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Posts Tagged ‘Maureen Dowd’
August 22nd, 2012 at 11:39 am
Maureen Dowd, Understated as Always

Here’s the latest screed from the princess of printed prattle, a writer so prone to histrionic hysteria (not to mention hysteron proterons — look it up) that her work bears the same relationship to thoughtfulness and rationality as a rhinocerous does to gracefulness:

[Paul Ryan puts] a fresh face on a Taliban creed — the evermore antediluvian, anti-women, anti-immigrant, anti-gay conservative core. Amiable in khakis and polo shirts, Ryan is the perfect modern leader to rally medieval Republicans who believe that Adam and Eve cavorted with dinosaurs…. But, for all the Republican cant about how they want to keep government out of the lives of others, the ultraconservatives are panting to meddle in the lives of others. Contrary to President Obama’s refreshing assertion Monday that a bunch of male politicians shouldn’t be making health care decisions for women, this troglodyte tribe of men and Bachmann-esque women craves that responsibility.

The writing sins there are abundant: extreme triteness (gee, it is just so original and clever to call conservatives “troglodytes” and “antediluvians” — although one does wonder, as a matter of chronology, how we can be troglodytes and “medieval” at the same time), breathless overstatement not as intentional irony but as an actual attempt at persuasion, and blind, over-broad, demonizing assertions unmoored from proof. Hers is the same genre of bigotry as the assertions by 1960s racists that because some blacks are criminals, all blacks are dangerous criminals. One wonders if she has ever actually attempted to have a cordial conversation with a conservative Christian of any denomination, with anybody who lives more than 25 miles from a major urban hub (unless said rural resident is a Cesar Chavez-type protester), or with somebody who doesn’t think that, say, serial adultery is an ordinary feature of most marriages. If so, she gives no evidence of it — because her screeds are pure bigotry against an entire class of people.

If the New York Times had any standards (perish the thought), it would not put up with such viciousness unmoored from reason or basic human decency. Next time the editorialists at the famous rag try to lecture the rest of us about “civility,” here’s hoping they choke and splutter on their fumes of their own outrageous hypocrisy.

June 2nd, 2010 at 7:25 pm
The Tides Are Turning on Obama

Ordinarily, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd refers to President Obama as Spock, as in the Star Trek Vulcan who lacked emotion.  Today, she passes on that appellation, but describes the same manner of dispassion that – if it continues – will likely prove to be the main reason this president serves only one term.

The oil won’t stop flowing, but the magic has.

Barack Obama is a guy who is accustomed to having stuff go right for him. He’s gotten a lot of breaks: two opponents in his U.S. Senate race in Illinois felled by personal scandals; a mismanaged presidential campaign by Hillary Clinton; an economic collapse that set the stage for a historic win, memorably described by the satiric Onion newspaper as “Black Man Given Nation’s Worst Job.”

Welcome to the big chair.  The frustration this president is supposedly feeling isn’t any different than a business owner dreaming of growth, but stifled by new regulations; or the family man trying to meet his responsibilities while attempting to make a profitable career transition.  There are two sides to the leadership coin: maintaining a vision, and overcoming obstacles to it.  Unlike a predecessor of his, Obama has “the vision thing.”  Too bad for the Gulf Coast, American economy, and Iranian democracy advocates that their problems are interpreted as annoyances to be minimized rather than challenges to be overcome.

How strange it is to watch a president lauded for his rhetorical prowess appear absolutely powerless to summon the will to roll up his sleeves and take charge of any crisis that occurs outside Washington, D.C.