Blog Watch: Is MoDo Liberal?

With all the changes going on with the Jericho blasting of Times Select, the powers that be at the New York Times have been spinning it as best they could. The Times of course always get pillared for being THE Liberal Media and the stable of columnists is always trotted out as Exhibit A.

In an NYT interview Andrew Rosenthal, the dynastic scion of the late Abe "I'm Writing as Bad as I can" Rosenthal, claims not to be able to detect bias in Maureen Dowd’s writing:

I would defy anyone to label Maureen Dowd by party affiliation or ideology. I've known her and worked closely with her for 20 years and I can't tell you the answer to either one.

This eye-rollingly oblivious assessment has been seized upon by those to the right of the dittoheads as further proof of the inherent pinko-ness of the Times.

Mark Finkelstein of Newsbusters (self-described as “Exposing and Combatting Liberal Media Bias” as if it were an IED on the Information Superhighway) calls Rosenthal a drooling idiot in so many words:

What would be worse: that when Times editorial page editor Rosenthal claims not to know Maureen Dowd's politics he's not being honest -- or that he is?

Hoystory picks up on that kernel of a talking point and runs with it:

Is he serious? Maureen Dowd is a left wing liberal who hasn’t voted for a Republican for any elected office, from dog catcher on up, for her entire adult life.

I defy Maureen Dowd to prove me wrong. I’ve read, shudder, her columns for a handful of years and can tell you that.

Who does Rosenthal thinks buys that — on the left or the right?

Talk about treating your readers like complete morons. And some people wonder why the business is going in the tank.

If we can get one more blogger in the echo chamber, Rush Limbaugh might pick up on this groaner.

To put this tempest in a teabag to rest, let’s go to the Liberal Media itself. A study of North Carolina newspapers revealed that they ran more conservative editorials than liberal or progressive ones. Chad Killebrew, the executive editor of The Dispatch (a member of the New York Times Regional Media Group), examines the results and observes:

While some readers might disagree into which camp a certain columnist falls, I think for most writers it's rather obvious. No one will accuse Cal Thomas, for example, of being liberal or Maureen Dowd of being conservative.

Not only does he feel MoDo is liberal, he singles her out as the breed standard.

She is many other things such as wickedly funny, sharply sarcastic, and bitterly vicious, but she is also clearly liberal. Now that we have solved that conundrum I can move on to other important issues of the day like establishing ursine scatological habits and determining papal religious affiliations.

The Big Dance

The Nepotism Tango
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: September 30, 2007

The tango is a highly eroticized dance step with its origins in the cowboy culture of South America. Nepotism is the practice of awarding relatives with jobs regardless of their qualifications.

Politics is often described as a horse race. Perhaps comparing it to a dance contest is a better metaphor since it is a combination of skill and appearance that determines the winner.

Maybe it’s fitting that a woman who first sashayed into the national consciousness with an equation — “two for the price of one” — may have her fate determined by the arithmetic of dynasty.

Personally, I don’t need the mental image of Hillary sashaying anywhere, let alone into the nations consciousness. While sashay usually means “To strut or flounce in a showy manner” it also has a specific dancing connotation which is “A figure in square dancing in which partners circle each other by taking sideways steps.” That narrower meaning is ripe for all sorts of metaphorical interpretation.

And Hillary isn't the only one doing some circle stepping:

Obama, tiptoeing gingerly around Hillary...

That is tiptoeing as in through the tulips with Tiny Tim. And we all know what gingerly means.

Not only does Hillary strut and sidestep, she is getting dance advice from writer Bill Sammon:

The Texas president has been sending the New York senator messages to “maintain some political wiggle room in your campaign rhetoric about Iraq,” as Mr. Sammon puts it.

The Texas/New York contrast there is not accidental as it gets repeated later:

Without nepotism, Hillary would be running for the president of Vassar. But then, without nepotism, W. would be pumping gas in Midland — and not out of the ground.

Vassar, of course, being the very prestigious formerly all-female sister school to Hillary’s alma mater Wellesley. And Midland is the Texas outpost of the Bush dynasty where Bush the Younger learned how to lose money in the oil business at his daddy’s knee.

It’s all MoDo’s way of saying that when it comes to grace and elegance, Hillary is Strictly Ballroom and Dubya is nothing but Texas Two-Step.

Greg Gutfeld Goes Gaga

In Tuesday’s column, Maureen Dowd latched onto Greg Gutfeld’s characterization of the Iranian president as a fruitbat as an example of inhospitable name-calling. In addition to the fruitbat line, Greg also had this to say about the fashion sense of our Persian guest:

Ahmadinejad needs gays bad. Look at that waxed hair and that retarded coat. He needs a queer eye, fast.

When aspiring Fox News Neanderthal Gutfeld found out that he had garnered the notice of Maureen, he went on a charm offensive. While he seemed a little miffed that he’s never been invited to go hot-tubbing with Frank Rich and the rest of the NYT Op-Ed gang, he makes a serious play for Maureen’s affections. Despite her being twelve years his senior, he is willing to pull out all the stops. He tells her to quit pining for mustachioed tyrants that will just love her and leave her.

Maureen, he's just not that into you.

But I am. I'll wait. When he's done with you, just call me. We'll have margaritas. I'll even wear the jacket — maybe pants. I won't like it, but I'll do it… for you.

Uh, that's not your gut you're feeling, Greg. Think lower.

It seems a shame that such an eloquent knuckle-dragger as Gutfeld could become such a smitten schoolboy. We understand MoDo’s magic allure, Greg. We really do.

Blog Watch: Paging Miss Manners

In yesterday’s column, Maureen Dowd upbraided Lee Bollinger for being so rude to his honored guest, the president of Iran. The Eternal Hope blog sides with MoDo and sees this sort of rude behavior emanating from the bad example we have in the White House:

And given how Bush has a way of humiliating people in public, it is hardly surprising that minions like Lee Bollinger did the same by humiliating Ahmedinejad when he went to give a speech to the students at the University of Columbia. The Jewish protests against the Iranian leader for his holocaust denial were completely called for. But for a university president to embarrass him the way he did was totally unprofessional. Bollinger is supposed to be representing his university, not his own personal feelings about Ahmedinejad. His humiliation of the Iranian leader said more about his selfish behavior and reflected much more on his institution than it did about Ahmedinejad.

Mark Finkelstein of NewsBusters mentions that Mika Brzezinski read from the MoDo column on the air. Finkelstein then cites Tucker Carlson as pointing out that The Man In The Dinner Jacket is no charm school graduate:

I like Tucker Carlson's take on the matter. On his show last night, he laughed at the notion, pointing out that it was this same Iran that engaged in the worst breach of hospitality in recent history: holding American diplomats hostage for over a year during the Carter administration. Oh, and who is accused of being one of the hostage-holding thugs? None other, of course, than that sensitive guy himself, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Perhaps we can get an etiquette expert to help with how best to introduce a holocaust-denying homophobic zealot.

Fruitbat In A Dinner Jacket

‘Fruitbat’ at Bat
by MAUREEN DOWD
Published: September 26, 2007

“Casey At The Bat” is a famous poem about a small-town baseball hero that endures humiliation when he strikes out in a clutch situation. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was called a fruitbat by Greg Gutfeld of Fox News upon the event of his delivering a speech at Columbia University.

And on top of all that, we help build up the self-serving doofus Iranian president, a frontman with a Ph.D. in traffic management, into the sort of larger-than-life demon that the real powers in Iran — the mullahs — can love.

According to Wikipedia, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s doctorate is in transportation engineering and planning, a subdivision of civil engineering. His undergraduate entrance exam scores ranked him 132 out of 40,000.

But while challenging the policies and ideology of the Evil Empire, Ronald Reagan understood he had to engage Mikhail Gorbachev, not ignore or insult him.

Reagan was able to help the Soviet Union — and world communism — to fall apart. All W. has managed to do is destroy the country he wanted to turn into a democracy and make Iran more powerful than it was before.

In Iranian eyes, the U.S. has behaved in a way that continually diminishes their country” — from U.S. involvement in the 1953 coup that reinstated the Shah to W.’s branding them as part of the “axis of evil.”

Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union the “Evil Empire” in a speech on March 3, 1983. The Soviet Union dissolved amid political and economic chaos in 1991. Dubya described Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as members of the “Axis of Evil” in his State of The Union speech on January 29, 2002. The United States invaded and defeated Iraq in March of 2003. North Korea tested a nuclear device in 2006. Iran, well, that's the point.

Wouldn’t sticks and carrots — cultural fluency, smart psychology and Reaganesque dialogue — be a better way to bring the Iranians around than sticks and stones?

“Carrot and stick” is a frequently debated metaphor that either means a combination of rewards and punishments is the best combination of motivations or it implies that the hope for a reward, no matter how illusory is an effective incentive.

Sticks and stones may break my bones / But words will never hurt me is a common schoolyard rebuttal to verbal insults. Maybe stones and carrots like in the stone soup fable would be the best solution.

The president’s irrelevant U.N. speech was a bad combo with the schoolyard name-calling of Lee Bollinger.

Complete the following the analogy:

Kettle:pot::Lee Bollinger:_________

(Hint.)

Mission Statement

The purpose of the Dowd Report is to:

• Annotate and explicate the literary, historical, political, epistemological, and pop cultural allusions made by Maureen Dowd in her twice weekly New York Times column. Discussed terms are bolded within the quote. All interpretations of intent or meaning are solely those of Dowd Report and its contributors.
  
• Provide the most current information on Maureen Dowd’s other published works, television appearances, public sightings and any other activities where she deigns to rub elbows with mere mortals.
• Serve as a clearinghouse for MoDo rumors, innuendos, and gossip.
• Highlight and comment on other internet commentary or criticism of the New York Times most attractive, intelligent, insightful and acerbic female political columnist.
  
• Get featured in a mainstream media report about obsequious fansites that border on or even cross the line dividing genuine fandom and creepy stalkerhood.

Comments and linkbacks are always welcome regardless of political affiliation or incorrectness of views concerning Maureen Dowd's inherent genius and beauty.

Flintstone Fred Vs Ringtone Rudy

Uxorious or Spurious?
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: September 23, 2007

Uxorious: 1) Excessively submissive or devoted to one's wife.(FreeDictionary) 2) A perverted affection that has strayed to one’s own wife. (Devil’s Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce)

MoDo uses the NRA convention to illustrate the difference between Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson. She sets up the convention speeches as a Wild West shoot-out.

…there was only one other ingredient needed for Flintstone Fred’s testosterone cocktail: a sexy blonde. Introducing his wife, Jeri, he drawled, “I think she’d make a much better first lady than Bill Clinton.”

The call-out to the animated caveman conjures a certain level of Neanderthalness in both appearance and political outlook.



Then there is a long discussion of the possibly pre-arranged bit where Rudy Giuliani takes a call from his wife. MoDo calls bullshit.

This suggests either that Friday’s call was staged to humanize the dictatorial former mayor, or that Rudy is afraid of Judi’s digital wrath, or that the candidate is still struggling with how to integrate his third wife into his campaign, after her puppy-killing, husband-hiding, cabinet-sitting rough start.

In six hyphenated words Dowd dredges up Judi Giuliani’s former career with a company that used animals to demonstrate surgical products, her previously undisclosed first (of three) husbands, and some overly generous offers of unappointed political power.

Mitt Romney’s camp…found video of the first cellus interruptus and sent reporters links to YouTube clips of both calls.

Coitus interruptus changed to cellus drives home that Rudy may be both pistol-whipped and pussy-whipped.