Dowd

How lazy and out of ideas is Maureen Dowd?

Her column today consists of Dowd calling her sister and asking her what she thinks of Obama.

How did she (and others) hold on to their columns at major newspapers?

Protecting the Unborn and the Molesters of the Postborn

It's a rare event that I bother to read Maureen Dowd, more the less that I'll actually agree with here. It happened in today's Op-Ed, Dowd comments on the pervasive crisis caused by the Church's global protection of pedophiliac priests, a practice that runs straight to the present Pope. I don't find this pope's actions, as an archbishop or as the doctrinal hammer in his days as cardinal, all that surprising. As Dowd says, news like this is shocking, but not surprising. As a colonial Latin Americanist, I can attest to the long history of the Church overlooking acts it morally condemns in order to protect its power- jurisdictional, political, economic. And, this Pope is well versed in the practice.

As Dowd notes,

The sin-crazed “Rottweiler” was so consumed with sexual mores — issuing constant instructions on chastity, contraception, abortion — that he didn’t make time for curbing sexual abuse by priests who were supposed to pray with, not prey on, their young charges.

American bishops have gotten politically militant in recent years, opposing the health care bill because its language on abortion wasn’t vehement enough, and punishing Catholic politicians who favor abortion rights and stem cell research. They should spend as much time guarding the kids already under their care as they do championing the rights of those who aren’t yet born.

The observation is a prescient one this week. On Friday, for example, a priest from the Archdiocese of Santa Fe will give mass on the street outside of the Planned Parenthood of New Mexico clinic and administrative offices in Albuquerque. It's an annual event that caps off forty preceding days of harassment. As many as 500 people will show up for this mass. As it stands right now, the medical procedures Sheehan and his followers are protesting in Albuquerque are legal in the United States of America. Pedophilia isn't. And it isn't legal in Ireland, England, Germany, Italy, any country I know of in Latin America, etc. Yet, the church has maintained an institutional policy of protecting pedophiles, a policy it appears this Pope is intimately familiar with. It's the typical hypocrisy of the "pro-life" movement - concern for fetuses, and ambivalence at best for really existing women and kids.

Edited to correct the mass giver. I had heard the Archbishop would be there, but was wrong. He has come to other events/protests before.

Worthless Or Most Worthless Column In The History of Humanity

I present you Maureen Dowd's column on Obama's supposed lack of humor.

Why does she have a job again?

More Dowd

Can Maureen Dowd just go write for People? Her column today sets new a new low for sleazy anti-Hillary gossip and she's trying to find a way to start slamming Obama tomorrow. Is Dowd actually a Republican agent? People would be a more appropriate venue, though I hesitate to insult that magazine. Maybe she can cover politics for Teen Beat instead.

I know I should just let it go. I shouldn't even read her columns. You see, this was the great thing about TimesSelect. I didn't have to read their columnists. It was a great time in my life. Even after they took it down, I resisted for awhile. But like a recovering heroin addict hanging out in Seattle, it was only a matter time before I broke down again. Except that at least heroin might make you feel good. Dowd just makes my head explode.

Dowd's Hackery

MoDo brings her unique brand of gossipy hackery to the Obama-Hillary rivalry this morning. Her column discusses The Snub, which she names the photos of Obama not being too excited to shake Clinton's hand at the State of the Union address.

What does this accomplish? Absolutely nothing. But Dowd has to find a way to torpedo Obama's campaign with trivial gossip while claiming to be a Democrat. She already has her Hillary strategy. Now she sees the necessity of applying that to Obama.

Does Dowd ever have anything useful to say? The Times opinion page is a joke--Brooks, Collins, Friedman, Kristol for God's sake. But if I could get rid of any of them, it would be Dowd. Her work is beyond worthless.

Does Maureen Dowd Ever Have Anything Good To Offer?

I believe the answer is no.

Her latest hot air concerns the John Edwards $400 hair cut. Dowd, that siren of substance, of course makes a big deal out of it. In one of her seemingly ad nauseum columns on this matter, she writes, "Following his star turn primping his hair for two minutes on a YouTube video to the tune of "I Feel Pretty," Mr. Edwards this week had to pay back the $800 charged to his campaign for two shearings at Torrenueva Hair Designs in Beverly Hills. He seems intent of proving that he is a Breck Girl -- and a Material Boy."

I could not give a flying fuck about how much John Edwards pays for his haircut. Neither should you. It's his money and I don't care how he spends it. What I care about is what he thinks about health care, the war, the environment, abortion, gay rights, fighting poverty, and other issues. We should care, virtually to the exclusion of all other matters, about what candidates say about issues. If we care primarily about the image of our candidates, the Republicans are one step ahead.

I say this because I know through friends that at the very least the Obama campaign is using the haircut to attack Edwards within Democratic circles. That's just not really acceptable to me. I don't think it makes me think too much less about Obama; hell, Edwards would probably do the same thing. But it says a lot about problems within the American political system.

I've said this before and no doubt I will say it again--but how do columnists at the Times get their jobs? I, or you, could do at least as good. Probably far better. This is what passes for writing at editorial page of the nation's most prestigious paper???

See also Paul Waldman and Matt Yglesias, among many others.