Chasing Heather Crazy

by Molly Ivors

You know that moment, at the end of A Streetcar Named Desire, when Blanche goes completely off the rails and has to be dragged of to the loony bin? I have a feeling Maureen Dowd is about to learn how to depend on the kindness of strangers.

It's been a little disturbing, watching her bounce around these last few months, but today, she loses it completely, framing an imaginary debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in which each of them, well, talks to the other like they're MoDo.

It's disturbing and a little concerning to see Maureen's rich fantasy life so fully on display, with Hillary calling Obama "Twiggy," "rookie," "Skeletor," and "Bones," accusing him of fake eating, and promising to lock Bill in Dick Cheney's bunker if she's made VP.

Obama, for his part, calls her "Sweetie" and a stalker,  accuses her of floating "White Fright," says the Clintons are "too much drama" and Bill is "off-the-charts crazy," and, most predictably of all, asks her, "Can you stop talking, Hillary? Is that even possible?"  Wow, talk about pulling out your old chestnuts:  HRC is now the Wife of Bath.

And it's not Maureen saying it: it's the candidates themselves! So you know this what they're really thinking!

My main beef with MoDo is and has always been a sort of terminal shallowness which unfortunately fails to find bottom. Just when you think she can't possibly sink lower, she finds some scrap of text scribbled on a piece of toilet paper stuck to the bottom of her Ferragamos and finds a way to work it in.

As the front page of Maureen's own paper shows, Obama's got it more or less locked at this point, but Clinton's strong showing cannot and should not be discounted. Dems have a couple weeks worth of work to do healing divisions, but in the end, it will be fine. I have never believed, and still don't, that Obama voters would refuse to vote for HRC or vice versa: people are not that stupid. We know what this is about, and here's a few hints for you, Maureen:

*it's not about who eats what
*it's not about who smokes
*it's not about who hates who
*it's not about your cocktail parties
*it's not about the fact that Bill wouldn't fuck you
*it's not about youthful drug use
*it's not about John Edwards' hair
*it's not about your Mandingo fantasies (a hint: I wouldn't expect President Obama to fuck  you either)
*it's not about your massive misunderstandings about male-female relationships
*it's not about you

Hard as it may be to believe from the professionally decorated and chakra-managed walls of your co-op, there are people hurting out here. Badly. We have a war to end, a reputation to rebuild, an economy to resuscitate, and a nation to heal. We have work to do. Go play out your fantasies somewhere else.

Comments

[ql was in NY]

Wow, I really wish someone would forward this to modo. Probably wouldn't change her schtick, but maybe, just maybe, she may work in some substance once in awhile.

[Vicki, Who hearts Al Gore]

Just when you think she can't possibly sink lower, she finds some scrap of text scribbled on a piece of toilet paper stuck to the bottom of her Ferragamos and finds a way to work it in.

Yoinks! Love that line. Well played.

[noblejoanie]

Brilliant!

I'd like to think there are any number of her colleagues at the NYTimes who either ARE reading this, Molly, or wish they knew of it.

Hmmmm, perhaps a friendly note to Gail Collins...

[PSoTD]

The biggest problem the Times has about MoDo at this point is that she's unreadable. Boring, irrelevant, tedious, immature crap.

[rea]

Every 4 years, the country elects someone for Maureen Dowd to write columns about.

[Betty Cracker]

I still can't wrap my mind around the fact that this shallow hack won a Pulitzer. The prize is forever diminished as a result.

[Jemand von Niemand]

Dowd won the Putz in 1999; one of the last winners in the 20th Century. The stretch of columns for which she 'won' the award are marked by that her trademark catty, character-assassin nastiness -- something about people who never outgrow an adolescent need to rip others to pieces in order to feel whole themselves.

One of her columns, from November, 1998, was "So Don't Like Me" (the article never explained this choice of title). It was the last in a long string of catty, nasty columns -- mostly about Bill Clinton and the stained blue dress ("Monica Gets Her Man" "Confessions Of A Sex Addict" "):

In a nation ruled by polls and ratings [Dowd pouts], where even newspapers hire focus groups to see what kind of news readers want, we are losing sight of something ... Just because something is popular doesn't mean it's right.

Look at any of Dowd's published works, and you'll see that her career has been built around an avoidance of risk. If someone possesses a talent for writing, the easy road is to be 'outrageous' and 'controversial' in a conventional way: Dowd's broken no new ground that Hedda Hopper or Louella Parsons hadn't done before.

She could have been truly outrageous, and used her position as a "journalist" to tell the truth -- not as she sees it, but the truth -- about the war, about the excesses of the Bush administration; about living in America outside her pampered, golden world.

"The impure history of modern America -- Vietnam, Watergate, Iran-contra", Dowd wrote in the same column from '98 " -- proves that reporters have a duty to dig for the truth, whatever the public thinks."

Pity she's never done that. The only depths she's ever plumbed are her own -- and those depths are shallow, indeed.

In "So Don't Like Me", Dowd claimed she knew what the stakes of her 'profession' are: There is a danger of making false equations between popularity and rightness, between what is liked and what is true. The danger is that next time, when the cover-up takes place in a less gray area, reporters will look at the numbers and go home early. Next time it may not be about sex and lies. It may be about life and death.

Well, it was about life and death, Maureen. And what did you do? You didn't tell the truth; you wrote for the cheap seats: You wrote the equivalent of a society gossip column.

And you know what? We don't like you.

[steve simels]

Just when you think she can't possibly sink lower, she finds some scrap of text scribbled on a piece of toilet paper stuck to the bottom of her Ferragamos and finds a way to work it in.

I love you.

Seriously -- it defies belief that her editors at the Times aren't embarassed and appalled by her.

[aimai]

Ouch, just OUCH. Can someone superglue this column to modo's apartment door? Or get it hand delivered by the guy who bikes in the chinese takeout to her when she's hiding in there avoiding dateless nights out?

aimai

[W. Kiernan]

We have a war to end, a reputation to rebuild, an economy to resuscitate, and a nation to heal.

The war in Iraq doesn't concern Ms. Dowd in the least, her reputation is doing just fine, and her economy is in terrific shape. And Ms. Dowd doesn't live in the U.S.A., she lives far above it, looking down; whether this country ever gets "healed" or not, she absolutely doesn't give a damn.

[flory]

Seriously -- it defies belief that her editors at the Times aren't embarassed and appalled by her.

Facts would argue otherwise. If they were embarassed by her they could fire her and her Ferragamos.

I would posit that the reason she continues writing such sophomoric drivel is that her editors are as shallow and adolescent as she. They enjoy what she has to say. It's like eavesdropping on the Heathers in the cafeteria. You may think they're stupid and shallow, but you want to hear who they're talking about anyway.

Oh, and Molly? I don't think her problem is that Bill wouldn't fuck her, it's that Bill wouldn't fuck her but would fuck Monica. I mean really -- Monica?

And goddess I really hope somebody is emailing her this link.

[oscar]

The problem isn't really Modo. The problem is the legion of liberals out there who still think Modo has her finger on the pulse, that she's a great writer, and that her take on these things matters. I see and hear them every day, "Oh, did you see Maureen Dowd's latest... wow! She's so smart and funny."

Oof.

[Pat Johnson]

Where it was once the flagship of newspapers and led the world on their insistence of truth to power the NYT has now seen itself lowered to a level of rank mediocrity. Their columnists and reporters, not to confused, are no longer the beacons of truth we once expected. There is not a Scotty Reston among them. Sorrowful.

[Northern Observer]

We have work to do. Go play out your fantasies somewhere else.
May 21, 2008 in Pundittery | Permalink | Comments (13) | TrackBack

I really like the tone of this comment. It can be used on so many concern trolls and contrairians like Maureen.

[Pat Johnson]

MoDo was not one of those girls who did not get invited to sit at the Heather table. The extent of her feelings of rejection are reflected twice weekly in the NYT. Not a nice person. I think she would like to be a duplication of Alice Roosevelt Longworth. Remember: "If you have nothing nice to say about someone come sit by me"?

[Pat Johnson]

Correction: Meant to say did not get invited.

[winfernal]

So now she's Ivy Compton-Burnett. Maybe it's a portion of some Dame Ivy inspired novel - fiction certainly informs as much of her output as fact. Suggested title: Miss Jesus Hitler and the Cracker Queen.

[Davis]

I sent her an email thanking her for another inane column phoned in. I know it doesn't do any good, but one has to do something. I wonder how many she gets?

It's hard to believe that anyone derives any amusement form her columns. Even when she was bashing Bush and Cheney, they just weren't enjoyable. So many blogs are just so much better. TBogg, Poor Man, Roger Ailes The Good. Oh yes, and Whiskey fire.

[Hecate Demetersdatter, Runnymeade Conspirator]

Just when you think she can't possibly sink lower, she finds some scrap of text scribbled on a piece of toilet paper stuck to the bottom of her Ferragamos and finds a way to work it in.

Damn, I wish that I'd written that.

[bigassbelle]

i do think she's lost her mind. i wrote suggesting meds. i expect she's already on them. needs an adjustment, and fast. what a lunatic.

[Silver Owl]

My problem with Dowd is I'm sick to death of reading about her fucked up mental and emotional issues.

[Mo MoDo]

It's become a theme of
Dowd's that Obama is too thin to win. Get him a cheezeburger.

[Tehanu]

Just when you think she can't possibly sink lower, she finds some scrap of text scribbled on a piece of toilet paper stuck to the bottom of her Ferragamos

And then I, Roseann Roseannadanna, had to yell, "Hey! Doctor Joyce Brothers Maureen! Get that paper offa your shoes! What are ya trying to do, make me sick?"

[Batocchio]

I suspect she acts out such dialogue with puppets, while occasionally glancing at herself in the mirror.