dustbury.com: Warn Mode Due Archives

7 December 2006

Ellipsis sweet as candy

Dawn Eden talks to the Washington Times, and there are ... rather a lot of ... apparent ... gaps.

Since she isn't disowning the Times interview, I assume that the points she made were not affected by the nefarious practice of Dowdification.

Permalink to this item (posted at 1:59 PM)

7 January 2007

The Grey Lady and the children

Byron (his friends call him Barney) Calame is the "public editor" of The New York Times, the second such since the position was established in 2003, and he may be the last:

"Over the next couple of months, as Barney's term enters the home stretch, I'll be taking soundings from the staff, talking it over with the masthead, and consulting with Arthur," meaning publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., wrote Bill Keller, The Times’ executive editor, in an e-mail to The Observer.

Mr. Keller wrote in his e-mail that "some of my colleagues believe the greater accessibility afforded by features like 'Talk to the Newsroom' has diminished the need for an autonomous ombudsman, or at least has opened the way for a somewhat different definition of the job."

Daniel Okrent, first Times public editor, said he "would be disappointed to see [the position] eliminated."

This detail in the Observer piece caught Brendan Nyhan's eye:

Mr. Okrent was a sharp critic who raised hackles and then won respect during his 18-month term. In contrast, Mr. Calame has been a bit more like that other Barney, the friendly purple dinosaur — and not entirely unlike Snuffleupagus, the once-invisible creature of Sesame Street. The readers were Big Bird, and we could see and hear him — but did he exist to anyone inside The Times?

To which Nyhan responds:

[T]his is a whole new style of media criticism. Coming next week: Is Maureen Dowd more like Miss Piggy or Dora the Explorer?

Short answer: yes.

Actually, I think Maureen Dowd is the secret child of Disney's Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable, and whatever Type A personality traits she may have inherited from Kim are offset by Ron's intractable B-ness. Besides, Ron is sweet and goofy, and God forbid Maureen should ever show such a side.

Permalink to this item (posted at 11:38 AM)

26 February 2007

This is not the origin of the word "dowdy"

Maureen Dowd with Tim Russert

Then again, if glam doesn't work, what's the fallback position? Right.

(Via Gawker, where the following comment was posted: "MoDo — the high school librarian called ... she wants her outfit back ..." I don't remember seeing anything like this, but then I went to a Catholic school.)

Permalink to this item (posted at 11:23 AM)

24 March 2007

Holding up the Speaker

Around the first of the year, someone put in a search-engine query for "nancy pelosi leg photos," to which I responded with a comment to the effect that nobody ever asked for anything like that from Dennis Hastert. What the searcher was led to was Vent #398, "Dressed for the party," in which I scanned some photos from Harper's Bazaar that accompanied a goofy piece by Maureen Dowd (who else?) on the dodgy subject of whether Democrats or Republicans dress "better," in the Bazaar sense of course. On the basis of evidence presented, I declared a draw.

In the "competition," Pelosi was matched up against then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, and I said this:

Two cases of, if not wardrobe malfunction, certainly misjudgment. Condi's white blouse, black jacket and belted trousers qualify as conservative, perhaps even self-effacing. Nancy's in a summery red California two-piece suit that pushes her waistline higher than it should and ends far enough below the knee to make her look more bottom-heavy than she might like.

Had Rice shown up that day in this dress, I suspect my judgment might have differed just a little — though Pelosi too has come off better recently.

Maybe I just need a new scanner.

Permalink to this item (posted at 2:51 PM)

27 April 2007

In defense of John McCain

He's apparently willing to share a burger with Maureen Dowd.

(Via In Theory.)

Permalink to this item (posted at 11:11 PM)

15 May 2007

Can't even give it away

Once upon a time, Alex Massie once asserted that "Maureen Dowd really, really can't write." Since then — well, read it for yourself:

Is it unkind to suggest that were she to hand her columns, unsigned, to the editor of a minor magazine at any of the nation's lesser provincial universities they would be deemed unpublishable? One need make no great claims for oneself to suggest that the pages of the New York Times could be filled with better stuff than this.

I mean, all newspapers print loopy nonsense a lot of the time. There's too much space to fill for this not to be true. But there is loopyness that, however barkingly, is trying to make a point and there's loopyness that rambles on without ever threatening to hit upon an argument, let alone blunder into anything so recherche as an insight.

I thought that was my department. Then again, no one is charging you to read me:

Putting Dowd behind a subscription wall remains both ... a demonstration of a complete lack of business acumen and an extraordinary act of charity.

(Yeah, Snitch, I know, I know. I don't have a quota or anything, but once in a while I feel the urge, as it were.)

Permalink to this item (posted at 10:23 AM)

16 January 2008

No hard feelings, evidently

Maureen Dowd came down with some wretched disease while covering Dubya's Middle East jaunt, and who comes to her aid? Why, the White House, of course:

Presidential aides, including press secretary Dana Perino, made clear early on that Dowd could see Dr. Richard J. Tubb, the Air Force brigadier general who oversees the White House medical office and takes care of the president at home and abroad.

But Dowd declined. With no medication, she tried to soldier on by grabbing whatever rest she could in her hotel room — not easy to do in a trip of constant movements. By the time the presidential entourage moved to Bahrain from Kuwait on Saturday, she felt even worse. She was so sick, in fact, that she could not write her regular Sunday column.

Dowd finally decided to take up the White House on its offer.

So she gets to see Dr. Tubb, and:

Tubb gave her a few tablets of Cipro and some Pepto-Bismol and told her to check back with him the next day. She turned down Tubb's offer of an IV (so there was no chance of an "accidental" poisoning, she joked).

"He was wonderful — just really sweet," Dowd said in an interview Tuesday afternoon in the press filing center in Riyadh, where she appeared to be on the mend and said she was feeling much better.

But it wasn't over:

On Sunday, when [the] entourage flew from Bahrain to the United Arab Emirates, Dowd was supposed to be flying on the press charter, without access to Tubb. But the White House made room for her aboard Air Force One, where she visited the doctor once again in his office near the president's.

"I was thinking that if I ran into Bush, I would have to apologize for it not being a fatal disease," Dowd said. "He was very generous to share his doctor — even if he didn't know it."

Dowd said Tubb and the rest of the White House staff who helped her were "fantastic" — and nobody complained about her columns.

Good on ya, Doc. And Maureen, you get well real soon, y'hear?

Permalink to this item (posted at 2:05 PM)

27 June 2008

Nope, no stereotypes here

Howell Raines, disgraced former executive editor of The New York Times, hailed from Alabama; it's at least slightly possible that he would have known better.

But Raines is gone, and now the Times is advertising for a stringer for its Southern bureau (which covers eight states), just like this:

Serious applicants should email a short cover letter, resume and five story ideas that demonstrate a clear understanding of the Times's national desk and Southern coverage to [name and address redacted].

Story ideas should be crafted as actual pitches and should go beyond topics or angles that the Times has already addressed. Please do not submit ideas concerning dog fights, cock fights, or the Confederate flag.

Personally, I think the Times should send Maureen Dowd to Darlington to decipher the mysteries of NASCAR, but then I'm not a high-flying media expert.

Permalink to this item (posted at 7:21 PM)