White Gloves Come Off

by Molly Ivors

Maureen Dowd starts today's outing with the least convincing line ever: "I'm not bitter."

Wow. Is she kidding? Dowd is so bitter she uses alum in place of talcum powder. She's so bitter you could put her into a champagne cocktail. (Which she would probably like just fine, come to think of it.) She's put more bunnies into more pots of boiling water than Jacques Pepin on a hasenpfeffer bender. She's so bitter...

Okay, I could go on like that for days, but you get the point. At least she finally admits what we have known for years: despite her almost accidental distaste for the president, she's a Republican at heart.

Shorter Dowd: "I became a Republican because those mean Democrats made me feel bad for being a rich racist."

But of course, she doesn't say that. Instead, it's "My family morphed from Kennedy Democrats into Reagan Republicans not because they were angry, but because they felt more comfortable with conservative values." And she makes sure to squeeze church, bowling, and immigration in there, just to be sure. (Not quite sure how the fuck-me pumps, married men, and feng shui fit into this universe, however.)

Look, people who left the Dems between Kennedy and Reagan did so for one reason: civil fucking rights. Blather on all you want about traditional values and welfare queens and entitlement programs, but it boils down, like a bunny, to one thing: black people should have remembered their place. The Southern Strategy worked, and not just in the South. Northern racists bought it too. I challenge Louisiana to produce as thoroughgoing  a bigot as Thers's late Uncle Dave, a man who hoarded rusty canned goods and moldering reel-to-reel tapes from the John Birch Society in his basement in Queens, guarding against the day when hordes of black people were going to come marching up Northern Boulevard in Flushing and target electrician's shops full of broken equipment. And don't get me started on cops like Father Dowd, who mistake their contact with criminals for some bizarre kind of anthropological evidence. It's a load of crap.

But Maureen has spent at least enough time in polite company to know that you have to fake it (yes, that too), or people will rightly shun you and call you a Neanderthal. And so she she goes back to her filing cabinet and retrieves some golden oldies she never quite got around to using on President Gore, and flings them at Senator Obama. Because after all, as a Democratic male, he's obviously at least a hermaphrodite, and possibly a cyborg.

And as Obama has courted white, blue-collar voters in “Deer Hunter” and “Rocky” country, he has often appeared to be observing the odd habits of the colorful locals, resisting as the natives try to fatten him up like a foie gras goose, sampling Pennsylvania beer in a sports bar with his tie tight, awkwardly accepting bowling shoes as a gift from Bob Casey, examining the cheese and salami at the Italian Market here as intriguing ethnic artifacts, purchasing Utz Cheese Balls at a ShopRite in East Norriton and quizzing the women working in a chocolate factory about whether they could possibly really like the sugary doodads.

He hasn’t pulled a John Kerry and asked for a Philly cheese steak with Swiss yet, but he has maintained a regal “What do the simple folk do to help them escape when they’re blue?” bearing, unable to even feign Main Street cred.
..........
The elitism that Americans dislike is not about family money or connections — J.F.K. and W. never would have been elected without them. In the screwball movie genre that started during the last Depression, there was a great tradition of the millionaire who was cool enough to relate to the common man — like Cary Grant’s C.K. Dexter Haven in “The Philadelphia Story.”

What turns off voters is the detached egghead quality that they tend to equate with a wimpiness, wordiness and a lack of action — the same quality that got the professorial and superior Adlai Stevenson mocked by critics as Adelaide. The new attack line for Obama rivals is that he’s gone from J.F.K. to Dukakis. (Just as Dukakis chatted about Belgian endive, Obama chatted about Whole Foods arugula in Iowa.)

(N.B. with fucking arugula farmers he did, you insufferably shallow superannuated cheerleader. Feh.)

Maureen's problem is that she only knows two or three stories, and so everything she encounters has to be wedged into one of those narratives. She's pulling out her unused Gore bon mots on Obama, but when the hell is she going to get to use the metric ton of bile she's got saved up for Hillary?  Huh? You Obama supporters didn't think of that, did you? Is she bitter? Oh, a tad.

Below: Maureen tells us about how delighted she is with the turn her election has taken.

UPDATE: OMG!!!!11!!eleven!!! They were just farmer farmers! Clearly, they had never heard of arugula! (You know, I'm a backyard gardener, not even a professional farmer, and I know about the existence of whole crops I don't personally grow.) And of course his larger point, that retail food prices often have little to do with how much a farmer actually earns, is clearly negated by my mistake. Like that bastard Roy, I've just cost Dems the White House.  steve simels regrets the error.

UPDATE II: Iowarugula! (I'm starting to feel like Glenn Greenwald!)

Comments

[Ruth]

Good read, it was Civil rights that made that rush to the GoPerv party run over the path of strict constructionism... straight into the arms of authoritarianism. The chaff wound up with the right wing sects and keeps digging deeper into that racist basement set. The rest of us are watching the DFH's become the 60 - 70% who see what's happening to their country because of recidivism, and going toward the light.

[Anna Granfors]

MoDo, miles and miles away, started weeping a few seconds after Molly hit "post". She did not know why. (Then again, she rarely does, so it didn't bother her overly much.)

"insufferably shallow superannuated cheerleader":
bwah HA!

[Pat Johnson]

(Not quite sure how the fuck-me pumps, married men, and feng shui fit into this universe, however.)

This is a side to MoDo that I was not aware of. Hmmmmm. And I thought she was just a dried up old bag who rids herself of envy by spewing her bile onto the pages of the NYT. Guess I need to get educated a little more on Miss Mean.

[steve simels]

Blather on all you want about traditional values and welfare queens and entitlement programs, but it boils down, like a bunny, to one thing:

I love you.

[The Kenosha Kid]

examining the cheese and salami at the Italian Market here as intriguing ethnic artifacts

I thought he was an elitist because he likes imported ham. I didn't realize he is an elitist because he spurns imported ham. I stand corrected.

[Molly Ivors]

I thought he was an elitist because he likes imported ham. I didn't realize he is an elitist because he spurns imported ham.

*sigh*

Please try to keep up.

Also, he drinks beer like teh gaiii (although, actually, most of my gay friends chug it, so not even).

[Gummo]

I get a lot more information, entertainment and education reading Molly Ivors' evisceration of Maureen Dowd than I ever got from reading Maureen Dowd.

That would be much more satisfying and amusing if Maureen Dowd wasn't being published in the New York Fucking Times while Molly Ivors remains an anonymous blogger....

Our public discourse has been dumbed down to the point where it's impossible to have a much-needed serious discussion of desperately serious issues, but instead of being ashamed, our so-called pundits congratulate each other on their "common touch" -- and how much condescencion is contained in that attitude....

[four legs good]

God she sucks.

I read her column last night and thought, "well, she's got her hobby horse to ride for the rest of the election."

Her gall is unbelievable. I've met her. An everywoman she's not.

She's spent the last 30 years kissing up to power in DC and she has the nerve to call Obama an elitist?

What a fucking asshole. Ack.

[Nell]

She can't even make her movie references make any sense -

In the screwball movie genre that started during the last Depression, there was a great tradition of the millionaire who was cool enough to relate to the common man — like Cary Grant’s C.K. Dexter Haven in “The Philadelphia Story.”

Cary Grant made a living being charmingly condescendingly self-depreciating-only-not-really while inviting men with less - less money, less charm, less style - to bask in his presence in the hopes he might wink at them. No one *ever* forgot who had the money or the power.

Not, you know, so unlike say, Barack Obama. Who is way more like Cary Grant than any of the current republicans.

I am ashamed that there was ever a day, no matter how long ago, when I liked her op-eds. ARggh.

[Molly Ivors]

What a fucking asshole. Ack.

That pretty much sums it up, yes.

[Hogan]

Seriously? The Philadelphia Story? Just like Dowd to confuse a pretentious journalist with "the common man."

[Molly Ivors]

Seriously? The Philadelphia Story? Just like Dowd to confuse a pretentious journalist with "the common man."

Maybe she originally wrote it for HRC and it was "It Happened One Night."

[res ipsa loquitur]

In the screwball movie genre that started during the last Depression, there was a great tradition of the millionaire who was cool enough to relate to the common man — like Cary Grant’s C.K. Dexter Haven in “The Philadelphia Story.”

She's got that backwards. In those movies, the "common man" crashes the swells' party and teaches them how to (metaphorically, of course) bust out of their gilded cages and live.

I guess that's what George W. Bush has done for MoDo and the rest of the D.C. pundit class.

Great. Just great.

[low-tech cyclist]

As Tom Toles points out, it's gonna be tough for the GOP and their suck-ups in the media to paint Obama as both some sort of Scary Black (Muslim?) Radical, and a Detached Elitist Egghead at the same time, but they're a talented bunch. At least in that limited respect.

[billy b]

Molls - I had no idear!!!

My dear, that was an outstanding takedown os Ms. Dowd.

Anna G. above was right, as soon as you hit the 'go' button, Mo had a crying jag.

heh...heh...heh...

[chiggins]

Dowd is so bitter she uses alum in place of talcum powder.

Aw man, ya gotta leave a space in there for those of us out here to give you the, "HOW! BITTER! IS SHE!?"

HI-YOOOOOOOO!

[R Keith Gargus]

Nice. As I said before, it's not clear which is worse to be her "friend" or enemy. Either is very likely to find daggers in the back after she walks by.

[Mark Centz]

It's not one thing, it's two things. Those JFK Democrats that bolted had gotten comfortable with the gains the FDR Democrats had made for the middle class, and they bought into the lie that the Reagan GOP told that those same Democrats were going to take away all those gains with high taxes. The tie-in being that those tax dollars were just going to be given to the blacks and wasted. Never underestimate the power of the dollar.

[actor212]

Obama bowled a 37.

You couldn't bowl under 50 if you were blindfolded and arthritic.

While she's a bit off base in some of her analysis, her point is not far from true: Obama left the working classes far behind when he realized there was money and power to be mined in the middle and upper classes.

[julia]

You'd want to keep in mind that Maureen Dowd had to put in hard time with manly man Howell Raines to get a job they handed to David "the working class in the vast undiscovered spaces past Jersey, they lurvs teh Red Lobster" Brooks solely on the strength of his affect.

[maurinsky]

Obama left the working classes far behind when he realized there was money and power to be mined in the middle and upper classes.

Shorter actor212: Obama is one uppity negro.

Criminey. I hate Maureen Dowd, she gives a bad name to all us Maureens.

[DrDick]

Have to say that this most recent excretion gave me an epiphany so that I finally understand MoDo. She is the kid who suddenly finds herself part of the Kool Kids or Smart Kids (this is not a gendered phenomenon BTW), but quickly realizes that she doesn't get their references and cannot follow their logic. It makes her fee ignorant and stupid and she hates them for it. She cannot, however, give up the cachet and prestige of being one of them. She opts instead to do the one thing she is better at than the others, she becomes the Bitch Queen who excels at ripping everyone else. It gives her power and respect among her group, but still leaves her a bitter, stupid person.

[Commander Ogg]

Shorter Dowd: "I became a Republican because those mean Democrats made me feel bad for being a rich racist."

Well stated Ms. Ivors. But at least Ms. Dowd finally admitted what we "Eleetest Libruls" suspected, she was a dues paying member of the Republican Noise Machine

[bobbo]

"The new attack line for Obama rivals is that he’s gone from J.F.K. to Dukakis."
IOW, The new attack line I am using right now. God I hate hate hate the "I am not saying what I am saying, someone else is" bullshit.

[g]

I thought he was an elitist because he likes imported ham. I didn't realize he is an elitist because he spurns imported ham. I stand corrected.

Not only that, he prefers orange juice to coffee. Teh horrors!

Obama left the working classes far behind when he realized there was money and power to be mined in the middle and upper classes.

Jesus fucking christ, this has got to be the fucking stupidest comment I've read in a long time. You know what? You're describing every upwardly mobile person in the country. Who the fuck doesn't want to better themselves?

Please do enlighten me as to all the potential presidential candidates who are better qualified because they deliberately chose not to educate themselves or strive for advancement.

[Steve M.]

Look, people who left the Dems between Kennedy and Reagan did so for one reason: civil fucking rights. Blather on all you want about traditional values and welfare queens and entitlement programs, but it boils down, like a bunny, to one thing: black people should have remembered their place.

Ah, you're full of it! It's not just the coloreds -- it's the women's libbers! And the P.R.s! And those dirty stinking hippies! And the fags -- don't forget the fags!

[Jay B.]

You couldn't bowl under 50 if you were blindfolded and arthritic.

Good Christ, that's fucking pathetic. Even for a Hillary supporter. Not that it matters, but here's HOW he bowled a 37. He took a couple of throws. He let a kid throw some down the lane for him. He took a couple of throws. He stopped at the 7th frame after getting a spare.

But you, know, you could just regurgitate idiotic media tropes! That'd be AWESOME. Please tell me when you're no longer a Democrat. It'll make my day. I'm tired of fools in my party.

While she's a bit off base in some of her analysis, her point is not far from true: Obama left the working classes far behind when he realized there was money and power to be mined in the middle and upper classes.

Was this before or after he was a Harvard-educated community organizer or after? He must have realized it raking in the HUGE bucks teaching Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago. Or maybe it was when he became a State Senator. Rolling in dough there.

You're right though. Much like Hillary, he should have remained humble and poor.

Seriously. Just vote McCain. You'd be honest at least.

[TeddySanFran]

** standing on chair clapping **

[Lab Kat]

Lurker un-lurking:

Definition of irony: Any member of the wingnuttia calling someone else an "elitist." I wasn't aware we were that special, to be honest.

[asdfasd]

actor212, are you fucking serious? bowling has something to do with being working class? how stupid do you think people are. stop insulting the working class with this bullshit.

"Obama left the working classes far behind when he realized there was money and power to be mined in the middle and upper classes."

riiight. because if there's one thing the working classes don't want, it's more money.

[Thom Rogers (TAGG)]

Just thought I'd add my two cents from today...http://www.tagg-theangrygayguy.com

[Malaclypse]

"Because after all, as a Democratic male, he's obviously at least a hermaphrodite, and possibly a cyborg."

For the love of all that is holy, please don't tell Glenn Reynolds: http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/9283.html

[Richard Waddell]

This is the first I realized her true nature. I sent her an email - the only people who don't get what he was saying are stupid or disengenous.

Notice Gerson wrote pretty much the same thing - except he's so scummy he acts like he hopes Obama is the real thing but it's just not knowable. Talk about a troll - I had actually forgotten who he was - thought he was a Clinton guy - the bald-headed one. But there was nothing in his column to indicate what a right wing Bush enabler he was and is.

[skippy]

maureen's problem is that she only knows two or three stories, and so everything she encounters has to be wedged into one of those narratives. she's pulling out her unused gore bon mots on obama...

i've decided this about the repubbblican wurlitzer machine in general.

they are were very good at getting infactual memes to stick against their opponents, but like with policy itself, they are very shallow in their imagination.

they are already recycling the memes they used for gore and kerry on obama.

and i don't think it's going to stick this time, i think people (at least on a subconscious level) are going to say, "haven't we heard this before?"

[hawiken]

"Obama left the working classes far behind when he realized there was money and power to be mined in the middle and upper classes."
That is about the lamest statement I've ever read. Listen, dipshit.... I've been a laborer, carpenter, contractor for 37 years, and I was never happier than the day that I took off my nail bags, stepped into the office and joined the middle class.
You can aggrandize the 'working classes' all you like- I don't like to make generalities, but at least in the construction industry you are not, as a rule, talking about the brightest, best informed group of people in the world. Which isn't to say that construction workers aren't for the most part the hardest working, honest, conscientious work force that you may ever meet, and I always took great pride in the work that we did.
I *did* get weary of the topic of every lunchtime conversation centering around beer and pussy though.

[Thers]

they are already recycling the memes they used for gore and kerry on obama.

Right, skippy -- hell, they're breaking out the red baiting against Obama. Red baiting! Oy.

[SqueakyRat]

Dowd and Hillary in a nutshell: That nigger thinks he's better than you!

[The Oracle]

Why isn't Maureen Dowd-y writing for one of Rupert Murdoch's right-wing rags?

[rose]

Hi! Thanks so much for the invective! As a Hillary supporter and genuine member of the !gasp! constuction trade and other lowly worker ants, I'll be so glad to not suport Obama in November! Swell times to you all, hope you enjoy McCain as president!

[jones]

Right out of the fever swamps of the NY Times, the WaPo, the Chi Trib, Newsweek - got it.  And come again - he was talking to arugula farmers?  Why would he be talking to arugula farmers about the importance of moving away from basic crops - bit of preaching to the choir, yes?  Why did he fail to mention that in his own defense, and why did Media Matters (as well as every other journalist I've read) fail to note that?

[Molly Ivors]

http://www.tagg-theangrygayguy.com

I will never think of the Romney boy in quite the same way....

[r€nato]

Dowd sucks mightily...

... but I'd still tap it.

[ploeg]

Don't forget bombing brown people. They also left the Democratic Party because a lot of Democrats started thinking that bombing brown people might not be the best thing ever in all circumstances.

[spencer]

Obama bowled a 37.

Who gives a fuck, you relentless Hillary shill?

Of all the problems that are going to be inherited by the next president, please identify which ones will be more readily solved by a good bowler.

[Incontinentia Buttocks]

Great post Molly, but damn, girl, take better care of your Le Creuset! That shit is expensive!

[Geaghan]

MoDo deserves such eloquent ridicule, and a lot more, but I gotta admit that the "superannuated cheerleader" phrase -- while funny on one level -- hit me the wrong way. MoDo's columns are superficial enough, but cheerleader has sexist overtones for me in this context. And superannuated seems ageist.

Sorry to detract from anyone's fun, but I balk at ridicule founded on qualities people can't control, like gender and age. The savage and stereotyped attacks on Clinton are another case in point, though she certainly shouldn't be immune from ridicule on many other grounds.

Otherwise, terrific work--thanks!

[larry, dfh]

Her daddy must have told her stories about those big black wangs.