I immediately thought of your complaint about her when I saw today's offering. What mystifies me is why I am not bothered by her other columns.

I have always had the impression that Dowd's sympathies are liberal, but she is an equal-opportunity scourge. Perhaps this means that I am (deep down) really a conservative. (Sure don't feel like one; I still admire Bill Clinton, for starters, and regularly revile conservatives on many points.) 

That she will ridicule the idol of the day is not a big deal. Her recent Obama piece didn't raise my hackles. And Dowd has never aimed for the more politically focussed writing of Molly Ivins. It's just for fun--a gossip column about pols and politics.

Sadly, even if she skewers McCain for pandering, it won't have much (if any) effect. Too bad, because I don't consider McCain very much of a straight thinker, even if he is a straight talker, and am getting tired of him in general. He's no Goldwater, who was both more fun and more coherent in his concepts. And John Dean's portrait of him in his later years showed someone that had learned to think more expansively about fundamentals. McCain seems to have given up thinking.

My assessment is perhaps skewed by coming late to the party. I only began reading the Times regularly in recent years (on the web) and don't remember reading her on Clinton.

I don't consider McCain very much of a straight thinker, even if he is a straight talker

In my book a straight talker always tells the truth, and always stands up for what is right, and that is not John McCain, if it ever was. McCain has never called Bushco on the black baby in South Carolina, went back to the evangelical mullahs at Bob Jones, and has supported not only torture and other human rights abuses in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Cuba, but supports Bushco's policy in Iraq when the generals, the troops, and the world see it for what it is: so far beyond fiasco now, we don't even have a word for it.

Straight shooter? He only shoots straight at the heart of everything we are supposed to stand for as Americans.

Bushco delenda est

J. McCutchen

Another 3 cheers for the Fair and Balanced Maureen Dowd who has exposed Clinton Inc and shown that the Bridge to the 21st Century is open to one way traffic only

This is well said, and not limited to MD, who, maybe because of her talent for snarkiness, or her position at NYT or both, is very influential. Eg the NASCAR quote that made Kerry look bad during election 2004 was a typical Dowd invention. Not an outright fabrication, but an imagined paraphrase. But it's true orgins didn't matter, the damage was done, and it was widely quoted.

My two cents: since media ownership has been concentrating, there are fewer and fewer resources devoted to real news. So they try to flesh out their product with a little creative writing. And since media ownership becomes ever more reactionary with concentration, this cleverness must be done in such a way as to favor the right over the left. Can't snark too much to the left, because that might lead to increased regulation and taxes for the corporate overlords.

I'm guessing that an ambitious journalist who wants a house on Nantucket knows to tilt coverage so as not to marginalize themselves. It's the Dowds, Friedmans, Chris Matthews etc who are making the bucks as "liberals".

Blogging is something of a balance to this, but it's still an open question. I wonder where does the path to ultimate blogging success lead? Do they want to be in print and on cable news with a house on Nantucket? If so, they are likely to be corrupted in the same way.

Well, not to be too partisan here, but MoDo is one of the principal architects of The Clinton Rules.

The essential feature of said rules is that they are never EVER applied to Republicans. Ergo, she did not take your advice.

Now if she writes up another Democrat, and sees it clearly, writes it right, with less snark, then perhaps she will have started on the road to recovery.

And if dear God in Heaven she ever writes up Hillary in that way, then we can indeed consider her in recovery. But we should not be very surprised if and when she falls off that wagon...

I find that the best way to read Maureen Dowd is to see her as a standup comedian who riffs on an exceedingly narrow range of materials - essentially whever she's read in the New York Times or talked about with a small circle of famous and influential freinds/aquaintances. Often it's smarmy and insular, but every now and then she hits a zinger and it's funny.

I think the underlying issue in the recent Hillary column, and in her past coverage of Hillary and of Nancy Pelosi, is Dowd's snarkiness and jealousy of other women coming through. My sense of Dowd is that this reflects the same vanity and self-centeredness that would lead her to write a whole book seeking to elevate her own inability to get a date into some sort of cultural and generational zeitgeist issue (everyone she refers to in the book seems to feel that Dowd is simply too attractive and smart and so scares off men - it's the literary eqivalent of a Barbara Streisand movie).

I don't know Maureen Dowd personally, and I don't mean to slander her, but I get the feeling she really likes being the center of attention of powerful, accomplished men, and being seen as the only woman in a mens' club. That's why I think she resents other women who are genuinely accomplished and move in those circles and so she belittles them with snide and rude comments. That's why I think that, reagrdless of Dowd's own political convictions, and no matter what happens in the 2008 campaign, she will always have it in for Hillary and won't have many kind words to say about her.

Then don't make comments about it, since everyone can't read it. Either give the links or post the info. Geez

Thanks Caped Composer!

I wrote that last line and before I posted I thought to myself, "Hmmmm. Is that condescendingly and demeaningly sexist? Should I let it post?"

Then I thought "Hell yeah it is, and she deserves every bit of it."

There's an important sense in which both you and another poster below note that she sometimes (I presume unintentionally) uses her high-profile venue to feed an extremely pernicious gender stereotype about women.

The definitive example is the colmun about halfway through the Clinton Impeachment that she devoted to just trashing Monica. Completely sexist and, oh btw, no doubt without a shred of critical self-awareness ... unless we presume that Dowd had nothing of a romantic entanglement at the same age that wouldn't now be regarded as stupid. Which strikes me as highly unlikely.

"I don't feel comfortable taking stuff from behind their firewall." I won't quarrel over what's fair use. But if a few sentences make you uncomfortalbe, try summarizing the article. Or state your disagreement with it. I'm sorry to be harsh, but try to realize that to me it just read like "oh, you gotta see Dowd, as she's such a twerp." Would you read that?

John

http://www.haberarts.com/

Why doesn't he just link to "Welcome to Pottsville"? Or whatever blog it is that reposts most of the columns hidden behind the Times firewall.