08.08.06
MoDo Does It Again
Tom Watson has put up an excellent post, Anti-Feminism on the Left, that criticizes Maureen Dowd’s most recent NY Times column (TimesSelect) for its sniping, anti-feminist tone:
Well, you see Maureen, about that tone. You wouldn’t use it on a man. You used it because Mrs. Clinton is a woman, the first in U.S. history with a real shot at the Presidency. Now, the points she raises are mostly valid - to see how it’s done without snarling “bitch” in the gutter, read Bob Herbert’s column the next day. He nails Mrs. Clinton for her war positions, and hits damned hard. But there’s no gender implications in his prose. Herbert treats Mrs. Clinton as if she’s the real deal, someone worthy of detailed public attack. In other words, as a man.
As I wrote in Tom’s comments, I can’t bear to watch Dowd repeat her petty 2000 election act six years later. Perhaps the only saving grace here is that with the advent of TimesSelect, Times columnists have much less reach than they used to. Thank Arthur O. Sulzberger, Jr. for small favors.
