Is Maureen Dowd even relevant?

[Throwing Stones]

MoDo's latest screed is all about the dreaded $400 haircut. I'll admit that it probably wasn't the best use of campaign funds, but MoDo is really just echoing the Junk-Toting-Plaigiarist's faggot epithet. Maybe it is a mark of shallowness to spend what Maureen calls the amount "working families may spend on electricity in a year" (has SHE looked at her electricy bill lately? I'd love to only spend $400 per year), but I think wasting an entire column in the paper of record harping on Edwards' haricut is at least equally as shallow.

link to column here pay

I've never understood why the left generally gives MoDo a free pass. More often than not her columns are vapid re-toolings of RNC talking points. Maureen .....

[Nimrod2005]

1. Stop it....We love her.

[billbuckhead]

3. I don't trust anyone who is "fair and balanced"

She surely didn't help Al Gore or John Kerry. She really never hurt Bush that much. She is a funny and clever sophist. I'd definitely hit it, but her main cause is herself.

[Throwing Stones]

5. not sure if that's sarcasm

Why love her? She spread lies about Gore in 2000 and Kerry in 2004. I'm convinced she's either a mole or moron.

[CreekDog]

24. I never loved her...rumor has it she was funny

But I fail to find any evidence of that.

Good thing she writes a gossip column for the NYTIMES, because her column would never have survived my high school newspaper's editor.

[Skittles]

31. speak for yourself

she makes me sick

[LittleClarkie]

38. Who's we, Kemosabi?

She did the same bullshit to Kerry. She can stuff a sock in it.

[MichiganVote]

2. I like her.

[Joe Bacon]

23. I despise that liar

She did everything she could to torpedo Al Gore and put her pal Bush in the White House. Time and time again she tosses softballs at Bush and her Republican pals, yet she spares not a single drop of venom in her slanted slander pieces against Hillary, Bill, Kerry, Teresa and Edwards. Don't forget how she prided herself on torpedoing General Clark in 2004 over his sweater. And she also pours a lot of poison out over Obama too.

Earth to Dowd--Obama is NOT the reincarnation of Rick James. :puke:

Bob Somerby's Daily Howler has documented how biased that this teenage tattling twit is.

Hell, if I had to choose between Dowd and a needle of heroin, I'll take the heroin.

How anyone sees anything redeeming in this hot air filled hypocritical hack harpy, I cannot comprehend.

[Mojambo]

4. Not a huge fan. n/t

[MannyGoldstein]

6. You Don't See Anything Hilarious About...

...a self-proclaimed "friend of the little guy and gal" getting a $400 haircut?

:eyes:

In any case MoDo is a treasure, in my book. She has a finely-tund BS filter and a sharp, sharp pen.

[Throwing Stones]

9. Maybe she should turn her sharp pen to writing about Anna Nicole Smith

As far as I can see, Maureen's insights and analysis on politics is on par with Star's latest expose on Anna.

[stevedeshazer]

18. Just like Bill Clinton

Right?

Come on, Manny. This is so shallow it's ridiculous.

For the record, my last haircut was $50. So what?

[MannyGoldstein]

20. One-Eighth of The Cost of Edwards' Haircut

Is your house 3,500 square feet? That would be a BIG house - but still only one-eighth the size of Casa Mother Teresa.

[CreekDog]

26. MoDo's BS filter has a bypass valve

Allowing her to spew BS quite freely.

[bleever]

7. It's up to us to be the media, and confront crap when we see it

even if it's from someone we might like, or want to like.

She's creating "conventional wisdom", and we don't have to let her. Not when she's this wrong, and enabling the shallowest kind of political handicapping.

[blm]

22. This will continue till Dems stick together and not USE the lies to jockey for position

themselves, thereby reifying what amounts to a lie or a distorted smear.

Instead of banding together to defend each other over this stuff, they sit back and let it hurt the other person - and then it will happen to them, but because they wouldn't stick up for the other Dems under unfair attack....well......

[saltpoint]

8. I wonder if it's more favorable to Maureen Dowd to write in a landscape

in which men do not care about their public appearance. She is very keen, and very keenly aware that there s considerable residual feeling out there against men who are particular with their appearance, wth their physical personality. Politicians and movie stars etc. are public figures. They're in the lights and in front of microphones a lot of the time.

But so is Dowd. Have you seen her at those banquets she goes to? Or at other public appearances? She is absolutely dazzling, dressed to the 9s, and utterly fashionable and then some.

How is it not ok for a politician like Al Gore or Edwards -- she's savaged both men on similar grounds -- and just fine for her? Because she's female?

I'm not buying that.

Public life is multi-filtered. You can't stir resentment against someone for NOT playing the image game and then condemn them for playing it well.

Especially when the assailant is herself a very public figure.

[Throwing Stones]

11. Amen

I bet she has shoes in her closet that cost more than John's haircut.

Yet John "wears" his haircut comfortably.

She agonizingly puts those shoes on once a year to be fashionable.

Two-bit hypocritical whore.

[saltpoint]

12. Hi to you, Throwing Stones, and a belated welcome to DU.

Yes. I'm thinking of people like Meryl Streep, who is a film star and as good or better at what she does as Dowd is at column-writing.

Your comment on Dowd's closet begs the contrast between the finer things that may be in there versus the people Edwards defended against large corporations, or versus the people his work on Poverty seeks to address.

If she doesn't want to vote for the guy, that's her call. And I'm not saying she's not intelligent. But a gratuitous slam is a form of social bullying, with a very strong sexist undercurrent.

[Throwing Stones]

17. Edwards Fights for Underprivilged People, That Doesn't Mean He Has to Forsake Trappings of Wealth

If I read your post correctly, you seem to be implying that Edwards' professional and political life is at odds with his personal life. My point against Maureen's column is, unless she wants to take a vow of poverty, she ought to shut up, because otherwise she's not saying anything productive.

[saltpoint]

19. I think we are on the same page and even the same syllables.

I'm in the Edwards camp, and dedicated to trying to get him in the White House.

I thought Dowd's slam on Gore in 2000 was more or less the same as her slam on Edwards today. And I object to it on sexist grounds.

John Kennedy had a buck or two saved up in the bank. Jackie was no peasant beggar herself. I loved them both and miss them horribly.

My interest in the Edwards campaign is the emphasis it places on the unheard. And I respect it very much.

[Missy M]

14. and I'm pretty sure she doesn't have her hair cut....

at Super Cuts. Wonder how much it costs her just to have her hair colored. Yes, I'll bet she has more than one pair of Manolo Blahniks in her closet.

[BrklynLiberal]

10. Not to me. She is self-serving, whiny twit. Always was. Always will be.

[illinoisprogressive]

13. As a non supporter of Edwards, I have and will state it is below the belt.

It's one thing to be witty but, this will do damage and play right into the wingers camp. That is just so cruel.
I personally think if he wants to spend 400 for a haircut, it's his business.
Like I said, I don't support Edwards, but it should be on a fair play field and not a snarky article that will hurt him.
I just find it wrong for her to write that.

[gaspee]

15. Nope (N/T)

[Snap]

16. The Eighth Circle of Hell for her.

Reserved for panderers and seducers.

[enough already]

21. When Dowd does as much for the poor as Edwards has, I'll listen

Until then, she can continue to whine to her mother about how no man wants anything to do with her.

[CreekDog]

25. Let's play word association...Maureen Dowd

ummm...Vacuous.

[CreekDog]

27. Wish MoDo used self-deprecation

She's got a lot of good material to work with there.

[Throwing Stones]

34. Word assocation

bitter

[JI7]

28. haven't cared for her for a long time, her need to push the right wing ridicule

of Democrats in order to be liked and popular among the right disgusts me. she is part of the problem and i never gave her a free pass.

[shimmergal]

29. We need to find and promote some satirists

who ply their wit and venom against right-wingers exclusively.

Do you know of any? Maher and Colbert aren't quite the same. Al Franken is funny, but not necessarily witty, and anyhow now he's giving it up for the Senate (hopefully).

Maybe there are some that I don't know about, but if so, they seem to be pretty obscure. Which is the point--how can this sort of commentary gain a national audience?

[CreekDog]

30. It would be more funny if Giuliani spent $400 on his haircut

But it still wouldn't rise to the level of Op-Ed material. Which would make it apiece with all of Maureen Dowd's material.

[rodeodance]

32. She irks me at timess-but I generally like her (equal opportunity when it

comes to slamming silly, stupid people)

[zulchzulu]

33. She is still "relevant" as much as having to use the bathroom is still "relevant"

I read her column the same as I read Brooks'. There might be a tiny fleck of knowledge that you can extract if you're really, really careful...otherwise, if you have a bird cage that needs lining...

[LWolf]

35. She's as relevant

as any other person who puts political opinions out to be read by the public.

Including posters at DU.

What makes one person's pov more relevant than another? Whether or not you agree with it?

Personally, I think that 90% of the threads on DU are not relevant to action on political issues. :shrug:

[Throwing Stones]

36. There's a difference between posting on du and having twice weekly column in the NYT

My point is that the Times does a disservice by wasting column inches on her ridiculous rants. How does harping about the cost of a haircut advance any political discourse?

[LWolf]

37. My point is that

many people "waste" inches on rants on the editorial page. We usually think any rant that disagrees with our pov to be a waste. And the letters to the editor... How much more ridiculous can you get than some of those rants?

Whether or not something is a "waste" all depends on the pov of the person passing the judgement. It's not objective.

Newspaper, internet...there's not much difference these days, imo. Especially when DU is quoted by people on tv and in the news media.

I hope you notice the irony of this question, after browsing the front page of various DU forums:

How does harping about the cost of a haircut advance any political discourse?

I could add: How does harping on what some talking head in print or other media said advance political discourse between us?