Tuesday, June 24

On The Other Hand, At Least It Was More Entertaining Than Her Columns

I'M sorry, but I fail to see this as MoDo's great comeuppance, especially as she's given space to defend her shit-slinging as style, which is on par with a kid who breaks windows just to get attention claiming he's just practicing his curveball. In fact, let's go one step further and say that the way the question is framed, while no doubt considered by many to be The Relevant One, is itself as much of a dodge as her "I'm a columnist, I don't have to be accurate" routine. The sexism of Dowd's Hillary coverage the past eighteen months--and more, and more--is secondary to her monomaniacal pursuit of Yet Another Clinton, which was not only well outside any reasonable definition of fair, accurate, or emotionally stable, but was unconscionably (un-) edited, given the value of the real estate where she squats. In eighteen months three-quarters of her columns have been about one candidate, one race, and their ratio of Real Issues to Cosmetics Advice was about 1/50,000, assuming we can find the time she spoke about a Real Issue. The Republican primary completely passed her by, save a couple of columns on Rudy Giuliani, one of those post-mortem. The rise and fall of Fred Thompson and Mike Huckabee interested her not in the slightest. She wrote a couple of columns bashing George Bush (speaking of post-mortems), which only served to remind us she'd been one of his most prominent enablers back when it mattered. Yes, yes, it's her byline, but it's the Times that owns the rest of it, and the big question (well, maybe "question" is too strong a word there) is why anyone would be allowed to turn in the same 800-word piece twice a week for more than a year while collecting a fresh paycheck every time. This isn't comeuppance, it's the way the modern corporation polices its own misfeasance: one part Exxon Valdez legalistic delaying tactics, two parts reality program mooning the viewer, like we're all in on the joke. 

No comments: