MoDo Manages To Diminish The 'Plagiarism' Discourse Even Further

No matter where you might stand on the issue of Barack Obama and Deval Patrick sharing choice bon mots with one another, it's likely that everyone can agree that the discussion hasn't reached it's nadir until that grim dowager of seething resentment, Maureen Dowd, weighs in on the pages of the New York Times. Well, as of today, the bottom has been reached.

The main thrust of what we'll generously describe as her content, seems to be, "Whatever, Hillary and Bill have totally hijacked other people's words and ideas." On that regard, Dowd's hardly the first pundit to advance that point. What sets Dowd apart is the extent to which she can take any piece of discourse and transform it into a arena for hurling her endless supply of acid-tipped daggers.

Right off the bat, Dowd takes a discussion over "words" - which, itself, has largely been a tweedy, ivory-tower bug-out that's yet to register with the electorate to any measurable degree - and buries it in churlish caricature:

She was drinking red wine and talking up the virtues of imported Blue Moon beer with a slice of citrus on her plane and putting up an ad in Ohio about how she works the night shift, too, just like the waitresses, hairdressers, hospital workers and other blue-collar constituents that she's hoping to attract.

And she doesn't mean that being married to Bill Clinton is what keeps her up all hours. She's talking about burning the midnight oil in her Senate office.

Yeah, so, Hillary Clinton is a imported-beer praising, wine-sipping, cat-burglar with Republican ideas stuffed down her pantsuit. She's a classist hypocrite, and hey, why not sidle up to the edge of the Chris Matthews-esque intimation that her candidacy is powered by a response to her husband "messing around." And the trenchant cultural gravitas is supplied by a lengthy recitation of the Laverne and Shirley theme. Dowd watches sitcoms, you see, so she feels our middle-class pain.

The whole piece will probably be read as a defense of Obama, but frankly, he doesn't exactly come off in spectacular fashion either. Obama and Deval Patrick are more or less depicted as "roommates" trapped in the cultish thrall of that dread Svengali David Axelrod.

Does anyone come off well? One person almost does, and mystifyingly, it's Cindy McCain, for responding to Michelle Obama's "proud of my country" gaffe:

It's a discordant note for the stylish, brainy 44-year-old Princeton and Harvard Law School grad. Cindy McCain showed that Republicans would jump right on a line like that, and twist it into something that sounded extremist and unpatriotic.

Note again the invocation of class imagery: Michelle Obama is a style-obsessed, Ivy League elite, but Cindy McCain is a shrewd political genius who's not afraid to get a little dirty if it gets the job done. Nevermind that Cindy McCain ran away from her remarks minutes later, after reporters asked her to confirm ownership of them. Maybe she borrowed them from Deval Patrick, too!

Comments

[MissClarity]

Well put.

[MizJ]

Hard to believe that Maureen Down replaced Anna Quindlen at the NYTimes. She is a pathetic, self hating woman, an unfulfilled lady, who hurls her mean comments like frisbees at people who hold power and somehow has achieved the Pulitzer Prize for those efforts.

[LeoMarvin]

"pathetic, self hating woman, an unfulfilled lady"

Even if you knew her well enough to believe that, how would it be relevant. And even if it was relevant, how would it be civil?

[BeyondGoodAndEvil]

She can write, you can't. Case closed.

[PopeRatzo]

"She can write, you can't. Case closed."

But I've got a penis, she doesn't.

I win.

[BeyondGoodAndEvil]

This comes off as a puerile swipe towards Dowd: The witty, famous, accomplished, velvet tongued, Pulitzer prize-winner waxes lyrical on the endless wealth of hypocrisy which envelopes and embodies HRC and her rapidly changing campaign sloganeering. Dowd might be acerbic, but she's always amusing and usually on the mark.

It's interesting you think the bottom of the journalistic barrel extends to Dowd's column in the NY Times. After all, the NY Times is such a bastion of shoddy gutter journalism. I’m sure Dowd’s column is especially repugnant to less talented hacks that flail and flap while spluttering a vapid defense of their bull-like deity - HRC.

[user168]

Yet dramatically Increased youth turnout on Super Tuesday is an obvious sign - "for the first time" - many youths are proud to be part of their country and community. These intelligent, passionate, and brave young adults are giving their very concern, love, and support to a true leader who will lead them to better serve their country and the world - "for the first time":

"Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be."

[djcny]

Maureen Dowd is a self-serving narcissist. She critizes from a personal viewpoint as if she is above it all. I find her columns boring, full of spite, bitterness and hot air. She should be fired from the NYT and write for The National Inquirer; she's much more suited for that rag.

[MoMoDo]

Blue Moon is owned by Coors which is based in Colorado, so yeah, not an import. And the Laverne and Shirley theme is central to Dowd's thesis that the Clinton's will do anything to get back in the White House. Also, the roommates sharing speeches does kind of feminize Obama.

[PlasticSpoon]

Spit take of me drinking my Hoegaarden (the original Belgian white - an IMPORT)

[Roanoke]

This is all one person's opinion, but I have been reading the New York Times for decades. I have to admit that I have never understood how MD earned a slot on the NY Times Op-Ed page. Putting to one side her biases (which make her columns unreadable, uneditable, unsuitable), her typical column is a truncated, stream of consciousness conversation with herself. Its not journalism. Not even close. Its not opinion. Its essentially an odd shopping list of personal grievances, presented in an idiosyncratic, monologue shorthand as if she has ADHD (apologies in advance to those who actually have ADHD, no disrespect intended). And check out the Edward Hopper-esque cover of her book -- what message is she trying to convey?
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4994492
Surely not that of a serious journalist or commentator. In contrast, Gail Collins is just about perfect -- eminently readable, rational, usually insightful, and her columns have a beginning, middle and end. She has a calm, common-sense logic that is very appealing. So what is MD doing on the Op-Ed page of the Nation's most storied newspaper? Making W. Kristol look good.

[ltfcrazy]

Obama will be the next prez. It cannot be stopped!

[gomonkeygo]

Both of you need to fact check yourselves. Blue Moon is an American-made microbrew, not an import. It's not a good microbrew, IMO, but it's definitely not an import.

Other than this, I only want to relate a story about politics and plagiarism that played out in my town last year.

One of our highest local educational positions in Illinois is elected and the incumbent - black, woman, Democrat - was in a heated contest with her challenger - white, male, Republican. In answer to a written interview from the local (only) paper, when asked to describe her job, the incumbent used a phrase from the official State description to clarify her remarks. Her opponent and the paper jumped all over her, front page headlines claiming she was a plagiarist and unfit for the position. It was major news for a day, but backfired against those pushing it. Local support for the incumbent swelled at what was seen as a petty and malicious attack.

[Then her opponent was caught breaking campaign rules by distributing election materials to grade school students in their classrooms and the matter was dropped by the paper (who had been supporting the Republican candidate strongly).]

The outcome was the incumbent trouncing the challenger 2:1 in the election, 10,000 votes to 5,000 - in a county with only about 50,000 residents.

The moral: Don't be stupid, Hillary. You're disliked enough already and boneheaded stunts like this that you aren't willing to take responsibility for afterwards are only going to blow up in your face. People hate cowardly sniping attacks like this, as Wisconsin has just proved to you and the rest of the country.

[MoreBlaseThanMost]

I agree. Blue Moon tastes like the first attempts at making a hefeweizent that never quite made it.

[ErrinF]

Since when do journalists fact check these days? Remember how last summer there was all this discussion of our troops being in 130 degree weather in Baghdad? Just about everybody in the press repeated this even though it was a huge exaggeration. These people are ill-informed stenographers and little more. Simple truth about America: Our best and brightest do not get into politics or journalism. People like Hilary Clinton and Maureen Dowd are second-rate at best, and most likely third-rate in reality. A lot of 'connected' people are just empty shills or utter tools who dutifully played whatever game with the powers-that-be to get where they are today.