Shadow of a Dowd
Unlike Christopher Hitchens, whom I enjoy reading even when I do not agree with him, I almost never like anything Maureen Dowd writes – even, or perhaps especially, when I think she’s right on. This week, from her featured perch on the Op-Ed page of the Sunday New York Times, she offers a typical piece (registration required) in which she depicts a fictitious dialogue between the “boy emperor” and his minister of war, Rummy. The point of the exercise is contained in the four-word headline: “Why? Because We Can.” The remaining 500 words of the article add no insight or analysis beyond the umpteenth iteration of Dowd’s opinion that Bush is an idiot surrounded by venal, impatient con-men. True, perhaps. Satsifying, certaintly. But come one, what else have you got?
Now I like a good cheap shot as much as the next guy, and the Bush administration provides ample fodder for ridicule. It’s debatable whether Dubya (or any human being) is quite as dumb as he’s depicted by his opponents, but he’s certainly no intellectual giant. To be sure, his administration is comprised of corporate criminals like Cheney and po-faced authoritarians like Ashcroft, plus Rumsfeld, who looks like nothing if not a major league asshole. It doesn’t take Michael Jordan in his prime to score a whole lot of points against a lineup like that.
And so… what? The election, such as it was, is history. The confirmation hearings are over. Like it or not, these people are making policy on behalf of the United States of America. And furthermore, they appear to be utterly innocent of shame or self-consciousness when it comes to questions of their ability or motivations. Unlike Clinton and his crew, who seemed in constant search of approval and validation, the Bushies lack for nothing in the way of confidence, and are admired by their supporters precisely for their ability to make decisions without the support of the New York Times editorial page. Using ridicule as your only political weapon in such a context is worse than pointless – it’s tasteless, and it hurts the credibility of the Times as a whole.
It’s even more cringeworthy because Dowd has no gift for satire. She lumbers around her point like an over-the-hill heavyweight, throwing big looping punches that everyone can see coming a mile away, even if they occasionally land on target. Then she showboats in front of the hometown crowd, oblivious that her opponent is ignoring her with a condescending smirk.
Contrast Dowd’s drunken elephant walk through a field of straw men with the targeted demolition approach of her colleague Paul Krugman. Krugman is no less contemptuous than Dowd of the administration, but he doesn’t waste time belaboring the obvious. His tactic far more insidious: he assumes that the Bushies mean what they say, and proceeds to take their case apart by shining a merciless spotlight of logic on errors of fact, faulty reasoning, conflicts of interest and hidden agendas. I’m sure right-wingers don’t take Krugman any more seriously than they take Dowd, but the points he raises are much more difficult to answer (or ignore) than Dowd’s catty put-downs. There’s only one columnist in America who can make the personal attacks stick because of her insight, genuine humor and years of experience watching the Bush clan at dangerously close range, but her name is Molly Ivins, and I’m sorry to even have to mention her in the same paragraph as Dowd.
How such a limited writer and thinker as Maureen Dowd manages to hold a featured spot on the editorial page of the nation’s leading newspaper is baffling. Sure, her politics are in step with the East Coast liberal establishment, but she also transparently represents everything the rest of the country hates about East Coast liberals. Her writing is artless, her humor is witless, her political insights are banal and her tone is often embarrassing. Even when I find myself in agreement with her, I have to wince at the sour notes she so often strikes. Everyone knew it would be hard to fill the shoes of Tom Wicker and Scottie Reston, but in these trying times where dissent is a rare and precious commodity, couldn’t the New York Times find anything else that was fit to print?
To first-time readers sent here by Scott Rosenberg's link: If you like what you see here (and it's not always this rant-like), check out current posts on the Empahsis Added home page and in the Category sections on the upper left. Thanks again, Scott!
8:10:09 AM 
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