Maureen Dowd's NYT Op-Ed: How Does She Get Away With It?

Posted by tristero, Hullabaloo at 3:01 PM on July 30, 2008.

I don't read MoDo much anymore. I have far more important things and enlightening things to do, like watch a pot of water come to a boil on the stove. But for some reason, I chose this morning to read this and my jaw hit the floor. The only conclusion I can come to is that MoDo simply can't hold her liquor. She must have joined Obama in a ' "very dry" martini with olives.' Or two. Or three. What other reason could there be for typing up this:

The senator left his briefing books behind for a rare instance of mingling with his journalism posse at a Berlin restaurant as he sipped a rare "very dry" martini with olives. (This was either because he wanted to charm the press, which, contrary to popular imagination, is not universally enchanted with him, or because he could not get ESPN in his hotel room.)

The Obamanauts were so elated that they didn't even seem to mind the caricature of Obama, ears sticking out, that had been drawn on the round We-Are-The-World Obama logo in the press section. The cartoon candidate demanded: "Worship me."

After he got out of the Middle East unscathed and filled up the park in Berlin, Obama seemed to relax.

I asked him what presents he takes home to his daughters. "Anytime I make a stop, Sasha gets snow globes and Malia gets key chains," he said. "Somebody is assigned to that."

"You have a snow globe aide?" I marveled.

I can learn far more about politics by watching old Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons than I can from Maureen Dowd (and they're a lot funnier). Go ahead, I dare you, try to find a reason why anyone would choose to write the above. I have a pretty darn good imagination but I cannot conceive of a psychopathological state so vapidly demented as to inform her readers, on the op-ed page of the New York Fucking Times no less, about who buys the snow globes for Obama's children.

A little reality here about that filled-up park in Berlin which MoDo glosses over in her haste to tell us about Obama's snow globe aide. I have an American friend currently living in Germany. She came up to visit us where we're staying in Massachusetts this summer. She told us that Obama's Berlin speech made an electrifying impression on all her friends. It was a transforming moment. Here in the US, as Frank Rich noted this Sunday, it was, perhaps, the first time some of the younger folks amongst us had seen an American politician greeted with cheering throngs (never mind that it happens regularly to Clinton when he travels abroad: those appearances are ignored by the US press).

Also note how MoDo describes how Obama's people reacted to the puerile graffiti that a I-use-the-term-loosely journalist drew on a campaign logo. Like most normal adults would, Obama's aides ignored it. Not MoDo. For her, it is important enough to inform the worldwide readership of the New York Times of its existence. It means something important, at least to her, but exactly what, other than the press is as immature and biased as we been saying they are for years and years, is hard to discern.

If, as the old joke has it, Andrew Lloyd-Webber is the luckiest man in the world, then Maureen Dowd must be the luckiest woman. To write such drivel, and to publish it, and to get paid for it ... Truly, Fortune smiles her treacly, empty smile upon Maureen.

One more thing. That "worship me" graffiti? Remember this? For those of you who don't, it's quite real. Clear Channel paid good money to put this billboard up:



Ooops, looks like that water's about to boil Another ten minutes now, I'm sure ...

Tagged as: obama, new york times, clear channel, maureen dowd, mainstream media sucks, andrew lloyd-webber