Charles Pierce's Crush

Charles P. Pierce, erstwhile Boston sportswriter turned acid-penned political pundit, has a running bit where he ridicules David Brooks's New York Times columns mercilessly. But lately he has been finding that there is someone else worth his attention. A few days ago he had this to say about Maureen Dowd:

...we should pause and congratulate Maureen Dowd for producing what, to me, anyway, was the shining, glorious quintessence of her entire career as a political commentator, to say nothing of loosing finally every bat that's been bouncing off the walls of her peculiar belfry for the past 20 years. Combining Stuff I Read This Week with a bit of discreet gay-baiting, a dollop of material that she first tried out while smoking in the Girls Room at Our Lady, Queen Of Clairol, and a whole lot of her unique ability to project her own Daddy neuroses on every Democratic politician within a 20-mile radius — it looks like Ed Rendell gets to stand in for her sainted Irish pops these days, and, I swear, you can almost hear the phlegm ringing in the spitoon — MoDo apparently has decided that the president is no longer man enough for her.

Whew. I'm out of breath just reading that. Today he decides that in the entire decline of political punditry, Dowd is at least 50% culpable.

...the worst two things that have happened to American political journalism in the past 30 years are Maureen Dowd and Mark Halperin -- Dowd, because of her relentless, obsessive need to take her own galloping Oedipal neuroses for an outing every time there's an election...

But then he has this to say:

Dowd, at least, can write a little. Most of her imitators can't.

What a sweet talker. Charlie Pierce, like Charlie Brown has a crush on The Little Red Headed Girl. I think Chuckie is in love.