Laughing With MoDo

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and parody is the most flattering form of ridicule. It means you have spent enough time to mock the form and style of the subject. There have been a rash of very funny Faux-Dowds out there recently.

The cleverest one is a Chinese menu style one at 23/6 called the Maureen Dowd DIY: The 23/6 Dowd-O-Tron. By picking either Bubba, Hillzilla, or Obambi, you can make over a half million different Maureen Dowd columns that all sound vaguely familiar.

Not quite as clever, but breathtaking in scope is Jon Swift’s parody of the Hillary Cries column called The Crying of Maureen Dowd. He takes the column and pretty much replaces every instance of “Hillary” with “Dowd” and throws in some “poor lonely spinster” bashing for good measure. It wears thin fast, but DowdHaters find it hilarious. This sample is typical:

For years Dowd has been known for her cold, icy, cynical demeanor. Though some friends claim she is actually warm and witty in person, most of her colleagues don't see her as very likable and use another word to describe her that rhymes with "witch." But Hillary Clinton's stunning victory in the New Hampshire primary finally caused Dowd's calculatedly controlled demeanor to crack.

Finally, as reported by the Hillary Hit Team aka Media Matters, Don Imus who is back on the air after his forced re-education sabbatical used Wednesday’s column as a set-up for a joke about Bill being the first African American president:

McCORD: Did you see [New York Times columnist] Maureen Dowd this morning?

BERNARD McGUIRK (executive producer): They're running for president. Of course it's OK.

IMUS: No, I understand all that, but I mean, they're getting a bunch of heat from people.

McCORD: Mo Dowd is kind of coming --

McGUIRK: But they're winning.

McCORD: I think she -- you're right, Bernie. But she's -- she writes, Maureen Dowd of The New York Times, this morning, here's her start: "If Bill Clinton has to trash his legacy to protect his legacy, so be it. If he has to put a dagger through the heart of hope to give Hillary hope, so be it. If he has to preside in this state as the former first black president, stopping the would-be first black president, so be it."
In other words, that they'll do anything, whatever the heck is necessary.

TONY POWELL (co-host): Another example of black-on-black crime, I guess.
[laughter]

And of course Media Matters finds nothing funny about it, but nobody has ever accused them of having a sense of humor.