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If you missed the Book Salon with Susan Faludi (whose book, The Terror Dream, I highly recommend), Christy posed the question:
Susan — I’m curious about the section that you have on the “9/11 widow status” and how that narrative has become shorthand for so many of the folks left behind in the wake of the tragedy. We have seen how several of the widows and widowers have been vilified when they have spoken up to correct the narrative where they think it has gone awry. The Coulter attacks on “The Jersey Girls” spring to mind here.
So many of the media myths build up, at least from what I have seen, due to the sort of herd mentality and in-crowd shorthand that far too many in the media use — due to laziness? Ease? Fitting into what Digby calls “The Heathers”? I dunno. But how do we break through that and get back to critical thinking…and soon.
To which Susan Faludi responded:
Part of the problem is the long-term shift from a working press that gives us the information we need to be educated citizens (the whole point of the founders wanting to guarantee protections to the press)to a “media” that mainly wants and needs to entertain us to attract the maximum number of consumers (who used to be called readers).
I happened to have just finished reading Maureen Dowd's bitchy, substance-free column on the last debate that did nothing but re-poison the political waters with a fresh batch of Hillary hatred, and compared it to eRiposte's factual analysis of Russert's distortions regarding declassification of documents during that same event. No matter what one may think of Hillary Clinton as a potential leader, nothing gets served by this kind of fraudulent, vicious garbage being perpetuated as "reporting."
Maybe the New York Times and NBC ought to think about paying eRiposte, who is obviously the only one of the three capable of doing an honest day's work, and stop degrading the political process by giving Russert and Dowd little more than a platform for a high-profile hatchet job?
Just a thought.
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Surely some of these people (or their assistants) read FDL. Shouldn’t these posts be sort of a challenge to them if nothing else?
Shorter MoDo: “Meeeeoooowww.”
Who wants to read hate all the time?
SnarKassandra @ 5
Ooh! Ooh! ME! Pick me!!
Oh, wait, was that a rhetorical question?
It does seem to me that the FoxNewsification of America has had the deleterious effect of reducing our national discourse to a level that caters to people who read Perez Hilton.
It’s all “Mean Girls” all the time. Hope you kids like swill. It’s what’s for dinner.
I wager that MoDo has no friends of either sex. She writes like a lonely brittle woman. I truly believe that she does not know how to be friendly or happy.
One thing I can’t argue with is that President HRC would be better than a Republican prez. And who knows, she might do a good job in the WH. If Clinton gets the nod, we will vote for her in the general.
As I said on the earlier thread, MoDo is a Queen Bee. And then, someone asked what does that mean?
trifecta gave a great definition:
~~~A queen bee (my translation) is a woman who has become successful, but then fears and loathes any other woman who might supplant her place at the top of the pecking order.
See MoDowd. It’s not about sisterhood, it’s all about I got mine.~~~
link
TRex! How are you?
I wrote the snarkiest paragraph of my LIFE in my post last night.
Valley Girl @ 9
Yep, I think that pretty much says it all, VG.
I dislike Reid and I don’t like Pelosi. And it doesn’t have a thing to do with gender.
2008 will be 2000 all over again. Chris Matthews, Maureen Dowd, Joe Klein et al will be in fine form.
Giuliani could declare that he is emperor of the Universe, because the people from Alpha Centauri remembered 9/11 and voted him in and they will still be talking about Hillary’s pantsuits, Edwards’ hair, or Obama’s middle name.
We have to take the fight to them this time.
Oh, and Frank Rich deserves special mention as well. His column was obnoxious today. Let’s not forget what he did to Gore in 2000. He has been “good” since then, but today is an indication that he is ready to jump back into bullcrap land with the rest of them.
SnarKassandra @ 10
I’m good. I’ve had the laziest day known to man. I’m still in my pajamas.
I have brushed and flossed my teeth, however.
trifecta @ 13
Whad did Rich do to Gore?
TRex @ 14
How many meals did you eat in bed? That is the true laziness act.
Freudian slip…?
On Saturday night live, Brian Williams jokes media has already chosen Clinton
“Gentlemen, I’m going to have to run; I have a 15-minute pre-debate interview with Senator Clinton, we’re going to ask her about her first 100 days in office,” Williams says in the sketch. “I wish you all good luck tonight, though we, again, in the media have pretty much made up our minds to go with Senator Clinton. We’ll see you in a few minutes.”
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/....._1104.html
Well, I’ll disagree with Ms. Hamsher. (so what else is new…chuckle)
I actually understood the “point” Russert was going after…but he just maybe didn’t make it very well. AND, yes, Timmy’s motives may be askew. Never-the-less:
Hillary has run all around the countryside for quite some time now, just running her mouth about how “smart she is”, and how she is sooooo experienced due to her time as a First Lady. She intimates that she truly did NOT spend her time in the WH “just baking cookies”, and that she was “in” on all sorts of major decisions made by Hubby.
And so, members of the media basically say: Prove It. Hillary, if you actually were soooooo involved in major decision-making (as you keep running your mouth that you were)then….let’s see the records to back up what you keep running your mouth over. Well, Hillary???
And so far, all Hillary does is continue to dodge and weave, play female coy, and lie and hide.
I don’t like Russert, but on this subject I understand what the point is. It’s actually quite simple. Hillary keeps running her mouth, and some in the media simply say “Hillary, put up or shut up.” Hillary keeps dodging.
Ghostman
SnarKassandra @ 15
RICH (12/16/97): Mr. Gore is beginning to seem less an heir to Mr. Clinton than to his White House predecessor. Like George Bush, Al Gore Jr. is the son of a senator, born to privilege—with St. Alban’s and Harvard substituting for Phillips Academy and Yale. Instead of formative years in Greenwich, Mr. Gore was raised in Washington’s ritzy Fairfax Hotel—unhumble beginnings both men have tried to play down, not always successfully. Where Mr. Bush at his most supercilious addressed the nation as if we were peons who couldn’t get into his country club, Mr. Gore condescends to us as if we were idiots who couldn’t get into the Ivy League. Such is the main distinction between Republican and Democratic noblesse oblige.
(He also pushed the Gore is a liar theme, the Love Story angle, etc, throughout the run up to 2000).
Shouldn’t Timmah be asking his lord and master Dick Cheney about the subject of secrets?
Who in the press is NOT mean?
Today, I’ve been scouring the internet for information about Pakistan. That’s a really bad situation going down. Basically General Musharraf has done exactly what the government of Burma did in the latest uprising, suspension the constitution, declaration of martial law, etc. etc.
This puts the Bush administration in a bad position. They’ve been giving billions of dollars every year to the Pakistani military as part of The War of Terra. Thing is, Musharraf seized power in 1999 in a military coup. Now he’s suspending elections and censoring the press and doing, well, all the things the Bush administration would like to do, but can’t (yet).
It’s interesting, in terms of that old Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times.”
Do therapods require special floss, what with the jumbo dentrifice?
Do you use those steel fishing leads they use to catch sharks on a hook and line?
Maureen Dowd is a real piece of work. She was a cheerleader for decider guy against Al Gore, and against John Kerry, cheering for the kind of false masculinity of Rumsfeld and Cheney to rescue her poor baby self from the horrid terrorists, and then turns against them. Now she is back to her old self. That kind of hyper-arch cynicism and urban hipster lost its charm when President Petulant started the Iraq war.
No matter what one may think of Hillary Clinton as a potential leader, nothing gets served by this kind of fraudulent, vicious garbage being perpetuated as “reporting.”
as a Hillary ‘unsupporter and ultra unfan’ I must say, “totally agree with that.”
and I wonder, did Maureen Dowd win some kind of cheerleader’s ‘pom pom’ contest to get this coveted ‘journullist’ job she has? She is clearly in love with her ‘cuteness’ while being so utterly vacuous. But maybe I am unfair to cheerleaders.
TRex are these your pajamas?
masaccio @ 24
Well put.
I do not like Maureen Dowd.
However, when she said of Hillary: “There is nowhere she won’t go, so long as it gets her where she wants to be,” she was right on the money, bitchy or not.
Jane, I am glad that you linked to eriposte at The left Coaster. The Hillary series of posts is well worth reading..there is an obvious pro-Hillary bias but based on voting records and real positions on issues. The one line anti-Hillary posts repeating the “we all know..common wisdom” is getting old.
In my house, no food or drink (or cigarettes) are allowed within a hundred feet of the bed. Beds are for one thing, sleeping.
Well, maybe two things.
Eating, drinking, and smoking in bed are messy and smelly and absolutely forbidden at Casa del Rex.
It’s a pet peeve of mine, crumbs and coffee stains and cigarette smell in the bed. BLECH!!!
Ghostman @ 18
Ghostman- it’s about “style versus substance”, so to say. MoDo took cheap shots. And Russert was not asking about anything substantial for the future of the country. Another cheap shot. They were stylin’ it.
I am not a Clinton supporter but I would much rather have questions of substance from the MSM, rather than cheap shots.
trifecta @ 13
Actually this is what I was thinking during Naomi Wolf’s post earlier today is that the more subtle thing to do would simply be to steal the election for Guiliani. No need to do it Musharraf style.
SnarKassandra @ 26
*blushing*
Yes.
And until, and if, she gets the nomination I will be on Hillary’s case.
It’s a pet peeve of mine, crumbs and coffee stains and cigarette smell in the bed. BLECH!!!
isn’t that the theme of this year’s Charles Bukowski Poetry Festival?
MoDo is an insecure female who wanted to get a male and will end up a bitter old maid and she knows it. So all she does is attack and belittle everyone and everything, especially those who have achieved some success.
She can be funny, but she is totally irrelevant as so many of the columnists are. She doesn’t do facts. She does opinions.
I don’t know why the press savaged Gore last time around, but I suppose he’s getting the last laugh because unlike his critics he is doing something and getting acknowledged for it. Good on him.
I’m sure he knows that if he steps up he will be savaged even more than the last go round.
Modo, HoJo, BoBo in the league of JLo.
randy evans @ 28
I do not like her in a crowd,
I like her not in the House of Saud.
Let me say it long and loud,
I do NOT like that Maureen Dowd.
Ahem.
masaccio @ 24
Does wearing limburger cheese to bed really erase wrinkles? All the MoDo fans really want to know.
are there still ‘old maids?’
As for Dowd. I have a sure fire way of dealing with her. I simply don’t read her stuff. Or listen to her.
Pachacutec @ 23
Old bits of hoof.
TRex @ 37
Do you like her in a box?
Do you like her mauled by FOX?
and btw exactly what did Dowd say about Hillary that is “fraudulent?”
TRex @ 37
I do not like green eggs and ham…
As for the Clinton archives and released documents, according to this post, under Bush rules there is only one person reading each page before they are released.
to paraphrase John Lennon (who I still miss):
Fraudulent is a concept by which we measure Maureen Dowd
SnarKassandra @ 42
You both are so…. cool….
There are two million more females than males at US universities.
The term ‘politically correct” originated in the
Communist Party of the USSR in the 1920’s.
Wake up people. Socio-Fascism is not the Promised Land.
Not even with cream cheese and lox.
I do not like her,
Make her stop!
trifecta @ 13
I predict it will get pretty ugly over at Swampland. At least it is easy to call out Joe Klein’s bullshit.
MoDon’t is the bitch queen of high school snark.
She musn’t be taken seriously.
Dowd and Tweety should get together and talk about their “issues”.
Just don’t make me listen.
Okie,
That’s what happens. You read these people and soon realize what vacuous jerks they are and stop reading them. And soon you realize that there’s nothing of interest in the paper and stop buying it.
Too many egos and too little time.
Okay, time to take a shower and get some dinner.
I am craving mole chicken. Mmmm.
I love that now I can move chocolate all the way into my main course. Why stop at dessert?
Is it catty of me to point out that Michael Douglas dumped Maureen Dowd and married somebody else, and is now a prominent Hillary Clinton supporter and this may have something to do with MoDo’s juvenile columns about Hillary?
SnarKassandra @ 21
Eugene Robinson and Leonard Pitts. Two columnists with souls and consciences.
There are millions of people who will vote for the Democratic nominee, whoever it is, and who do not even know MoDo exists.
marymccurnin @ 7
She has also done everything that she accuses Mrs. Clinton of doing (I’ve decided not to refer to the candidate as “Hillary” - since all of the boys get a more respectful full name title!) in terms of her gender. MoDo became popular because she played the sex card - and has shown herself to be an empty dress, IMHO.
randy evans @ 28
That statement could apply to a number of people who have ambition not just Hillary.
Laura Doty @ 54
Krugman, Ellen Goodman, Marianne Means…
Valley Girl @ 31
If that is what Russert is after, why doesn’t he just ask it? Ask Hillary: “How does being First Lady qualify you as being president”? Also ask her, if being First Lady qualifies you, would it also qualify Laura Bush? Or does she need 7 years in the Senate as well? None of the clowns in the media ask questions of substance. Frankly, I don’t give a monkey’s balls what Hillary nor anyone else has on their iPod. I care more about why they let a petulant child steam roll them every time.
I find Modo and Hillary to be a lot alike, they talk a lot without actually saying anything.
PLovering @ 48
hey a Trotskyite once asked me if ‘people should be able to ‘do their own thing.’
I said ‘yes.’
He threw a can of pop at my head.
(okay the can was empty and he missed but still…you get the point)- doing one’s ‘own thing’ certainly wasn’t ‘politically correct’ for him-
CTuttle @ 58
Trudy Rubin. Hannah Allem. Leila Fadel.
and let’s not forget, there’s an international press. (Snarky, check out Peta Thornycroft of Zimbabwe, if you want to know someone worthy of emulation!)
Laura Doty @ 54
The NYT could regain some credibility by firing Bobo Brooks, Friedman and MoDo and hiring Pitts. How he’s writing for the Miami Herald and not the NYT or WaPo at this point, I’ll never know.
randy evans @ 28
Can’t you say that of all the candidates, though? Seems specious.
Mabel’s Wig Shack @ 61
Trotskyite? You’ve been hanging out with Christopher Hitchens?
Laura Doty @ 62
*gasp* How could we forget Helen Thomas?
bobo brooks and modo ELECTRIFY the N.Y.Times readership with a romantic relationship and report on when they have sex while sleeping in their respective refrigerated units.
Another I’m shocked OT:
AP
Steve AR, I’ll see your shocked and raise you this:
State Dept. happy that Pakistan is distracting the public.
Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s decision to suspend the constitution, seize emergency power, and round up leading opposition figures is bringing quiet joy to the State Department. “Thank heavens for small favors,” an aide to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said, referring to Musharraf’s actions. Compared to Pakistan, “Iraq looks pretty good.”
(from Think Progress)
Joe Klein’s conscience:
Trotskyite? You’ve been hanging out with Christopher Hitchens?
heh.
Molly Ivins. I miss her.
Steve-AR @ 68
But won’t Bush veto that law or just ignore it?
If W can be president, Hillary certainly can. The bar for being president is pretty low with frat boy having survived 2 terms.
So all the BS about experience and qualifications are now moot.
Steve-AR @ 68
Never mind that. That is Arlen’s gig. He pretends to give a crap about the constitution and the rule of law, then votes with the Busheviks in the end.
Arlen is all about talking a good game, and caving in the end. He will vote to confirm.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 71
Me too! She is my hero. And Barbara Jordan and Ann Richards and Helen Thomas and Jane!
Eureka Springs @ 60
Getting into dangerous territory with that one, ES. I don’t even put them in the same category.
However, Hillary often says “when I am President I will… do such and such”. And, my substantive question is so, why aren’t you doing that now, in the Senate?
SnarKassandra @ 21
Back, I was just over reading your review of the Susan book …
How about Glenn Greenwald? He had an epiphany, and now might be called ‘critical but fair’ ?
Just finished “How Would A PATRIOT ACT?” as an example. Maybe I’ll get into 2007 before the year is ended. :-)
Has anyone heard whether Hillary’s consultants have decided to vote for, or against Mukasey?
Oklahoma kiddo @ 79
I believe she is voting against…
I was not impressed when I met Dowd at Yearlykos #1 and it was a funny experience.
Was in the first session of the first day…. a media course to learn how to be presentable when on the TeeVee being interviewed, how to sit, hold your body and even did practice sessions. About 20 minutes into the session someone slid into the seat next to me….. I peaked over to see who and gasped….. surprised who it was. Dowd did not seem happy that some bumpkin from Phoenix recognized her.
She also has the weakest fish hand shake …..made me feel that she was going out in a second to wash from touching me. Gave me the impression that showing with her hair up on a pony tail, no makeup, t-shirt & jeans she thought no one would recognize her. HA
CTuttle @ 67
Laura Rozen of War and Piece writes for Mother Jones and other publications.
Also Larisa Alexandrovna of At Largely .
Almost forgot Jim Hightower of Texas!
OldCoastie @ 80
Good deal.
I’m not sure, OKK… seems to me I read that somewhere…
Steve-AR @ 68
Ironically, nobody on the SJC seems to recall…
“…what of 18 USC section 2340A, which Congress enacted in 1994 to enforce the Convention Against Torture?
(a) Offense.— Whoever outside the United States commits or attempts to commit torture shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both, and if death results to any person from conduct prohibited by this subsection, shall be punished by death or imprisoned for any term of years or for life.
What does it say about our elected representatives that Senators simultaneously believe that waterboarding is torture but also believe that CIA interrogations using waterboarding are currently legal? Does Senator Feinstein really believe that torture is currently legal in America? Or does she just not care?”
http://balkin.blogspot.com/200.....-read.html
Maybe we can hire a skywriter to write “Michael Douglas Says Mo Dowd is a Lousey Lay!” over the skies of New York.
Valley Girl @ 77
Maybe dangerous for some. Modo’s article meant nothing to me.. after reading it once I couldn’t even tell you what the heck she was driving towards. As for Hillary I can say the same thing after listening to her for over thirty years. Except for her political aspirations I don’t think she has agenda beyond just playing the game.
OKK - here it is…
SnarKassandra @ 73
I had exactly the same thought when I read that. Even talking about passing a law against torture shows how far our country has fallen. I am 63 yo and I never thought I would hear talk about the right and wrong of torture.
this is what the Dowdragon said:
“If she wants to run on her record as first lady while keeping the lid on her first lady record, that’s only fair for the fairer sex. And if she wants to have it both ways on illegal immigrants getting driver’s licenses, then she should, especially if those illegal immigrants are men, or if Lou Dobbs is ranting on the issue, because he’s not only a man, he’s a grumpy, cranky, border-crazed man.
She should certainly be allowed to play the gender card two ways, or even triangulate it. As her campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, said after the debate, she is “one strong woman,” who has dwarfed male rivals and shown she’s tough enough to deal with terrorism and play on the world stage. But she can break, just like a little girl, when male chauvinists are rude enough to catch her red-handed being slippery and opportunistic.”
Snark aside, there is nothing “fraudulent” about this account of what the Clinton campaign and others — including here — were essentially suggesting in the anti-pile on campaign last week. Nor in any of the actual facts the Dowdster cited, for example, that the Clinton parlayed that whole “cleavage” nonsense into a fundraising measure.
Hell, maybe it’s just a case of it taking one to know one.
Maybe instead of MoDo it should be MorDor … the LOTR reference would say much of her character …
Margot @ 82
AND AMY GOODMAN!!
Mabel’s Wig Shack @ 39
Sure there are. If you don’t care what you say.
Steve-AR @ 88
Steve, we’ve already passed such laws… Read my 84!
Another shocker:
link
And Laura Flaunders
OldCoastie @ 88
Thanks. And good for her!
I hope Hillary gets the nomination.
What’s weird is the way my sexism shows itself: I’m angrier at Dowd than Russert. But that’s partly because part of her enthusiastic monkey girl dance for the men who hired her is the cynical pretense that she’s a fine example of a woman who’s made it in this man’s world.
Russert’s hypocrisy is more garden variety.