The Drudge Attack

It's a pretty poorly kept secret that Maureen Dowd's Sunday columns are often available late on Saturday to anyone that bothers to check out the NYT website frequently enough. This sort of advanced investigative journalism led Matt Drudge of his eponymous report to issue the following scoop Saturday afternoon:

MAUREEN DOWD TRASHES 'NUTTY' PALIN
Sat Jul 04 2009 14:40:36 ET

NY TIMES Op-Ed Queen Maureen Dowd runs out of adjectives and insults while ripping away at Alaska Governor Sarah Palin in an upcoming Sunday column.

Palin is "one nutty puppy", in the mind of Dowd, newsroom sources tell the DRUDGE REPORT, with "erratic and egoistic behavior".

Dowd spits her holiday barbecue in 800 words, designed for fireworks.

"Exquisite battiness... solipsistic meltdown so strange... incoherent, breathless and prickly... Sarah's country-music melodramas... girlish burbling."

Developing...

Since the entire column was already available online (since yours truly was also able to get the post up early as well), I'm not sure what was 'developing', but it was enough to drive his minions into action.

I'm not shocked that Drudge took umbrage at a column ridiculing Palin. I'd be more shocked if Dowd hadn't opined about the resigning guv. What was amusing was how quickly Drudge's blogiteriat fell in line and spread his breathless excitement. Much of that brief item was reproduced nearly in full by the following blogs:

Chicago Ray Report (complete with some new-to-me tasteless photoshops)
The Virginian
Red Stater (my new favorite rabid wing nut)
Invincible Armor
Worcester Right
and others

Then, on the Washington Times website, Andrew Breitbart had this assessment:

Misses Dowd, Couric and Fey - Obama's Angels (featuring Joy Behar in the role of "Bosley") - used a potent mix of mockery, snobbery and vitriol to undermine Mrs. Palin's feminist bona fides.

They are what my wife calls "pad throwers," an allusion to the shower room scene in the Stephen King film "Carrie," in which the popular girls throw sanitary napkins and tampons at the film's namesake.

Maureen's one defender on the right is one Liz Trotta who also had not much good to day about Palin, but did have this to say about Dowd's column:

[Maureen Dowd's column] was a well written, funny piece. And, you know, there's one other element here, and I think most writers are afraid to bring it up. They sort of skirt the idea that this is a woman who has used her good looks and her gender to really get ahead in the political world. That's something, of course, the men don't want to admit, and certainly not the women.

(h/t to Freedom Eden for the transcript.)

One recurring theme in the counter-attacks on Dowd is that her single childless life makes her wholly incapable of empathizing with Palin who is presumably putting the needs of family first. It is most bluntly laid out by Scipio:

Poor Maureen can never admit what really drives her batty about Palin. It is so obvious. Dowd has the envy the empty wombed have for the fecund.

In their attack the messenger strategy, the wingnuts are going after Dowd's looks and age, blaming her bitterness on her lack of a spouse and kids, and calling her jealous of Palin's accomplishments. You know, the failed vice-presidential candidate that went to five colleges before getting a degree and has yet to complete a full term of an elected office.

The boomerang attack is noted Rovian tactic and by calling Dowd unhinged, they seem to be subconsciously projecting their fears about the stability of their favored (soon to be) X-GILF. Which only makes Maureen's theory that Palin is one 'nutty puppy' all that more plausible. But I think that most of the knuckle dragging defenders of Sarah are just hoping for a hair-pulling catfight because as Barney Stinson of How I Met Your Mother observes, never break up a a girlfight because you never know if they'll start kissing.