Over the weekend, the New York Times’ resident spinster penned her obligatory nya-nya-nya-nya-nya piece on Sarah Palin’s decision to leave office in Alaska.
Suffice it to say, Maureen Dowd’s editorial is rife with cheap shots, double standards, flat out politically-motivated lies, and other things to keep Dowd’s psychiatric team busy for weeks. In other words, the article reveals more about Dowd than it does about Palin. It’s a shame that such a pretty woman can be so ugly on the inside.
OK, let’s pick this piece apart, paragraph by detestable paragraph:
Now, Sarah’s Folly
By MAUREEN DOWD
Sarah Palin showed on Friday that in one respect at least, she is qualified to be president.
Caribou Barbie is one nutty puppy.
In the very second paragraph Miss Dowd starts with the left jabs. According to Miss Dowd and a lot of other supposedly well-grounded intellectual liberals, conservatives are all “crazy” or “nutty.”
And calling a woman Sarah Palin “Caribou Barbie” proves not only that women can make sexist remarks against other women, but that Miss Maureen is rather jealous of her. Exhibit A: her book, aptly titled “Are Men Necessary?” Sarah Palin’s very existence proves to Miss Maureen that they are, as is the family of loving children that this bitter woman will likely never get the opportunity to enjoy. Living with the philosophy of abortion-über-alles-all-men-suck feminism makes for an empty existence, don’t it?
Usually we don’t find that exquisite battiness in our leaders until they’ve been battered by sordid scandals like Watergate (Nixon), gnawing problems like Vietnam (L.B.J.), or scary threats like biological terrorism (Cheney).
How telling she seems to leave out a certain semen-stained dress courtesy of certain president who couldn’t keep his monster in his pants in the Oval Office and a subsequent obstruction of justice charge that resulted in the temporary loss of said president’s law license.
When Lyndon Johnson was president, some of his staff began to think of him as “a sick man,” as Bill Moyers told Arthur Schlesinger Jr. Moyers and his fellow Johnson aide Dick Goodwin even began reading up on mental illness — Bill on manic depression and Dick on paranoia.
And so it was, Todd Purdum learned, as he traveled Alaska reporting on Palin for Vanity Fair [Ah yes, Vanity Fair is such an authoritative source for sound political commentary. No wonder the supposedly enlightened liberatiTM continue not to get it - ETR], that the governor’s erratic and egoistic behavior has been a source of concern for people there.
“Several told me, independently of one another,” Purdum writes, “that they had consulted the definition of ‘narcissistic personality disorder’ in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders — ‘a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy’ — and thought it fit her perfectly.”
Erratic and egoistic behavior? Sarah Palin? Sorry, no. It does, however, perfectly describe the current president, whose litany of indescretions and displays of self-aggrandizement never faze Maureen Dowd.
I wonder if Miss Maureen ever accused Barack and Michelle Obama, Bill and Hillary Clinton, John and Teresa Heinz Kerry, John Edwards, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Ted Kennedy, Jesse Jackson, or Al Sharpton of ‘a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy’. Because it’s these people who are textbook cases in narcissism, not Sarah Palin.
Finally, it’s quite rich when conservatives like Dick Cheney are accused of paranoia. Because I can’t think of a better example of unhinged paranoia than a “Bush-stole-the-2000-election-Halliburton-Bush-stole-the-2004-election-Halliburton-Bush-lied-people-died-Halliburton-9/11-was-an-inside-job-Halliburton-Bush-invaded-Iraq-to-enrich-his-oil-buddies-Halliburton-Bush-is-spying-on-me-using-the-Patriot-Act-Halliburton-Halliburton-Halliburton-Halliburton” liberal/Democrat.
And to handily make this point is Dowd herself, bubbling.
What looked like a secret wedding turned out to be a public unraveling as the G.O.P. implosion continued: Sarah wanted everyone to know that she’s not having fun and people are being mean to her and she doesn’t feel like finishing her first term as governor.
She can hunt wolves from the air and field-dress a moose, but she fears being a lame duck? Some brickbats over her ethics and diva turns as John McCain’s running mate, and that dewy skin turns awfully thin.
Maybe there’s another red Naughty Monkey high heel to drop — there’s often a hidden twist in Sarah’s country-music melodramas. Or is this a reckless high-speed escape from small-pond Alaska, where her popularity is dropping, to the big time Below? […]
Ummm, newsflash, Miss Dowd: According to this Washington Post article Palin has a 54% approval rate with Alaskans, indeed a steep drop from the 80’s she enjoyed a year ago. But your hero Barack Obama’s approval ratings are also dropping: from 65% on January 21 (with 30% disapproving) to 53% on July 2 (with 46% disapproving). This, Sweet Cheeks, is what we call a statistical tie.
After girlish burbling about how “progressing our state” and serving Alaska “is the greatest honor that I could imagine,” and raving about how much she loves her job, she abruptly announced that she was making the ultimate sacrifice: dumping the state on her lieutenant. […]
“Girlish burbling”? Again, more sexist statements by someone who’d be castigating Rush Limbaugh had he used the same words about, say, Hillary Clinton or, dare I say, Dowd herself.
“We need those who will respect our Constitution,” said Palin, who swore on the Bible to uphold the Constitution. She said she can’t fulfill that silly old oath of office in the usual way because she’s not “wired to operate under the same old politics as usual.”
Ya know, I, like many conservatives, are very wary about Palin’s decision to leave the governership mid-term. But did Miss Maureen criticize Hillary Clinton for leaving New York “in a lurch” when she left her Senatorial perch for greener pastures? Of course not.
If Palin has in fact relinquished her post with the intention of running for higher office, that’s much more honorable than letting your seat gather dust while still collecting your paycheck, as did Barack Obama, John Kerry, and John Edwards. Suffice it to say that we need not even search the NY Times rchives to find Dowd’s criticism of them. The double standards in Miss Dowd’s hit piece are just so embarrassingly blatant.
Naturally, she dragged the troops in, [Yes, Miss Maureen, almost as naturally as you drag in Halliburton] saying that her trip to see wounded soldiers overseas “fortified” her decision to give up because “they don’t give up.”
She refuses to succumb to the “politics of personal destruction.” It’s no fun unless she’s the one aiming those poison darts, as she did when she accused Barack Obama of associating “with terrorists who targeted their own country.”
Umm, that wasn’t a poison dart, because was true. Barack Obama did pal around with terrorists who did target their own country. More frighteningly, Obama has expressed before and during his presidency to pal around with a hell of a lot more. It is in fact Maureen who is the dart thrower in this situation.
OK, enough of this abomination. (We get the point. In the NY Times’ defense, they do present a “conservative” alternative to Dowd with this editorial by Ross Douthat.)
Now here’s Breitbart’s retort. In short, he charges Dowd, as well as Katie Couric and Tina Fey, with a detrimental elitism and snobbery with which female liberals in the media and Hollywood have viewed Sarah Palin from the start:
July 6, 2009
New York Times Barbie strikes again
What a shock that Maureen Dowd devoted her New York Times column Sunday to attack Sarah Palin. It did not so much criticize Alaska’s governor for prematurely stepping down from her official duties as to finish off what sister snipers Katie Couric and Tina Fey began last fall.
The assassination of Sarah Palin—by media.
For those who didn’t pay attention, Mrs. Palin’s unexpected stratospheric rise as a national political figure threatened the media’s preordained presidency of Barack Obama.
In light of how the Obama machine took down Hillary Clinton, which unsettled many feminists who believed 2008 was their time, many who saw sexism at play—the destruction of an ascendant Republican female icon was an urgent imperative for the Democratic Party.
In conjunction with the laws of political correctness as perfected by the Democratic Media Complex, it would take prominent women to take down an unlikely and unexpected conservative feminist symbol that threatened to steal away Mrs. Clinton’s votes from the Chosen One.
While the vanquished then-senator from New York conspicuously removed herself from this task—going so far as praising Sen. John McCain’s running mate as “a very composed and effective debater”—a trio of media partisans, each with a unique skill set, rose to the task of tearing down Sarah Palin.
Misses Dowd, Couric and Fey—Obama’s Angels (featuring Joy Behar in the role of “Bosley”)—used a potent mix of mockery, snobbery and vitriol to undermine Mrs. Palin’s feminist bona fides.
They are what my wife calls “pad throwers,” an allusion to the shower room scene in the Stephen King film “Carrie,” in which the popular girls throw sanitary napkins and tampons at the film’s namesake.
Simply put, they are bullies. And female bullies—“Mean Girls” as Miss Fey’s film calls them—are the cruelest kind.
Primarily motivated by a desire to keep abortion “safe, legal and rare,” female liberals in the media have carte blanche to do and say anything.
But since Mrs. Palin, a mother of five including a boy who was known to have Down syndrome before he was born, is a potent symbol of the pro-life movement, she is considered an enemy of the sisterhood.
Miss Dowd’s attempted takedown of Mrs. Palin is less skillful surgery than it is name calling using fun noun and adjective pairings. Think “Mad Libs.” And, that’s exactly what Misses Dowd, Couric and Fey are. Once the ladies did their job, liberal men like Jon Stewart and David Letterman had the cover to join the hate campaign.
While Mrs. Palin is at ease with her gender, as well as her place in the workplace and at home, Misses Dowd, Couric and Fey convey a base insecurity in their feminine skin. Their rage is fueled by liberalism’s false feminist dogma and they take it out on a woman who chose not to join their angry sorority.
The governor of Alaska’s compelling narrative—athlete, beauty queen, wife, mother, hunter, successful politician—shows adherents of narrow leftist dogma that, perhaps, women really can have it all. Most importantly: freedom of thought.
In calling Alaska’s governor “Caribou Barbie,” Miss Dowd used beauty as a weapon to diminish Mrs. Palin’s achievements. A man would be reprimanded for this, but Miss Dowd is a Pulitzer Prize-winning pad thrower and is licensed for such vindictive pettiness.
“Caribou,” of course, is a stab at Mrs. Palin’s backwater, Red State ways, attacks on which an Upper Westside liberal snob can never get enough. Miss Dowd goes on to ridicule “Sarah’s country-music melodramas.” This is her barely veiled attempt to call Mrs. Palin “white trash.” And this has been the loathsome subtext of all media criticism of the Palins. They even went after their children. Mercilessly.
And Mrs. Palin during the Letterman saga finally cried, “Enough!”
Exposed in the relentless Palin attacks is not just political bias, but unmitigated class bias. The American mainstream media in its current free-fall is begging for more comeuppance when it continues to berate the values and lifestyles of the folks in flyover country who in simpler times used to be considered valued customers.
While “empathy” and “tolerance” may be liberalism’s highest values, Miss Dowd offers her conservative victims none. They are caricatured, demeaned and dehumanized. They are to be mocked and ridiculed to the point where the other students point and laugh. The MoDo template is so simple and repetitive it could be written into a software program.
Perhaps resigning from her first term in office may hurt Mrs. Palin’s attempts to run for higher office. Even I, a Palin supporter, now have qualms about her seeking higher office. But politics is not the most important way to influence our country, and reinforce conservatism’s relevancy in the current global disorder. Media is.
Sarah Palin may best serve her country by entering the media fray. In the pursuit of taking her down, Misses Dowd, Couric and Fey have created the person who burns the liberal media prom down.
Hopefully, when she leaves office Mrs. Palin starts to work on her telekinetic powers.
Can’t say I disagree with any of these comments. It has become obvious from the start that liberals/Democrats are scared of Sarah Palin. She is the promise of feminism, which they despise. He has everything that liberal women like Maureen Dowd want but can’t have. She has achieved everything on her own terms. And most importantly, she is Barack Obama’s most formidable opponent in 2012. Sarah Palin isn’t quitting anything, liberals/Democrats. She’s just getting ready for the next battle. And you know it all too well. As far as the so-called feminists like Dowd, Couric, and Fey, Curt at the Flopping Aces blog writes this: … [T]here is no way, no how, someone who is a real feminist would throw such insults at a female who is strong, independent, and successful. But the feminist movement has always been a leftist breeding ground, or has been as long as I’ve been alive. It’s not women rights they cherish, but the liberal ideology. Bingo. Let round two begin.
Show me one article in mainstream media or from a left wing blog in which Sarah Palin took flack for not aborting Trig. I said what your sources implied. However, to paraphrase your response regarding Dowd's use of the Vanity Fair article, since you gave him over a paragraph and half, should I not have assumed you were agreeing with the guy?
When did the McCain-Palin campaign mention Bernadine Dohrn? And when did Obama shake her hand once? Did I miss those national headlines?
The "Kill Him" was reported on CNN. The story broke the day of a McCain-Obama debate, and was reported on TV via videos of the rallies before anywhere else. Even going with the paranoid idea that a media myth was created, you cannot deny the hatred and bigotry that was coming out during those rallies or on the sidewalks before and after wards. I can honestly that I believe that no Democrat every cried out, "Kill Him!" or "Terrorist!" or "Muslim!" when Biden mentioned John McCain.
Jesse Helms didn't bomb the Capitol, but I wonder if he ever lit a cross on fire. Touche on Byrd, who most certainly did.
Finally, no. I don't think Franken's victory is an ACORN perpetrated fraud anymore than you think a recount was called for in 2001 in Florida. Stop taking the thing so seriously. It's only politics! And my guy did win. And we have 60 votes in the Senate. So don't be so bitter.
Posted by: Leah | Monday, July 13, 2009 at 08:53 PM
Rosie O'Donnell doesn't speak for me, anymore than Jon Voight or Ted Nugent speak for you. "9/11 was an inside job" is a statement that is on the fringe of both the far left AND right.
OK, so Rosie O'Donnell doesn't speak for you. But while she was a popular host of a popular TV talk show, she spoke for someone. Voigt and Nugent don't have their own talk shows. You are absolutely right that "9/11 was an inside" job is an EXTREME position. Yet ABC TV let a talk show host rant like a Bush-deranged nut about how fire doesn't melt steel on a nationwide show. THAT's disturbing.
Maureen Dowd has been critical on Democrats and made her name by doing so. If you're going to write an article calling her to task, don't take my word for it. Do your research before hand. To do any less undermines your whole argument by making your readers doubt the other ideas you present.
OK, fine you made your point. She's criticized Democrats too. But you can't tell me she does as frequently and ferociously as Republicans!
Al Franken: Sinister? Really? There is no reason to suspect that Minnesota's courts are biased or corrupt. You don't need to vote for Franken for the sake of his politics, much as I don't have to vote for Palin for the sake of hers.
Oh, come on! The Franken victory was an ACORN-and-court-manufactured fraud and you know it! Who do you think you're kidding!
Feminism and white men, conservative or no (who are still privileged in this society, beyond any other demographic. Fact, not politics.): I'm not defining feminism. The source you quoted, Brietbart and Curt, both are. Their idea that all liberal women would abort a child with down syndrome, and hate Sarah Palin for having her baby, is disgusting and insulting(as is the idea that no conservative woman would abort a child).
I never said all liberal women would abort a DS child. But Palin took a lot of flack from the left for not choosing to abort Trig.
As you said, I'm talking about how Dowd sees the world. If you haven't read her columns, if you are unfamiliar with her work, what inkling do you have that she must be living an "empty, unfulfilled life?" She has a job at the top of her field. She has received the top award in her field. She makes no reference to her own life in her writing, not that you would know this. How do YOU know, how do I know, that she's crying into her merlot at night because she doesn't have a husband and children?
Leah, you might be right or I might be right. This is my opinion. I have no clinical proof. I'm just calling it as I see it. If you disagree with my conclusions, then that's fine too.
Kent National Guardsman: One terrorist. One. Candidate Obama had met with no foreign leaders at the time, so who knows what that plural meant? He still hasn't met with any who could be considered a terrorist by the right, and when he does, I hardly think that 'palling' will be the correct verb.
When Sarah Palin said "palling around with terroristS," she evidently meant Bill Ayres and Bernadine Dohrn.
As for Republicans at a Kent Guardsman fundraiser? Ayers actions in the 60's and 70's made him a 'folk hero' for the extreme, EXTREME left. His actions since then, as a nationally recognized professor of education, made him an acceptable host for a local election fundraiser.
No it did NOT. Here you and I will have to disagree.
You are telling me there is no suitable Republican equivalent to Ayers? Not Sen. Jesse Holmes? Not Sen. Robert Byrd, the former KKK Grand Dragon? Those are SENATORS, elected in statewide elections to national office. They are not minor fundraiser hosts of a State Senate race.
Jesse Holmes - definitely a stain on the Republican Party, but he never set off bombs at the Capitol! And Robert Byrd is a Democrat.
This is what Palin's comment meant, beyond the words she said. When she said "palling around with terrorists," and an audience member called back, "Kill him!" She didn't correct him, then or later.
This is a media-created lie created by Frank Rich or whoever it was who first wrote about it. #1 - No one ever corroborated the story that someone yelled "Kill him!" at that event, and #2 - Even if s/he did, you think no one at a Democrat fundraiser ever said extreme, violent things about Palin, George W., Cheney?
Thanks for writing back, but no need to be so insulted, offended, and disgusted. Lighten up! It's only politics. Besides, your guy won, remember?
Posted by: EricTheRed | Monday, July 13, 2009 at 01:50 PM
Quick notes:
Rosie O'Donnell doesn't speak for me, anymore than Jon Voight or Ted Nugent speak for you. "9/11 was an inside job" is a statement that is on the fringe of both the far left AND right. The other statements within that list are not, particularly those against Halliburton. So, Clinton used them in the '90s. Was it a no-bid contract? Was the former CEO, and a company stock holder, Vice President at the time? Did Halliburton's faulty work in Kosovo put American Servicemen and Women in danger, let alone kill them?
Maureen Dowd has been critical on Democrats and made her name by doing so. If you're going to write an article calling her to task, don't take my word for it. Do your research before hand. To do any less undermines your whole argument by making your readers doubt the other ideas you present.
Al Franken: Sinister? Really? There is no reason to suspect that Minnesota's courts are biased or corrupt. You don't need to vote for Franken for the sake of his politics, much as I don't have to vote for Palin for the sake of hers.
Feminism and white men, conservative or no (who are still privileged in this society, beyond any other demographic. Fact, not politics.): I'm not defining feminism. The source you quoted, Brietbart and Curt, both are. Their idea that all liberal women would abort a child with down syndrome, and hate Sarah Palin for having her baby, is disgusting and insulting(as is the idea that no conservative woman would abort a child).
As you said, I'm talking about how Dowd sees the world. If you haven't read her columns, if you are unfamiliar with her work, what inkling do you have that she must be living an "empty, unfulfilled life?" She has a job at the top of her field. She has received the top award in her field. She makes no reference to her own life in her writing, not that you would know this. How do YOU know, how do I know, that she's crying into her merlot at night because she doesn't have a husband and children?
This is what I mean about any man defining feminism, particularly one with 'conservative family values.' There's an assumption made in their comments and yours that Dowd must want these things, somewhere, deep down, and this must be her reason for criticizing a woman who has chosen a different path, regardless of any other characteristics that woman might have. There's also an assumption that a liberal woman like me, who does choose to be home with her children, could vote for Palin simply because she's a woman just like Hillary Clinton.
I hate Palin's politics. The choices she has made for her family are not necessarily those I would make for mine, but they are NOT the reason for me not voting for her on a national ticket. To suggest otherwise is not a recognition of feminism. It is a confirmation of the narrow world view of chauvinism.
Kent National Guardsman: One terrorist. One. Candidate Obama had met with no foreign leaders at the time, so who knows what that plural meant? He still hasn't met with any who could be considered a terrorist by the right, and when he does, I hardly think that 'palling' will be the correct verb.
As for Republicans at a Kent Guardsman fundraiser? Ayers actions in the 60's and 70's made him a 'folk hero' for the extreme, EXTREME left. His actions since then, as a nationally recognized professor of education, made him an acceptable host for a local election fundraiser. You are telling me there is no suitable Republican equivalent to Ayers? Not Sen. Jesse Holmes? Not Sen. Robert Byrd, the former KKK Grand Dragon? Those are SENATORS, elected in statewide elections to national office. They are not minor fundraiser hosts of a State Senate race.
This is what Palin's comment meant, beyond the words she said. When she said "palling around with terrorists," and an audience member called back, "Kill him!" She didn't correct him, then or later.
Posted by: Leah | Monday, July 13, 2009 at 12:44 PM
Leah - Thanks for your well-prepared comments. I can't possibly respond as thoroughly as you expressed them, otherwise we'd just be going back and forth forever. But here are responses to some of your general points:
(1) I wasn't misquoting Dowd, as you accuse me of in your first comment. I knew Dowd was citing someone else; I even mentioned Vanity Fair in my post. But since Dowd gave Purdum a paragraph and a half to rail against Palin, should I have not assumed she was agreeing with the guy?
(2) How dare *I* put "9/11 was an inside job"? Ask Rosie O'Donnell, an extremely popular liberal commentator who expressed those sentiments on The View, to a cheering audience, and managed to keep her job for months until resigning. As far as Halliburton getting no bids, we can both agree that gov't favoritism and crony capitalism is bad. But remember: Halliburton was used by Clinton in Kosovo in the '90s, so it's not like they didn't have a past record working for the gov't.
(3) If you, like commenter Mo MoDo, say that Dowd has been more critical of the Democrats than I suspect she has, then I will take your word for it.
(4) Al Franken's collegiate credentials don't impress me any more than George W. Bush's MBA from Yale impresses you. I don't see anything intelligent or classy about the man. His stint on Air America was a failure, so if I were him I wouldn't even leave it on his resume. His victory in MN is way more sinister than Bush's so-called stolen election in Florida in 2000. Will Dowd write about this I wonder?
(5) You say you have a problem with white conservative men defining feminism, which I didn't try to do. But you know what *I* have a problem with: *liberal* women defining feminism, and that's what I believe *you* have done, as well as Dowd, Couric, Fey, etc., and any other outspoken critics of Palin. You see Dowd as a strong independent feminist woman who is living life on her own terms. I see a bitter, jealous woman who is realizing, because of women like Palin, that the promises of 60's-styled feminism have led to an empty unfulfilling life.
(6) Yes, Obama palled around with terrorists. Period. And to compare the Weather Underground (Bill Ayres in particular) with the Kent Nat'l Guardsman is much more absurd than comparing Palin to Franken. Ayers is currently a college professor who has publicly expressed joy in beating "the System": "guilty as sin, free as a bird." The guy is scum, and the Obamas are closer with him and his wife Dohrn than his supporters - including Maureen Dowd - will ever admit. The Kent Nat'l Guardsmen *never* were folk heroes for the right, and I'm certain any Republican politician who even walked into their house would see their career end faster than you can say Trent Lott. Say what you will about Sarah's statement. It was true then, and it's true now.
If you don't like Palin's politics, that's your prerogative. On all these and other things, we'll have to agree to disagree. Thanks again. -ETR
Posted by: EricTheRed | Thursday, July 09, 2009 at 09:22 AM
I'm about to continue my blow by blow, but I have to chime in on a comment first:
I'll tell you what. We Republicans will stop taking Sarah Palin seriously the minute you Democrats stop taking Al Franken seriously. Oh wait, too late, he just got sworn in a couple hours ago for the Senate. Talk about amused and bewildered.
Apples and oranges again. Al Franken has been a serious political commentator for the last decade, writing several analysis (funny and no), teaching classes at Harvard on media and doing a daily political talk show on Air America Radio. Besides all that, before he made his living as a comedian and writer, he received a BS in Math from Harvard. Given it wasn't a cumulative degree in journalism acquired over the course of 6 years from the University of Hawaii, Hawaii Pacific University, North Idaho College, the University of Idaho, Matanuska-Susitna College and, finally, the University of Idaho, again, and goodness knows he was never the mayor of a town of 9,300 people, but I think we can agree that he is not entirely without qualifications. He might even be able to run for governor someday.
Anyways, back to paragraph by paragraph:
“Girlish burbling”? Again, more sexist statements by someone who’d be castigating Rush Limbaugh had he used the same words about, say, Hillary Clinton or, dare I say, Dowd herself.
This goes back to the jealously issue - you're not able to see what Dowd's real brand of feminism looks like, and comparing what she's saying to Limbaigh is simply laughable. Dowd is looking down at a woman who is allowing herself to come off as flakey and unprofessional instead of the true feminist hero she could be. She is the mother of 4 and a governor. She has all the potential of being a feminist hero, but to do so, she should know how to speak while sounding like the educated adult she is.
Dowd is calling her out for undermining her own credibility and not sounding as smart. Limbaugh suggested that Edwards wife was sounding too smart, and that's why her husband had to cheat on her (quote: someone who could do more that her mouth than just talk).
Ya know, I, like many conservatives, are very wary about Palin’s decision to leave the governership mid-term. But did Miss Maureen criticize Hillary Clinton for leaving New York “in a lurch” when she left her Senatorial perch for greener pastures? Of course not.
If Palin has in fact relinquished her post with the intention of running for higher office, that’s much more honorable than letting your seat gather dust while still collecting your paycheck, as did Barack Obama, John Kerry, and John Edwards. Suffice it to say that we need not even search the NY Times rchives to find Dowd’s criticism of them. The double standards in Miss Dowd’s hit piece are just so embarrassingly blatant.
Sigh. I don't even know where to begin on this one. If you had checked the NYTimes archive you would have found MANY instances of Dowd calling to task Obama, Kerry and Edwards. You can't make accusations if you can't back them up with fact. It undermines every other argument you make, be they meritorious or not.
Palin is not going on to be Secretary of State. She is currently fishing, and then going on a book tour, with ZERO formally stated plans to continue on to higher office. I'd imbed a video of her interviews from yesterday morning, or one of her many surrogates saying the same thing, but you know it's true, so there's no point. Also, I noticed you made no mention John McCain leaving dust on his Senate seat, not to mention Brownback, Hunter, Paul and Tancredo. Haven't you been calling Dowd out on doing the same thing? Isn't that the whole point of your argument, that she's one sided, biased and her arguments without merit because she's seeing flaws in the other side, regardless of the actions of her own?
Umm, that wasn’t a poison dart, because was true. Barack Obama did pal around with terrorists who did target their own country. More frighteningly, Obama has expressed before and during his presidency to pal around with a hell of a lot more. It is in fact Maureen who is the dart thrower in this situation.
First off, how do you know she drags in Halluiburton if you've repeatedly stated
you see no point in checking her record, since you already know everything about her and who she is and what she must stand for? Moreover, if she has criticized Halliburton, what has she said that wasn't true? Since, of course, it must not be a poison dart if the accusation is true.
The major complaint with the 'palling around with terrorist' comment is not whether or not it is factual. It is the wording of the comment and the level of hate, racism and even violence that comments like this from Palin and others in the campaign was generating in the crowds attending her rallies. Palin was implying for those with willing ears this: Obama is the other. Obama is closer to a Muslim terrorist than he is to an American citizen and senator. He does not love his country the same way you do, therefor it is right for you to believe he does not love it at all. He will pall around with terrorist in the White House too, and allow them to destroy this country that you love more than he does.
What you don't understand is all the other things that comment meant to those who were watching from outside of the conservative base. In my opinion, it is the venom behind that comment and others that alienated the middle ground and lost McCain the election.
Yes, a fundraiser for Obama's run for state senator was held in the home of a former member of the Weather Underground. I wonder if a fundraiser for a Republican was ever held in the home of a National Guardsman who fired on the students at Kent State.
You're looking at two sides of the same coin, two vastly different perspectives on an era that tore our country in two. In my mind, both of these men are villains, both deserved to be prosecuted for murder. I assume in the meantime both have raised families, moved on with their lives and tried to do right in the world in the best way they knew how.
The fundamental complaint against Palin and her ilk is that she sees the world in black and white, good and evil, instead of the many shades of gray it truly is.
It has become obvious from the start that liberals/Democrats are scared of Sarah Palin. She is the promise of feminism, which they despise. He has everything that liberal women like Maureen Dowd want but can’t have. She has achieved everything on her own terms. And most importantly, she is Barack Obama’s most formidable opponent in 2012.
Sarah Palin isn’t quitting anything, liberals/Democrats. She’s just getting ready for the next battle. And you know it all too well.
I find it ironic that conservative white men now think they have the right to define what feminism is and means to all women everywhere.
Palin is a feminist ideal. I, as a liberal self proclaimed feminist, am thrilled at her success as a woman. It is not enough for me to support her.
I am disgusted every time she plays sexy, cute and dumb for the camera, every time her politics undermine women who have been raped by their fathers by forcing them to carry the resulting child to term, every time she makes women pay for their rape kits during police investigations, every time she advocates the teaching of only abstinence instead of basic sexual education and disease control to teenagers. I am bewildered as a feminist, who embraces motherhood as part of my identity as a feminist, when she flies late in her 9th month of pregnancy, knowing she's soon to give birth to a special needs infant who will need NICU care when he is born and flys home 6 hrs on a plane instead of checking into a place where his vital signs can be monitored once she goes into labor. I am stunned at the apparent contradiction of family values matched against personal ambition that this action implies.
I hate her politics. To think I hate her personally because she represents the 'promise of feminism' is ludicrous and insulting.
In terms of formidable opponent in 2012, if you'd lift your head out of the Conservative Beltway, you'd know that after Friday's stunt, she's currently a formidable national joke. She may run in 2012, but unless she can interview better than she did in 2008 or yesterday for that matter, know more facts, explain away many an email and press release and ethics complaint, get and keep a job she does not quit, and stop making statements that alienate the middle ground, she will not get past the primary at the top of the ticket.
Posted by: Leah | Thursday, July 09, 2009 at 08:47 AM
Sigh. Okay. Paragraph by Paragraph rebuttal.
In the very second paragraph Miss Dowd starts with the left jabs. According to Miss Dowd and a lot of other supposedly well-grounded intellectual liberals, conservatives are all “crazy” or “nutty.”And calling a woman Sarah Palin “Caribou Barbie” proves not only that women can make sexist remarks against other women, but that Miss Maureen is rather jealous of her. Exhibit A: her book, aptly titled “Are Men Necessary?” Sarah Palin’s very existence proves to Miss Maureen that they are, as is the family of loving children that this bitter woman will likely never get the opportunity to enjoy. Living with the philosophy of abortion-über-alles-all-men-suck feminism makes for an empty existence, don’t it?
You undermine your argument right off the bat with generalizations. What evidence do you have here, in this sentence, that Dowd considers all conservatives nutty? She's talking about Sarah Palin in particular and her specific actions. Save the "all liberals think this" for your conclusion.
Also, you're missing the point on "Caribou Barbie" and "Are Men Necessary" when you accuse Dowd of jealousy. Dowd is a woman who thinks of Barbie not as a desired ideal, but as a sex symbol invented by men with no brain in her head. Not all women want children, not all women want to be married. Dowd is apparently one of them. And what does abortion have to do with ANY of this?
How telling she seems to leave out a certain semen-stained dress courtesy of certain president who couldn’t keep his monster in his pants in the Oval Office and a subsequent obstruction of justice charge that resulted in the temporary loss of said president’s law license.
She also didn't mention Iran-Contra. And LBJ was a democrat. While the Clinton scandal is noteworthy as a scandal, Clinton is not remembered as having lost his composure or his mental health during it. She's prepping the rest of the article, which is apparent one paragraph later. Cheap shot.
Erratic and egoistic behavior? Sarah Palin? Sorry, no. It does, however, perfectly describe the current president, whose litany of indescretions and displays of self-aggrandizement never faze Maureen Dowd.
I wonder if Miss Maureen ever accused Barack and Michelle Obama, Bill and Hillary Clinton, John and Teresa Heinz Kerry, John Edwards, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Ted Kennedy, Jesse Jackson, or Al Sharpton of ‘a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy’. Because it’s these people who are textbook cases in narcissism, not Sarah Palin.
Finally, it’s quite rich when conservatives like Dick Cheney are accused of paranoia. Because I can’t think of a better example of unhinged paranoia than a “Bush-stole-the-2000-election-Halliburton-Bush-stole-the-2004-election-Halliburton-Bush-lied-people-died-Halliburton-9/11-was-an-inside-job-Halliburton-Bush-invaded-Iraq-to-enrich-his-oil-buddies-Halliburton-Bush-is-spying-on-me-using-the-Patriot-Act-Halliburton-Halliburton-Halliburton-Halliburton” liberal/Democrat.
Sarah Palin was perceived as unprepared, erratic and egotistical by her own staff, and that of her running mate's staff, during the McCain campaign. They began criticizing her before the campaign even ended. She has consistently demonstrated these qualities often to the detriment to the furthering of her own political career.
You are misquoting text that is quoted just above you. Dowd is quoting Purdum's Vanity Fair article. He is quoting his sources. Once again, you're undermining the credibility of your argument by attributing the quote to Dowd. And if you think Dowd wouldn't call Obama or other Democratic leaders to task, you have not been reading her columns, particularly from during the campaign. Also, she won the Pulitzer for the columns she wrote criticizing the Clinton administration on the Lewinsky scandal.
Finally, how dare you put 9/11 was an inside job in the middle of that bumper sticker rant? And have you not noticed the number of ethics violations that the Pentagon is bringing against Halliburton? Or the number of deaths of service members due to faulty wiring contracted out by Halliburton? I don't buy that the Iraq war was a plot to get Halliburton money, but they got a no bids contract to the rebuilding of Iraq and they have been consistently criticized and fined for their handling of the job.
Ummm, newsflash, Miss Dowd: According to this Washington Post article Palin has a 54% approval rate with Alaskans, indeed a steep drop from the 80’s she enjoyed a year ago. But your hero Barack Obama’s approval ratings are also dropping: from 65% on January 21 (with 30% disapproving) to 53% on July 2 (with 46% disapproving). This, Sweet Cheeks, is what we call a statistical tie.
Wait. You're comparing a state approval rating to a national approval rating? It's apples and oranges. Bring me the statistics on both of their national DISapproval and approval ratings from the same polling source and then we'll talk. Or would that undermine your argument?
Anyways, I'm off to a meeting. To be continued.
Posted by: Leah | Wednesday, July 08, 2009 at 03:22 PM
And Maureen Dowd continues to wail on Palin, this time using her famous fake interior monologue gimmick.
http://dowdreport.blogspot.com/2009/07/something-fishy.html
The problem is that as a trained journalist, Dowd keeps using complete sentences. A tick that Palin has so far eluded.
Posted by: Mo MoDo | Wednesday, July 08, 2009 at 08:34 AM
Mo MoDo -
Yes, you're right, I'll concede that Dowd was particularly critical of Bill and Hillary, but I still find her omission in this latest editorial curious.
I wouldn't say that liberals are afraid of Palin as much as they are amused and bewildered that anyone at all takes her seriously.
I'll tell you what. We Republicans will stop taking Sarah Palin seriously the minute you Democrats stop taking Al Franken seriously. Oh wait, too late, he just got sworn in a couple hours ago for the Senate. Talk about amused and bewildered.
Thanks for visiting - ETR
Posted by: EricTheRed | Tuesday, July 07, 2009 at 06:51 PM
Maureen Dowd won her Pulitzer Prize for discussing Bill and the stained dress ad infinitum, so she gets some points for showing some actual restraint in omitting him. Besides a little horndogging does NOT qualifiy as 'battiness' in the same way as Nixon wandering around talking to paintings did.
And if you think Maureen has given Hillary a free pass over anything, you haven't been reading any of her columns for the past six years. The difference between Hillary moving from the Senate to the Cabinet is a far cry from Palin resigning from the Governor's office to get tan, fit, and rested for a 2012 run. I didn't see McCain resign to run, so singling out Democrats is disingenuous too.
I wouldn't say that liberals are afraid of Palin as much as they are amused and bewildered that anyone at all takes her seriously.
Posted by: Mo MoDo | Tuesday, July 07, 2009 at 02:39 PM