Blog Watch: Feeding Frenzy

Updated: 6/25/08 (correction in italics)

Nothing brings out the bloodlust better than an angry mob with torches and pitchforks. Time and time again, we have seen a certain pack mentality develop once there is some blood in the water. Once the feeding frenzy starts, the metaphors mix endlessly until the piranhas have nothing left to chew on but themselves.

As noted here, Media Matters recently brought up the issue of Maureen Dowd’s long-standing use of effeminizing words for male Democratic figures (particularly Barack Obama, and to a lesser degree, John Edwards) and masculine terms towards Hillary Clinton.

About the same time, the National Organization of Women named Dowd to their Election Media Hall of Shame and began a letter writing campaign to the New York Times. This led to a June 22nd column by Times Public Editor (read ombudsman) Clark Hoyt to investigate:

Peggy Aulisio of South Dartmouth, Mass., said, “A real review of your own stories and columns is warranted.” I think so too. And I think a fair reading suggests that The Times did a reasonably good job in its news articles. But Dowd’s columns about Clinton’s campaign were so loaded with language painting her as a 50-foot woman with a suffocating embrace, a conniving film noir dame and a victim dependent on her husband that they could easily have been listed in that Times article on sexism, right along with the comments of Chris Matthews, Mike Barnicle, Tucker Carlson or, for that matter, Kristol, who made the Hall of Shame for a comment on Fox News, not for his Times work.

The case against Maureen and her defense are summarized thusly:

“I’ve been twisting gender stereotypes around for 24 years,” Dowd responded. She said nobody had objected to her use of similar images about men over seven presidential campaigns. She often refers to Barack Obama as “Obambi” and has said he has a “feminine” management style. But the relentless nature of her gender-laden assault on Clinton — in 28 of 44 columns since Jan. 1 — left many readers with the strong feeling that an impermissible line had been crossed, even though, as Dowd noted, she is a columnist who is paid not to be objective.

Despite the defense of her putative boss Andrew Rosenthal, Hoyt finds Dowd worthy of a wrist slap:

Politically correct is never a term one would apply to Dowd’s commentary.
{snip}
Even she, I think, by assailing Clinton in gender-heavy terms in column after column, went over the top this election season.

Media Matters immediately went back on the offensive citing Dowd’s “nobody had objected” phrase and then copiously quoting notorious Dowd critics Bob Somerby, Taylor Marsh and Molly Ivors. In her defense, these are bloggers that might be below Dowd's radar. Media Matters didn't find any mainstream media sources that match those folks for sheer DowdHatred.

Piling on, bloggers have been cackling with glee at the sight of a bastion of the New York Times Op/Ed page getting her knuckles rapped with a ruler. Her is just a partial list of blogs that jumped in to take a kick at the prone body:

Ed Driscoll.com
JustOneMinute
Michael Calderone at Politico
Egregious Moderation
impolitical
broadsheet at Salon
Greg Sargent at Talking Points Memo
digby's Hullabaloo
Jossip
Conde Nast Portfolio
Gawker

And those are the tip of the iceberg. I really wish I had time to go through and select the most vituperative missives, but that may have to wait for another day. If you have seen a particularly vicious Dowd Driveby inspired by Hoyt's public flogging, let me know in the comments or at the tip-line. The only blogger I've come across to come to her defense is ATLmalcontent. It seems to show some sort of lockstep at work.

I’m sure Maureen Dowd will survive this bushwhacking. For every critic, there is a silent observer that agrees with her often pithy punditry. And it would be a shame to see Dowd start to pull her punches. After all, she told Clark:

“From the time I began writing about politics,” Dowd said, “I have always played with gender stereotypes and mined them and twisted them to force the reader to be conscious of how differently we view the sexes.” Now, she said, “you are asking me to treat Hillary differently than I’ve treated the male candidates all these years, with kid gloves.”

And that just isn’t going to happen.

No Duh

Media Matters, the liberal watchdog group aimed at exposing conservative bias and founded by several Clinton supporters, has come out with a shocking revelation:

A Media Matters for America review of Maureen Dowd's New York Times columns between January 1, 2007, and June 8, 2008, reveals that Dowd has frequently characterized this election cycle's leading Democratic candidates -- Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and former Sen. John Edwards (NC) -- using gendered language, specifically characterizing Clinton as masculine, and Obama and Edwards as feminine.

Shocking, huh? They could have read my blog and figured that out. For two entries I even went to the trouble of highlighting the effeminizing words in pink.

Their "expose" then goes on and highlights every instance where Obama is portrayed as anything less than John Wayne macho and every case of Hillary being called The Man or anything remotely masculine.

And the point of this seemingly pointless exercise? I'm not quite sure. They do note that Dowd discussed Republican candidates far less often and, except for Rudy Giuliani's penchant for dressing in women's clothes, in less gender stereotyped terms. John McCain did get called McDiva and Mike Huckabee escaped her dress-up games altogether.

I have bookmarked the article as a useful shortcut to all sorts of perceived slurs and innuendos that they were nice enough to footnote in small print by candidate and column date. Or you could just keep reading Dowd Report and we will keep you abreast of all the sexist tirades that continue to drive the humorless Media Matters mavens insane.

The Scorpion's Nature

"But some things are not forgivable. Deliberate cruelty is not forgivable! It is the one unforgivable thing, in my opinion, and the one thing of which I have never, never been guilty."

"I don't want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic. I try to give that to people. I do misrepresent things. I don't tell truths. I tell what ought to be truth."

-Blanche DuBois, A Streetcar Named Desire

Butterflies Aren’t Free
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: May 7, 2008

I’d been worried about Maureen Dowd. The stress of the campaign seems to have interrupted her Movies With Maureen® marathon, but returning to form, we have Vivien Leigh night. Maureen compares Hillary to Vivien Leigh with her tenacity to do anything to get a role.

In his memoir, the legendary Elia Kazan wrote about directing Vivien Leigh in “A Streetcar Named Desire.” While he did not think that Leigh was a great natural actress, he was impressed that she would crawl through glass to get the role right.

Hillary Clinton may not be a great natural politician, but traveling across the country on her own Bus Named Desire, she has crawled through glass to get the role right.

But Blanche DuBois from A Steetcar Named Desire just doesn’t seem Clintonesque enough to Dowd, so she goes back to the Vivien Leigh costume drama she has used on more than one occasion, Gone With The Wind:

Hillary is less Blanche than Scarlett. “Heaven help the Yankees if they capture you,” Rhett told the willful belle at the start of her rugged odyssey.

And heaven help the Democrats as they try to shake off Hillary. On top of her inane vows to obliterate Iran, OPEC and the summer gas tax, she plans “a nuclear option” during her Shermanesque march to Denver.

And just to prove that she can, Maureen comes up with yet another baffling metaphor. While the column title evokes the Goldie Hawn romantic comedy, Butterflies Are Free, the real source for the column title is this inane comparison:

The Democratic race has been a scorpion and a butterfly in a bottle. Hillary tore Barry’s wings off, and so psyched him out with her silly goading — “Enough about the speeches and the big rallies!” she cried — that he gave up his magical trump cards.

The more famous tale of a scorpion is about the frog and a scorpion crossing a river (as told here by Luis Aguilar Leon):

A scorpion asks a frog for help crossing a river. Intimidated by the scorpion's prominent stinger, the frog demurs.

``Don't be scared,'' the scorpion says. ``If something happens to you, I'll drown.''

Moved by this logic, the frog puts the scorpion on his back and wades into the river.

Half way across, the scorpion stings the frog.

The dying frog croaks, ``How could you -- you know that you'll drown?''

``It's my nature,'' gasps the sinking scorpion.

In this better example, Clinton is the scorpion that will sting Obama and force them both to drown just because that is what she does.

The more familiar Dowd themes get touched on just to keep them current. We have a reference to Obama refusing food:

Even though people at diners kept trying to fatten up Obama — he drew the line at gravy — he looked increasingly diaphanous, like anti-matter to Hillary’s matter.

Which also included the Crossword Clue Or The Week® for 'diaphanous' which is evocative of butterflies and gauzy flightiness. While not completely efeminizing Barack, it will do.

Maureen Dowd is no darling of Media Matters, the left wing Truth Squad and enforcer of political correctness. They have been on her for daring to call Clinton a vampire (here’s my take on that column and a typically rabid Media Matters over-reaction). She seems to be daring them to come after her for quoting an Indiana voter that thinks Barack is Muslim.

In a restaurant in Greenwood on Tuesday, Obama approached an older white guy who waved him off, muttering afterwards to a reporter: “I can’t stand him. He’s a Muslim. He’s not even pro-American as far as I’m concerned.”

Dowd does nothing to dispel the obvious misimpression this voter has. And really that sort of mistake is beyond correction. It is a Big Lie spread among rabid right-wingers that has taken hold in the zeitgeist. I’m just waiting for the accusations that Dowd is a foot soldier and dupe for the McCain campaign for observing that the meme is out there. Hand-wringing liberal outrage in four, three, two, wait for it…

Knocking Dowd for pointing out the weaknesses of Democratic candidates is a fool's game. It's her nature to do so, no matter who ends up drowning. Just like the scorpion.

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.