NYT Journalistic Malpractice Number 10,897

At least Maureen Dowd isn't president of the United States. She's been caught--again--committing journalistic malpractice, but because she won a Pulitizer, she gets away with murder.

People who have done far, far less have their careers ruined, but ol' Mo just keeps plugging along with one ethical breach after another.

Dowd is now in trouble with selectively quoting and twisting the meaning of the words of someone who was critical of NYC candidate Christine Quinn. That is bad enough, but the poor candidate ended up taking Dowd's account at face value, thus compounding the mess much further.

It's not the first time she's messed up:

Dowd has plagiarized. She has filed columns with inaccurate datelines. Both of those incidents involved Dowd passing off the writing and reporting of others — friends and assistants — as her own, uncredited. There was also the time — still, as far as I know, never explained — when an insulting and effeminizing description of Barack Obama was mysteriously scrubbed from the online version of the column.

That's only one paragraph of the article, but Dowd has done much, much more.

Poor old Jayson Blair had his life ruined because he messed up, but that's because he didn't win a Pulitzer. He was expendable.

The Debates and Sarah Palin

Many people were promoting the nonsense Obama "clearly won" last week's snoozefest at Ole Miss, and Bob Somerby tries to run down some of the most absurd analyses by columnists and members of the nutroots (HT to Cannonfire). My one-sentence summation I think was definitive on the godawful debate, which WAS a draw between two crappy debaters.

Via the article is this "analysis" by Dowd. She does make a few cogent points, though they are few and far between. Par for the course for this overpaid columnist.

And yes, Colbert King's column about Sarah Palin IS breathtakingly stupid, and full of double standard, sexist shit.

Because Sarah Palin has been married only once and has stayed with her husband, she is condemned while women like Obama's often-absent mother get all kinds of praise:

Sarah Palin gets a gold star for being a hockey mom. I don't believe I know any hockey moms or at least any mothers who wittingly bear such a title.

But in my life and work, I've come to know and identify with single moms who successfully raise families. They are, in my book, the real deal; they deserve applause.

If this isn't elitist shit, I don't know what is:

Those of us in my generation who were fortunate enough to attend college had to work our butts off to get our degrees, and get them on time.

What an ass. It took me YEARS to get a degree because I WORKED for a living. I seriously doubt Colbert King actually worked at a real job, 40 hours a week, with no handouts from parents or student loans or a spouse paying the bills, and graduated from college on time. It is almost the RULE nowadays to finish an undergraduate degree in more than four years. I went to a despised STATE school, a land grant school, mind you, and did not waste my money on a fucking Ivy League education. It took me YEARS to finish because I was self-supporting. As for Palin, this is what REALLY pisses him off--she didn't go to the Ivy League schools but to some no-name university in Idaho after going to other schools. Her husband is a nothing because he, like most people, not only is not a college graduate, he never went to college. For shame. Never mind he didn't need to and did well without a degree. It doesn't matter. The Palins have no right whatsoever to have any kind of high-profile life, let alone help run the country. They are little more than trailer trash, just like Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Besides, his hero, Obama, went to Occidental College before going to hoity-toity Columbia University, and he was not considered a top student. But that's different.

A number of us met our life partners on campus. Some of us went on to become commissioned officers in the armed forces. A large number pursued graduate and professional degrees.

King should know not only are college graduates NOT a majority of the population, let alone the voting public, comparatively few people have graduate or professional degrees. It's the elitism Obama appeals to that will be his downfall. King is the perfect example of an elitist.

No wonder Democrats lose presidential elections that weren't stolen.

More Campaign Commentary

It must really suck to be Maureen Dowd. I seldom read her screeds, but bloggers and such were writing about her dismissive column today about Palin.

Reading this godawful piece, I am reminded of how the worst sexists are often women.

She treated Hillary Clinton like crap, so why should I be surprised with her attitude towards Sarah Palin? Because Palin was a beauty contestant and "Miss Congeniality," she is an airhead. Because she didn't go to Harvahd but instead to a despised state university and actually worked for a living on her own merit, she is beneath contempt. How dare she have a Down syndrome baby. Republicans don't see her as an affirmative action candidate despite her thin resume, while Dowd's idol Obama has an even thinner one and wouldn't be where he is today without his shady Chicago connections.

Just when I think I have been the most disgusted I have ever been, something else comes along to top it.

Do these so-called liberals really want to lose that badly? Because of the constant pimping of Obama and trashing all opponents, for the first time in my adult life I am truly ashamed of my country. For the first time in my adult life I will NOT be voting for president, and since I cannot write in anybody else's name on a Nevada ballot, I will simply check off "none of these candidates."

Media Follies.

The New York Times was as guilty as other media outfits in its trashing of Hillary Clinton:

Politically correct is never a term one would apply to Dowd’s commentary. Her columns this year said Clinton’s “message is unapologetically emasculating,” and that she “needed to prove her masculinity” but in the end “had to fend off calamity by playing the female victim.” In one column Dowd wrote, “She may want to take a cue from the Miss America contest: make a graceful, magnanimous exit and wait in the wings.”

“From the time I began writing about politics,” Dowd said, “I have always played with gender stereotypes and mined them and twisted them to force the reader to be conscious of how differently we view the sexes.” Now, she said, “you are asking me to treat Hillary differently than I’ve treated the male candidates all these years, with kid gloves.”

The problem is Dowd has treated the Clintons like filth over the past decade or so. In fact, one would argue she made it to the pinnacle of paper punditry on their backs.

I have always found her overrated as a writer.

More Campaign Notes.

It was too bad for Hillary Clinton Rory Reid and Dina Titus didn't come to Iowa with their goons to counteract the Bronx cheers she received.
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Oprah needs to get a life with Stedman Graham or whoever else and quit being so obvious about her designs on a married man.
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Whoring for the woman and the black knowing both would lose the GE continues unabated.

The elite despises Edwards and whoever else at the second tier.
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Obama must be using Chicago-style political tactics to try and "win" Iowa, a state he won't win anyway.
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