Scott Lemieux for president. Of whatever's available. Right now!

Until Dems and libs are willing to call nitwits like Dowd "disgraceful," there is little real hope for our future prospects. They'll keep trashing our brightest leaders ("Too fat!") and building familiar hero tales around the GOP's dumbest bumpkins.

But the good news is, nobdy reads Maureen Dowd. I honestly believe that 90% of her readers are Democrats who look at her column just to work on their sense of self-pity. Particularly now that she is confined behind the Times's electronic burka, she is politically impotent. She's a sad, superannuated high school queen bee, there's nothing there to get upset about

Maureen Dowd is a double embarrassment;

1) She is basically a glorified gossip columnist. She belongs in the Style section where she can write all she wants about the Clintons marriage, Wolfie's girlfriends, John Kerry's botox, Teresa's clothes, Al Gore's weight/earth tones/tan etc. etc.

2) She is the only female columnist in the NYT and perpetuates the worst stereotypes about women being airheads obsessed with trivia/clothes/gossip.

Paul Gottlieb,

"Particularly now that she is confined behind the Times's electronic burka, she is politically impotent."

I disagree.

Turn on the TV talking head shows, read the op-ed pages, you will find wall to wall Maureen Dowd wannabes, snarky, gossip obssessed heathers.

Dowd has a cushy job as the only female columnist in the most prestigious op-ed page. Other female journalists/pundits all aspire to get a similar high prestige job. They all copy her.

I have to agree with anonymous: if Dowd didn't mean anything, you wouldn't have so many people trying to become her. (And, Nan, while I sympathize with your point, these days the guy-pundits are talking the same drivel -- watch Chris Matthews any night) The scariest part is, because Dowd will write the occasional Bush-bashing column, there are many (including Democrats) who think of her as on our side.

It may be somewhat wishful on my part, but I thought, back in '99, that the Pulitzer committee honoring her Lewinsky coverage was meant as a somewhat ironic gesture: expressing their low opinion of the story by pinning it to a gossip writer rather than a more "legit" journalist like Isikoff or Schmidt.

The second comment is just amazing. Has there ever been a group of people so committed to their own destruction? So determined to insist that all is well? So committed to ignoring the things that defeat their basic interests? Has there ever been such a group? Anywhere at all in the world?

The fact that Maureen Dowd's pathetic sqeaking wastes some of the most precious Op-Ed space is tragic, but she's not alone. When was the last David Brooks column worth reading, mush less responding to? Hasn't Tom Friedman's pompous nonsense and idiotic moustache become too much for anyone to bear? The fact is, the NYT Op=Ed page is becoming a dreary, irrelevant wasteland. But I still believe that you enormously overstate it's influence. Real politicians, like Bill Clinton or (I'm afraid) Ronald Reagan are undeterred by the envious yapping from the peanut gallery. All of Chris Mathew's mewling and David Broder's tut-tuting didn't put a dent in Bill Clinton. Look at the numbers! virtually nobody watches Chris Mattews or Tim Russert; virtually nobody except for political junkies like us read Maureen Dowd or George Will. This is not where the battle will be won or lost.

Those of you who claim that nobody reads Maureen Dowd know that her columns (along with other NYT op-ed writers') are syndicated to other newspapers, right? They're a few days late & not every one runs, but I see her, and Friedman, and Brooks, and [occasionally] Krugman on the op-ed pages of The Tennessean, so it's not like her columns are only seen by a select few. So yeah, they have an effect.

Dowd's effect is not directly on voters, but on the straight news reporters who pick up their themes. If all of this remained on MSNBC or the NY Times editorial page it might not matter, but when Adam Nagourney, Ceci Connolly or Kit Seelye begin repeating it on the front page we have big problems.

CBG gets it right. Dowd matters not just because of her syndicated column, but because these kinds of pundits seem to set the agenda for a lot of "news" reporters.

Among the other things that really disturb me about Dowd (and, if you desire, you can read all about them here) is her lack of work. I mean, she wrote this entire column from watching Diane Sawyer and talking to James Traub. If that is all she is going to do, give the Op-Ed space to one of those two for actually doing work.

While her column is important in setting the agenda of news reporters, I agree with Paul that the battle won't be won or lost on the Op-Ed pages of the Times or, sad to say, even on blogs but rebuilding a solid progressive majority by knocking on doors and confronting this BS.

bob somerby,

"So committed to ignoring the things that defeat their basic interests?"

How is it defeating their basic interests?

I guess it depends how you define "basic interest".

If you define it as money/power/celebrity it has clearly helped their interest.

Dowd even has a Pulitzer so what is the down side to her?

demtom,

"(And, Nan, while I sympathize with your point, these days the guy-pundits are talking the same drivel"

The only female columnist in the NYT op-ed page is an airhead. The male columnists in the NYT op-ed page, whether you agree with them or not deal with issues of substance. You might disagree with Tom Friedman but he deals with major policy matters.

NY Review of Books has Joan Didion, Elizabeth Drew. They write throught provoking pieces about issues of substance.

Dowd is an embarrassment.

Mike 3550,

"If that is all she is going to do, give the Op-Ed space to one of those two for actually doing work."

Gail Collins will be getting her own column. She does her homework and writes about policy matters so I am looking forward to reading her columns.

I've proposed myself for the NYT stables many times, but they have no interest, alas. Still, I think there is something that pushes women into writing on these kinds of topics, something not totally inside the women themselves. Just check out the home page of Politico and notice the gossip column being advertised.

On a much more minor level I get the most links on my blog when I write on armpit hair, say, not when I explain how to understand statistics or what to do about the health insurance crisis.

"these days the guy-pundits are talking the same drivel -- watch Chris Matthews any night"

Yeah, but right after "The Kiss," Christopher Hitchens was winding up something disparaging about Tipper Gore, and Matthews told him don't even say it because Tipper is Hot. CH had nothing to say. I enjoyed that.

"NY Review of Books has Joan Didion, Elizabeth Drew. They write throught provoking pieces about issues of substance."

Joan Didion is self absorbed. Unbearable.

The irony being that Dowd's column photo features a pose that hides her own burgeoning neck wattles--and Gore on TV (last night on the Daily Show) radiates health and enthusiasm, whereas Dowd mumbles and shelters beneath hair whose color owes little or nothing to nature.
I pity the woman. She's going to have a disasterous late middle age.

Scott: Hear, hear.

Nan: Bob Somerby's question
"So committed to ignoring the things that defeat their basic interests?" was directed at the second commenter (Paul Gottlieb) and people who think like him, not Dowd.

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