Dowd Mind

Maureen Dowd comes in for some deserved criticism from the NYT public editor, as noted by Talking Points Memo.

Dowd's response shows she really can't grapple with the critique of her.

"From the time I began writing about politics," Dowd said, "I have always played with gender stereotypes and mined them and twisted them to force the reader to be conscious of how differently we view the sexes." Now, she said, "you are asking me to treat Hillary differently than I've treated the male candidates all these years, with kid gloves."

No, you idiot. The problem with Dowd is that she inflates her own psychodramas and psychosexual issues onto the national stage--and generally to diminish Democrats. Digby has a typically excellent review. And Daily Howler, which has been accurately assessing Dowd for years, adds some important points.

I'll step back even further to point out the larger problem with our media. Much of the so-called "political" media who almost never deal with policy or politics or the objective state of the nation and the world. Most evident from Chris Matthews, Maureen Dowd, even this recent Kurt Andersen piece, these people reduce the politics of the United States to their own psyches and then tell a narrative that is unrecognizable outside their own ids.

It's even worse than horse-race reporting or political coverage as theater reviewing: it's cheap pop-self-psychologizing treated as some sort of contribution to the national discourse.

And the people who do it are often so psychologically damaged that they twist politics into the shape of their ugly unresolved personal issues.

Maureen Dowd has serious issues with men (and women), she likes to bash Democrats, and this shit floods out in her columns.

A lesser-known piece about Dowd, which includes an illuminating anecdote, is at G-Spot . For those who have read it,there's more: Kathy G has posted an update.

So, Dowd, just so you know, contra your complaints, many men have been complaining about how you reflexively bash Democratic male candidates with the same standard-issue Republican gender crap. You've been doing that for years and it has nothing to do with Hillary.

Please stop. You're hurting America and killing a great paper.