In addition to bizarre full-page ads like the one I mentioned two days ago, another pleasurable thing about the dead-tree version of newspapers is the ironic juxtaposition of articles and opinion pieces. For example, on Sunday in hte NYT there was a smart article about how in light of Rod Blagojevich (and the other 3 governors who appointed interim senators) the 17th Amendment should be updated so that, as with House vacancies, Senate seats are filled by special election.
Adjacent to this highminded contribution to public discourse is the real estate occupied by Maureen Dowd. Her column was devoted to attacking David Paterson. She spends the first two paragraphs lionizing Rod Blagojevich, lavishing attention on his hair in that semi-ironic way she has of dabbling at arm’s length with girlish crushes on powerful public figures–so that you think she’s kidding when she’s really not.
The rest of her column is pretty amazing. While it’s fair to say that Paterson waited a weirdly long time to appoint Kirsten Gillibrand, Dowd takes an almost personal offense at how he didn’t appoint Caroline Kennedy.
The Democrats would have had another Kennedy int he Senate representing New York – Bobby’s niece and a smart, policy-oriented, civic-minded woman to whom the president feels deeply indebted in an era when every state has its hand out. Instead they have Gillibrand who voted against the Wall Street – as in New York – bailout bill.
Holy shit! First, this obsession with the Kennedys is too much. Why are they so fucking great? They’re mostly just tragic. Not even Bush got us closer to nuclear war than JFK did. He was a mediocre president, and that’s that. Bobby Kennedy was cool, but his assassination precluded him from doing much, either. Being his niece is not a qualification. It’s not even that interesting. As for “civic-minded” and “policy-oriented,” those terms are so vague as to encompass nearly everybody. They certainly don’t exclude Kirsten Gillibrand, about whom Dowd literally gossips:
The 42-year old Gillibrand, who has been in the House for only two years, is known as opportunisticc and sharp-elbowed. Tracy Flick is her nickname among colleagues int he New York delegation, many of whom were M.I.A. at her Albany announcement.
Fellow Democrats were warning Harry Reid on Friday that he was going to have his hands full with te new senator because she’s “a pain.”
That unattributed quote says it all. Maureen Dowd is a hypocrite and a malicious bitch. She can’t even come up with a decent adjective to pump up the dynastic cipher she so desperately wanted to crown, but she will totally parrot the most cowardly kind of innuendo–and if a man spoke publicly about Gillibrand this way Maureen Dowd would be the first to call him a sexist asshole.
Gillibrand is too moderate. But she won her election in 2006 in a Republican district and hopefully will lean leftward without the same electoral pressure. We’ll just have to see. Whereas Hillary Clinton, David Paterson, Andrew Cuomo and Caroline Kennedy are all married to or descended from prior politicians, Gillibrand is not. Unless she told Maureen Dowd to go fuck herself, there is nothing on the merits that suggests the process leading to her selection as senator was corrupt or inappropriate.
Except for, you know, that neighboring opinion piece that puts this whole shit fit into perspective.
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Putting Maureen Dowd into perspective, these are the most contemptible women in the world.
Suck the Rainbow 