A contribution to the Dowd wars.
Maureen Dowd is 53 years old -- and on Letterman she really was beautiful, quite naturally beautiful.
She's also the worst mainstream newspaper op-ed columnist writing who isn't also employed at National Review. This "men are afraid of women like me" business she's peddling with her new book is ridiculous by virtue of the fact that she's so mean. Nobody as mean as Maureen Dowd ought to be complaining about her inability to find commitment. The woman spends her whole life mocking men in print -- women too, but mainly men. She's done it to every important figure to come down the American pike in the last decade, mercilessly, indiscriminately, gratuitously. So why is it so hard to imagine that a potential intimate wouldn't assume at some level that she'd eventually do the same thing to them? Nobody wants to be scrutinized, observed, picked apart. It seems pretty commonsensical. I would certainly try to avoid Dowd at a party. Mean people suck.
James Poniewozik wrote an intelligent quasi-defence of Dowd and her Pulitzer for Salon in 1999, suggesting that Dowd-hate is overblown:
More to the point, why is it so important to us that Maureen Dowd believe in something, other than showing our leaders in a harsh light? That her writing, and her imitators, reflect a growing disillusionment with politics that has festered for decades? Come on. We have a president who took a vacation based on polling results; we routinely watch our elections go to the highest bidder. And yet Maureen Dowd and her ilk have made us cynical? In fact, these criticisms of Dowd often come off like frustration with politics and the electorate in general. Why can't the media force people to care more!
In response, this is my favourite quote ever from Hendrik Hertzberg writing about Reagan and Reaganism back in 1991 for TNR. Hertzberg aruged that Reagan had left us:
a domestic legacy that includes, besides a wonderful revival of the American Spirit, a soul-crushing national debt, an ignoble Supreme Court, stark economic stratification, mounting racial fear, the impoverishment of public institutions, and a make-my-day brand of social discourse that revels in ugly contempt for losers.
Dowd, of course, was becoming a big name on the scene right about then. She shares that contempt, nurtures it, panders to it. But doesn't limit it to losers. Dowd hates the winners too, and the bystanders. In 1999, her Pultizer was for her ability to loathe Clinton, Starr and Lewinsky simultaneously, in roughly equal measure, with roughly equal irreverence and outrage. She is a misantropist doing national politics. And in Dowd's world, politics don't matter because we all suck. (That she's recently added sexism and chronic insecurity in men to her list of things to hate about people isn't so surprising, is it?) People who defend her admire her ability to tease out artifice and weaknesses and demons in politicians, to cut across party lines and tell us what we know we "really" think of them... as if the entire mainstream press wasn't already obsessively dedicated to that task.
People also defend her by contending that she's a good writer, a brilliant satirist, entertaining. Whatever. Cynicism is easy. It's the easiest thing to write, especially on the subject of politics. Self-pity is the second easiest. And the two of them together are a deadly, but dead-simple cocktail to make. Dowd doesn't challenge her readers; she urges them to be lazy, to suck down her mean, obvious analysis, which is never very far from the status quo (her hatchet job on Judy Miller -- once it was very safe to dig in -- being a recent obvious example). Dowd is very much a product of her time. The problem is, things aren't going so hot in our time and it might actually be more than just a function of Dubya's current psychological state or his issues with the father-figures in his life. And no, it's not that writers are supposed to convince us we're led by great men. It just helps if they start off with some implicit appreciation of the value of, like, people... some of which might even extend to the people involved in the dirty business of politics.
She's also the worst mainstream newspaper op-ed columnist writing who isn't also employed at National Review. This "men are afraid of women like me" business she's peddling with her new book is ridiculous by virtue of the fact that she's so mean. Nobody as mean as Maureen Dowd ought to be complaining about her inability to find commitment. The woman spends her whole life mocking men in print -- women too, but mainly men. She's done it to every important figure to come down the American pike in the last decade, mercilessly, indiscriminately, gratuitously. So why is it so hard to imagine that a potential intimate wouldn't assume at some level that she'd eventually do the same thing to them? Nobody wants to be scrutinized, observed, picked apart. It seems pretty commonsensical. I would certainly try to avoid Dowd at a party. Mean people suck.
James Poniewozik wrote an intelligent quasi-defence of Dowd and her Pulitzer for Salon in 1999, suggesting that Dowd-hate is overblown:
More to the point, why is it so important to us that Maureen Dowd believe in something, other than showing our leaders in a harsh light? That her writing, and her imitators, reflect a growing disillusionment with politics that has festered for decades? Come on. We have a president who took a vacation based on polling results; we routinely watch our elections go to the highest bidder. And yet Maureen Dowd and her ilk have made us cynical? In fact, these criticisms of Dowd often come off like frustration with politics and the electorate in general. Why can't the media force people to care more!
In response, this is my favourite quote ever from Hendrik Hertzberg writing about Reagan and Reaganism back in 1991 for TNR. Hertzberg aruged that Reagan had left us:
a domestic legacy that includes, besides a wonderful revival of the American Spirit, a soul-crushing national debt, an ignoble Supreme Court, stark economic stratification, mounting racial fear, the impoverishment of public institutions, and a make-my-day brand of social discourse that revels in ugly contempt for losers.
Dowd, of course, was becoming a big name on the scene right about then. She shares that contempt, nurtures it, panders to it. But doesn't limit it to losers. Dowd hates the winners too, and the bystanders. In 1999, her Pultizer was for her ability to loathe Clinton, Starr and Lewinsky simultaneously, in roughly equal measure, with roughly equal irreverence and outrage. She is a misantropist doing national politics. And in Dowd's world, politics don't matter because we all suck. (That she's recently added sexism and chronic insecurity in men to her list of things to hate about people isn't so surprising, is it?) People who defend her admire her ability to tease out artifice and weaknesses and demons in politicians, to cut across party lines and tell us what we know we "really" think of them... as if the entire mainstream press wasn't already obsessively dedicated to that task.
People also defend her by contending that she's a good writer, a brilliant satirist, entertaining. Whatever. Cynicism is easy. It's the easiest thing to write, especially on the subject of politics. Self-pity is the second easiest. And the two of them together are a deadly, but dead-simple cocktail to make. Dowd doesn't challenge her readers; she urges them to be lazy, to suck down her mean, obvious analysis, which is never very far from the status quo (her hatchet job on Judy Miller -- once it was very safe to dig in -- being a recent obvious example). Dowd is very much a product of her time. The problem is, things aren't going so hot in our time and it might actually be more than just a function of Dubya's current psychological state or his issues with the father-figures in his life. And no, it's not that writers are supposed to convince us we're led by great men. It just helps if they start off with some implicit appreciation of the value of, like, people... some of which might even extend to the people involved in the dirty business of politics.
2 Comments:
Wow, good strong opinion. I wasn't expecting this perspective, but I'm glad I read this post. I've been a big Maureen Dowd fan for a while, but her new book has struck me as somehow wrong (I haven't read it, and pretty sure I don't want to). I have found her entertaining, but also very much agree that cynicism is lazy. Hmmm, I think I will be revisiting my opinion of Maureen Dowd. Thanks for taking this stand. I completely agree with you that cynicism is too easy, and I almost never see that idea expressed. So thanks for that. But every now and then she's just dead on.
I think one of Maureen Dowd's biggest problems is that she's a baby boomer. She grew up having to fight to be taken seriously, for equal opportunity, etc., and now she's just too used to fighting to see any other way to deal with things. I look around me and see lots of women my age (late 30's) who are very successful, and I'm perfectly comfortable with that, as are most men my age. I've grown up around strong, smart women, and I've always assumed that women would have the same opportunities that I do. But Dowd doesn't have that experience.
I think she's caught in a Catch-22: she desperately wants to believe in something, and she keeps looking for that something. But because she, like a lot of liberals, particularly liberals her age, have very high expectations, they keep getting burned. I noticed this in 92, with Clinton. A lot of boomer liberals expected Clinton to be the second coming of the 60's, like he would wave a magic wand and solve all kinds of problems. When he turned out to be another white guy in a suit, ambitious and powerful, they were totally disillusioned. But that was because they had unrealistic expectations in the first place.
I think Dowd has the same problem. For example, she obviously wants a man in her life, but she seems to have been burned on that score in the past, so now she has this bitter, cynical attitude that makes her even less attractive, which perpetuates the problem.
Interesting take, John, thanks.
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