Maureen Dowd's thong
I often wondered, before she began making appearances on television last year, why I'd never seen Maureen Dowd in public. Was she hiding something?
Indeed, she was, and it was partly her manner, which is that of a catty slut.
Everyone who knows me knows that I've long been a partisan for sluts, and that I defend the slutty personality whenever and wherever it is attacked. When I hear someone say, "she's such a slut," I always ask, "what did you say her name was?"
But being a catty slut wasn't the only thing that Maureen was hiding. She's also stupid, and that can be a problem when you've pitched your tent on The New York Times op-ed page. I'm sure that isn't a problem for Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the Times publisher, but it is a problem when those most informed people in the world, Times readers, believe that what they are getting is real high-toned sophisticated "with it" discourse. It could cause them to go around talking like stupid sluts and thinking that they were being insightful. This could be bad for the reputation of New York, let alone America.
Just as a for instance, Dowd today attempts to make a distinction, for the benefit of Condi Rice, who she is making fun of, between "authoritarian" and "totalitarian" states, as applied to Secretary Rice's description of Iran:
The rest of the column is similarly shallow as it reaches for high concepts. I don't blame the Times for not even attempting to exercise some editorial responsibility towards Dowd's columns--there just aren't that many hours in the day. And if it weren't for Dowd's sluttiness, I wouldn't think much of her at all.
Indeed, she was, and it was partly her manner, which is that of a catty slut.
Everyone who knows me knows that I've long been a partisan for sluts, and that I defend the slutty personality whenever and wherever it is attacked. When I hear someone say, "she's such a slut," I always ask, "what did you say her name was?"
But being a catty slut wasn't the only thing that Maureen was hiding. She's also stupid, and that can be a problem when you've pitched your tent on The New York Times op-ed page. I'm sure that isn't a problem for Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the Times publisher, but it is a problem when those most informed people in the world, Times readers, believe that what they are getting is real high-toned sophisticated "with it" discourse. It could cause them to go around talking like stupid sluts and thinking that they were being insightful. This could be bad for the reputation of New York, let alone America.
Just as a for instance, Dowd today attempts to make a distinction, for the benefit of Condi Rice, who she is making fun of, between "authoritarian" and "totalitarian" states, as applied to Secretary Rice's description of Iran:
As Elaine Sciolino wrote in The Times, the new secretary of state sent a frisson through the American ambassador's residence yesterday at breakfast with six French intellectuals when she referred to Iran as a "totalitarian state," rather than an "authoritarian" one - since totalitarian is a term ordinarily reserved for violent regimes like Nazi Germany or Stalin's Soviet Union.Just a short list of the errors in that single paragraph would include: 1. authoritarian regimes can be extremely violent; 2. totalitarian regimes, as distinct from authoritarian regimes, seek to control not just the political sphere of a country but all or most aspects of society and culture from the standpoint of an overarching ideology; 3. the Iranian revolution that brought the current Iranian regime into power was arguably a totalitarian revolution that resulted in a totalitarian state (ask Iranian dissidents what they think).
The rest of the column is similarly shallow as it reaches for high concepts. I don't blame the Times for not even attempting to exercise some editorial responsibility towards Dowd's columns--there just aren't that many hours in the day. And if it weren't for Dowd's sluttiness, I wouldn't think much of her at all.
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