Your You're So Sony

Recently North Korean hackers, in retaliation for unleashing another James Franco/Seth Rogen movie on us, released hundreds of e-mails from Sony executives hoping to humiliate and embarrass them.

One set with Maureen Dowd does just that, but not in the way one would expect. The e-mails show that Dowd gave secret pre-publication approval to Sony co-chair Amy Pascal's husband Bernard Weinraub. This resulted in a round robin of mutual admiration which is supposed to show how cozy Dowd is with her column subjects (like that is a shocker).

What it really shows is what a passive-aggressive grammar Nazi she is. Or what an illiterate buffoon Pascal is in that she continues to make the same mistake after Dowd corrects her once.

After the column was published later that night, Pascal emailed Dowd, saying “I THOUGHT THE STORY WAS GREAT I HOPE YOUR HAPPY ”

Dowd responded: “I hope you’re happy! Thanks for helping. Let’s do another.” Pascal replied, “Your my favorite person so yes” and Dowd finished the conversation with “you’re mine! you’re amazing” (emphasis added)

The second and third corrections are just to twist the knife. Smugness, your name is Maureen.

Dowd And Donaghy

On March 24, 2014, Maureen Dowd trekked all the way from her Georgetown brownstone to the Kennedy Center to deliver the 27th Annual Nancy Hanks Lecture on Arts and Public Policy. What made it newsworthy was that she was joined by old friend Alec Baldwin, aka 30 Rock media mogul Jack Donaghy. This was one of Baldwin's first public appearances since publicly avowing to never make public appearances again. Or as Washington Post's Reliable Sources put it:

When the press releases went out the special instructions were crystal clear: “Please note that Alec Baldwin will not be taking any questions from the media. However, he is available for photos.” Then there was the reminder a week later, “Again, just want to let you know that Alec Baldwin is available for photo opportunities but he will not be taking any questions.”
And just in case some poor unfortunate scribe didn’t get the hint, at the actual reception we were reminded yet again. Okay, got it. Baldwin, who famously gave his “public life” the kiss off in an epic New York magazine “as told to” in February, doesn’t do interviews. Alright already.

But he does pose for photos including this one:



And the dead trees edition of WaPo has this photo of Alec with the lady of the hour:

The full event with Dowd's speech can be seen here (Baldwin's introduction as the Y-Chromosome starts at about minute 19):



And here is another photo from the event, this one with Alec and Maureen standing with Robert Lynch, CEO, Americans for the Arts:

But once again my invitation to her event got lost in the mail. I'm beginning to wonder if she is trying to avoid me.