joke on modo. does she realize it?

i don't think she's worth thinking or talking about much. sometimes entertaining, never anything earth shattering. tracer is OTM that it's like newspapers would be in SATC's NY.

I mean the whole thing is about how Clark is thinking about sweaters too much!!

no, the whole thing is about how MODO is thinking too much that Clark is thinking too much about sweaters.

I think this is very well-written and hits Bush where it hurts, right at the "strong disciplining father" schtick that Rove and the Republicans have supposedly got down to a science.

The Politics of Self-Pity
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: March 14, 2004

WASHINGTON
Republicans relished their philosophy of personal responsibility last week with John Belushi's famous mantra: Cheeseburgercheeseburgercheeseburger.

When the House passed the "cheeseburger bill" to bar people from suing fast food joints for making them obese, Republican backers of the legislation scolded Americans, saying the fault lies not in their fries, but in themselves.

"Look in the mirror, because you're the one to blame," said F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. of Wisconsin, home of brats and beer bellies.

So it comes as something of a disappointment that the leader of the Republican Party, the man who epitomizes the conservative ideal, is playing the victim. President Bush has made the theme of his re-election campaign a whiny "not my fault."

His ads, pilloried for the crass use of the images of a flag-draped body carried from ground zero and an Arab-looking everyman with the message, "We can fight against terrorists," actually have a more fundamental problem. They try to push off blame for anything that's gone wrong during Mr. Bush's tenure on bigger forces, supposedly beyond his control.

One ad cites "an economy in recession. A stock market in decline. A dot-com boom gone bust. Then a day of tragedy. A test for all Americans."

Mr. Bush's subtext is clear: If it weren't for all these awful things that happened, most of them hangovers from the Clinton era, I definitely could have fulfilled all my promises. I'm still great, but none of my programs worked because, well, stuff happens.

It's as if his inner fat boy is complaining that a classic triple cheeseburger from Wendy's (940 calories and 56 grams of fat, 25 of them saturated, and 2,140 milligrams of sodium) jumped out of its wrapper and forced its way down his unwilling throat, topped off by a pushy Frosty (540 calories and 13 grams of fat, 8 of them saturated).

Mr. Bush has been in office over three years. It's time to start accepting some responsibility.

Republicans have a bad habit of laying down rules for other people to follow while excluding themselves. Look how they beat up Bill Clinton for messing around with a young woman, while many top Republicans were doing the very same thing.

Mr. Bush's whingeing was infectious. The very House Republicans who greased the skids for the cheeseburger bill got in a huff over John Kerry's overheard comment to some supporters in Chicago that his Republican critics were "the most crooked, you know, lying group" he'd ever seen.

These tough-guy Republicans, who rule the House with an iron fist, were suddenly squealing like schoolgirls at being victimized by big, bad John Kerry. J. Dennis Hastert, the House speaker, said Mr. Kerry would have his "upcomeance coming." Tom DeLay sulked that the public was getting "a glimpse of the real John Kerry." The Hammer was talking like a nail.

Marc Racicot, Mr. Bush's campaign chairman, accused Mr. Kerry of "unbecoming" conduct and called on him to apologize.

Oh, the poor dears. The very Bush crowd that savaged John McCain in South Carolina, that bullied and antagonized the allies we need in the real war on terror, that is spending a hundred million dollars on ads that will turn Mr. Kerry into something akin to the Boston Strangler; these guys are suddenly such delicate flowers, such big bawling babies, that they can't bear to hear Mr. Kerry speak of them harshly.

Mr. Bush is not believable in the victim's role. He and Dick Cheney have audaciously imposed their will on Washington and the world.

We are not yet sure who is behind the horrendous bombings in Spain, but they have already underscored how vulnerable our trains and subways are. And they have reminded us that the administration diverted resources from the war on terror and the search for Osama to settle old scores in Iraq, building a case for war with hyped and phony claims on weapons.

In an interview with The Guardian, the weapons sleuth David Kay said it's time for Mr. Bush to take personal responsibility: "It's about confronting and coming clean with the American people. . . . He should say: `We were mistaken and I am determined to find out why.' "

In other words, Mr. Bush, look in the mirror.   

as i said at the beginning, why does the times waste precious ink printing this vapid twit's columns?

I'm starting to think that Maureen Dowd turned you guys down for the prom.

Op-Eds are supposed to be whatever the editor wants to run. So if the Times wants to keep running Dowd--who, as I noted earlier, won a Pulitzer during Clinton's reign of terror--then that's their perogative. In that context, it would seem a little dumb for a paper to cut loose a columnist who was awarded arguably the highest award available to someone in her role.

Actually, I don't care how Dowd arrives at her opinions--her biggest problem these days is the Internet, which spreads out opinions and column ideas much faster than she can get them to print. The chattering class used to have a monopoly on publication, but that's been gratefully wiped out by things like blogs. Dowd was fresh to the masses in 1994 but these days her schtick (and style, perhaps) has been co-opted by dozens of others on the Web, and her only resort is probably original reporting--something that she doesn't seem to have much of anymore.

I'm starting to think that Maureen Dowd never had a date to the prom. And liked it that way.

I don't know. That's certainly not what Krugman, Friedman and Kristof do. But she does have a different role.

I'm starting to think that Maureen Dowd turned you guys down for the prom.

I don't have that much invested in Dowd; I don't read her anymore, the same way I no longer give David Brooks my time. I don't feel rejected by her, but I do nurse some bitterness that she played a key role in bringing down Dean (which maybe would have happened anyway and maybe was a good thing). But the phrasing is amusing, because many feel that she was turned down for the prom - by Michael Douglas, who left her for Catherine Zeta-Jones - and that this was the impetus behind her bizarre fixation on Judy Dean, who clearly has a great marriage.

An interesting perspective on her role at the Times from former New York Magazine media reporter (and now Vanity Fair columnist and contributing editor) Michael Wolff.

Wolff, incidentally, won a National Magazine Award in 2002.

the woman hasn't had an original thought since forever. she's useful as a weathervane on what the punditariat are thinking (though you can figure that out just as easily by watching the sunday morning blab-a-thons [if you have a strong enough stomach]) and little else.

and oh yeah, re this "being turned down for the prom" -- it wasn't me that revived this thread this time round.

http://i24.tinypic.com/2s1qgsj.jpg

By MAUREEN DOWD

Published: June 29, 2008

Go to Columnist Page »

OBAMA'S TROUBLING INTERNET FUND RAISING

Certainly the most interesting and potentially devastating phone call I
have received during this election cycle came this week from one of the
Obama's campaign internet geeks. These are the staffers who devised Obama's
internet fund raising campaign which raised in the neighborhood of $200
million so far. That is more then twice the total funds raised by any
candidate in history - and this was all from the internet campaign.

What I learned from this insider was shocking but I guess we shouldn't be
surprised that when it comes to fund raising there simply are no rules that
can't be broken and no ethics that prevail.

Obama's internet campaign started out innocently enough with basic e-mail
networking , lists saved from previous party campaigns and from supporters
who visited any of the Obama campaign web sites.

Small contributions came in from these sources and the internet campaign
staff were more than pleased by the results.

Then, about two months into the campaign the daily contribution intake
multiplied. Where was it coming from? One of the web site security
monitors began to notice the bulk of the contributions were clearly coming
in from overseas internet service providers and at the rate and frequency of
transmission it was clear these donations were "programmed" by a very
sophisticated user.

While the security people were not able to track most of the sources due
to firewalls and other blocking devices put on these contributions they were
able to collate the number of contributions that were coming in seemingly
from individuals but the funds were from only a few credit card accounts and
bank electronic funds transfers. The internet service providers (ISP) they
were able to trace were from Saudi Arabia, Iran, and other Middle Eastern
countries. One of the banks used for fund transfers was also located in
Saudi Arabia.

Another concentrated group of donations was traced to a Chinese ISP with a
similar pattern of limited credit card charges.

It became clear that these donations were very likely coming from sources
other than American voters. This was discussed at length within the
campaign and the decision was made that none of these donations violated
campaign financing laws.

It was also decided that it was not the responsibility of the campaign to
audit these millions of contributions as to the actual source (specific
credit card number or bank transfer account numbers) to insure that none of
these internet contributors exceeded the legal maximum donation on a
cumulative basis of many small donations. They also found the record
keeping was not complete enough to do it anyway.

This is a shocking revelation.

We have been concerned about the legality of "bundling" contributions
after the recent exposure of illegal bundlers but now it appears we may have
an even greater problem.

I guess we should have been somewhat suspicious when the numbers started
to come out. We were told (no proof offered) that the Obama internet
contributions were from $10.00 to $25.00 or so.

If the $200,000,000 is right, and the average contribution was $15.00,
that would mean over 13 million individuals made contributions? That would
also be 13 million contributions would need to be processed. How did all
that happen?

I believe the Obama campaign's internet fund raising needs a serious, in
depth investigation and audit. It also appears the whole question of
internet fund raising needs investigation by the legislature and perhaps new
laws to insure it complies not only with the letter of these laws but the
spirit as well.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/donations.asp

also, i don't understand why you continue to repost these ridiculous screeds that you know are wrong without comment; it does nothing but give them yet another undeserved airing where some gullible dumbfuck might run across them and believe them

yes, and what, how dare you not tell the truth on the internets

won't anyone think of the gullible dumbfucks

ilx: home of gullible dumbfucks

come on, maudow doesn't even sound like that. n she writes about celibate priests matchmaking and all other kinds o shit

if people turnin, they turnin

May all your futures be pleasant ones
Not like our present ones
Drink, l'chaim, to life
To life, l'chaim

ilx: home of gullible dumbfucks

27 new "please delete abusive post" threads in Mod Req by midnight.

as a gullible dumbfuck i have the right of deletion for this post directed at me

Nasty stuff. Saudi Arabia and China are just thrown in without special emphasis, but are obviously the poisoned pill you are meant to swallow.

This dirty trick is a lot more subtle than the false madrassa story. Whoever did it has a pretty good idea of how to plant a really flourishing false rumor.

Hatching one takes one or a few people a few days to brainstorm and refine. Squashing it takes a much larger effort and, like cockroaches, you can never kill them all. This one will almost certainly hurt Obama among many hundreds of thousands of voters.

Dowd is like a bitchier version of Custos.

haaaaa omg holy shit

Nicole's description just above = lols, but I just stumbled across an equally worthy one due to this sequence of events:

A Dowd column.

Ta-Nehisi Coates's first response.

His second response, apologizing for having 'missed the tongue squarely positioned in Maureen Dowd's cheek.'

One of his commenters in response to his second post:

Irony should be a stiletto -- in Dowd's hands it's more like a lobster mallet.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/opinion/12dowd.html

But Sarah Palin can come across as utterly unready to lead the world — or even find the world on a map — and that doesn't reflect poorly on the rest of us.

It only means that she doesn't have enough mind grapes or thoughtsicles, as Tracy Morgan refers to brain droppings on "30 Rock," to be president soon.

a screaming lobster mallet?

...of love

don't know if I've ever read her, but I saw her on BBC on election night, and she was so tasty !!!

she's best with a bit of drawn butter, IMHO

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090518/ap_on_re_us/us_times_dowd

She claims she never read Marshall's post last week and had heard the line from a friend who did not mention reading it in Marshall's blog.

Uh, yeah.

So she'd willingly plagiarize her friend as well?

The early days of Dowd, reporter

Ok, do i want to actually read a column titled "The Tortured Mechanics of Eroticism," or should i just use that as a new display name?

hehe

it's about corsets, p. informative by modo stds.

surprised nobody has said "i'd let her torture my mechanics of eroticism" yet

really, you are? really? now that you've typed it out?

More than surprised. "Flabbergasted."

Her latest screw-up re the NYC mayoral race made Bill de Blasio's wife sound like she was calling Christine Quinn a childless, uncaring lesbian.

http://www.salon.com/2013/08/22/please_fire_maureen_dowd_or_get_her_a_fact_checker/

Jake Silverstein ‏@jakesilverstein 10m
Thrilled to announce that the incomparable @NYTimesDowd is joining the @NYTmag as a staff writer. Drug test not required.

Brian Stelter ‏@brianstelter 1m
Keeps Sunday op-ed column RT @DylanByers: Maureen Dowd joins N.Y. Times Magazine http://politi.co/1oCQArG

our long national nightmare has been reduced to one column a week

will bring new meaning to the term "longread"

for posterity

It is a fable conjured up in several classic movies: A magnetic, libidinous visitor shows up and insinuates himself into the lives of a bourgeois family. The free spirit leaves, but only after transforming the hidebound family, so that none of them can see themselves the same way again. That is the profound metamorphosis Trump has wrought on the race. The Don Rickles of reality shows is weirdly bringing some reality to the presidential patty-cake. The Donald's strange pompadour and Hillary's strange server have eclipsed all the usual primary permutations.

that paragraph convinces me that Dowd uses an algorithm to generate her columns; plug in outdated pop culture references plus current political issues, names and buzz cliches, run the script and you get a column connecting the topic of the day to the Clintons.

Yeah, but now I kinda want to see a remake of Teorema starring James Deen wearing a Donald Trump wig.

"strange server"?

dug yesterday's column

Making the case against Hillary, (Obama) said (in 2008) that America deserved more than triangulating and poll-driven positions and “the same old Washington textbook campaign,” more than a candidate answering questions whatever way she thought would be popular and “trying to sound or vote like Republicans, when it comes to national security issues.”

What about principles, he asked, what about a higher purpose?

Obama was not surrounded by the mercenary likes of David Brock and Dick Morris but true believers like David Axelrod.

The Clintons, infuriated by the raft of Democrats who deserted them during the 2008 campaign, sneered at Obama’s hope and change message. Hillary protested, “We don’t need to be raising the false hopes of our country.” Bill groused, “This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen.”

Voters, however, were starved for the fairy tale. For many, the line in an Obama ad rang true: “Hillary Clinton. She’ll say anything and change nothing. It’s time to turn the page.”

Evidently, President Obama folded the corner of that page over so he could go back to it later. Remarkably, he bought us our return ticket to the past, rolling out the red carpet for the restoration of the Clinton blurred-lines White House....

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/31/opinion/sunday/thanks-obama.html

obv mostly reminders, but Bubba in the solar system of OTM

wow dude

<3 dispatching plouffie to break the news to uncle joe

imagining joe & hrc split the Savage Mules vote and Sanders waltzes through

it's almost as though politicians are ambitious and self-interested

almost

she's so mediocre that she can't rise to the level of bad

true believers

folded the corner of that page

return ticket to the past

rolling out the red carpet

blurred-lines White House

I'm sure I missed some.

there is something really retro about maureen dowd. she's like the normcore of columnists.

Poppy Bush used to find her funny, which tells me everything.

she is like, america's cool aunt. as a kid, her jokes at thanksgiving seemed sophisticated and cool, like a portal into another, less humdrum world than the one you were familiar with. but looking back, as an adult, it's clear that she was a poseur in the end.

"in the end"

Reading her and colleague William Safire's attempts at bon mots and sophisticated banter was like watching old men trying to pee into the urinal.

still, the Clintons are subhuman garbage and i don't give a shit about style in political writing

xo

that was obvious from the revive

"subhuman garbage"

thanks for staying out of the election thread morbs, my blood pressure thanks you.

fuck you, that thread is for you and your fellow tourettesians

I was happy to see my friend's teenage son posted her 'HRC is the perfect Republican nominee' column on FB the other day, STYLE be damned

'scaling wokeback mountain'

her writing style is overwrought in a way seldom seen in this era, as if in crafting prose she's invented as version of 'wit' that has neither humor nor insight

no clue why you'd use a word like 'mandarins' to refer to people with perceived power in 2019, but she did it recently

she was best buds w/ Poppy Bush so she sure can pick em

plus using Rahm Satan Emanuel as her primary source this week

credit where credit is due. this opening was good:

My favorite “Twilight Zone” episode is the one where aliens land and, in a sign of their peaceful intentions, give world leaders a book. Government cryptographers work to translate the alien language. They decipher the title — “To Serve Man” — and that’s reassuring, so interplanetary shuttles are set up.

But as the cryptographers proceed, they realize — too late — that it’s a cookbook.

That, dear reader, is the story of OpenAI.

Unless you haven't seen that episode before. Maybe a spoiler alert, Mo?