Maureen Dowd, Making Sense

MoDo discussed technology, the internet, and the future of journalism in an address down in Texas.  And by gum, the gal made sense!  For a while.

I'm not worried about blogs overtaking print journalism. If it weren't for print journalism, what would bloggers have to write about? I say, the more the merrier. Competition makes everyone sharper.

There is a bit of bad news for the folks marketing Times Select, as well as the folks marketing SpellCheck:

I'm such a technological creton, I can't even figure out how to get onto Times Select, and I've paid my $49.95 with my Mastercard. (Paying to read yourself: Priceless.)

But I like this:

But I'm an optimist about the future of journalism. Because, in the end, it isn't the form that matters. It's the function. It isn't the medium, it's the message.

And here's my message: From time immemorial, from the Roman Senate, which we're vividly reliving on HBO on Sunday nights, to Shakespeare's royal courts to Dick Cheney's House of Pain, power leads to abuse of power. Power, as you can see with King Lear and the Boy Emperor, W., makes people deaf. The pursuit of power, as you can see in MacBeth and with Paul Wolfowitz and the neocon cabal, makes people blind.

         

...

Democracy depends on us. It depends on our ability to be patriots, to fulfill the founding fathers vision of keeping a check on power. We can't leave it to male escorts, fake anchors and professional fawners. It doesn't matter how you tell the story — with hieroglyphics, with a royal typewriter, with an IBM think pad, with a cell phone, with a Blackberry, with a carrier pigeon.

Just tell the story.

The ellipses eliminate a vivid lefty fantasy world. Well, follow the link.

         

Comments

[kim]

You mean 'illuminate' not 'eliminate'.
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[kim]

And while she's at it, what does she know about Plamegate? Sing it, girl.
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[kim]

Say it loud.
Say it proud.
Why are you cowed,
Maudie Dowd?
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[james peak]

Let me clean off my type set and then we can get out the bulldog edition.

[richard mcenroe]

"I'm not worried about blogs overtaking print journalism. If it weren't for print journalism, what would bloggers have to write about?"

Well, they could live-blog the Macy's Parade...

[Tom_with_a_Dream]

I'm never disappointed by the maturity of the Left. Ever.

[owl]

"Power, as you can see with King Lear and the Boy Emperor, W., makes people deaf. The pursuit of power, as you can see in MacBeth and with Paul Wolfowitz and the neocon cabal, makes people blind."

Think she borrowed the Wolfowitz, neocon cabal from Matthews?

[SteveMG]

Power, as you can see with King Lear and the Boy Emperor, W., makes people deaf.

Granted, this isn't English Lit. 101 but she loses me with this one (among other items, large and small).

Lear gave up his power, divided it between two of his daughters, cutting one of them out of the deal. They then proceeded to betray him and to ruin Britain through their misrule.

Granted, Lear foolishly turned his back on Cordelia; but that was a family values problem, so to speak.

Although I imagine Dowd could be arguing that Lear (Bush) misused his power by abdicating it to his daughters (neocons).

Some pedantry on my part, but still.

And can she please use the brake every now and then? She's all pedal, even on the turns. Nice historical references, pace Lear, but some larger historical context would be appreciated as well.

You know, distinguishing between abuses of power for personal gain versus abuses engendered by legitimate security concerns?

SMG

[Paul]

"Dick Cheney's House of Pain"

Oh puhleeze, give me a break.

The real abuse of power resides in the quisling media's assuming the role of a fourth, unelected branch of government, and its mistaken belief that it is their right to veto a war they choose not to support.

[Mescalero]

Yeah right! Boy emperor George W. Oh is that what it comes down to.

What about wild Willy Clinton who wants to emulate pornstar John Holmes in the Oval Office sweet heart! Get with it.

If wild Willy Clinton Clinton was doing the job he should have been doing 3000 Americans would not have died on 9/11! Think about it honey, if you have the mind to do so!

[arrowhead]

"Democracy depends on us. It depends on our ability to be patriots, to fulfill the founding fathers vision of keeping a check on power."

Such stirring rhetoric. Kinda brings a tear to your eye, don't it.

And to think that someone actually PAYS Dowd for this drivel!

[Harry Arthur]

Dowd seems to be consistently impressed by ... Dowd. Unfortunately she is usually too "cute" by half. She seems to think that her thoughts are profound. I'd say Jim's characterization is much closer to reality.

Unfortunately, should history subsequently prove her viewpoint mistaken, it won't matter.

[SteveMG]

Such stirring rhetoric. Kinda brings a tear to your eye, don't it.

Yep, the word platitudinous does come to mind.

But she probably got at least $5,000 for it.

A dollar for each cliche and hackneyed expression.

Literary references and cutesy-pie names were free.

SMG

[Joe Mealyus]

"I've read the Jetsons prediction that we'll have a newspaper on a coffee table that will instantaneously change every few minutes to update the news, like something out of a Philip K. Dick novel."

That's not like something out of a PKD novel at all - forget the fact she doesn't know Lear, she doesn't know Dick either. (The newspaper in a PKD novel might be updating the news, but with a strangely enervating twist, like the inclusion of a Mo Dowd column).

[Joe Mealyus]

"My press pass was taken away, and I was told I'd have to undergo a six-month FBI check to get it back, while a male prostitute writing for a conservative Web site was allowed daily access to the White House press room and presidential press conferences."

I feel 90% certain that JOM has already debunked both ends of the tale told here, and 95% certain that JOM should have linked to said debunking instead of just blandly referring to a "vivid lefty fantasy world."

But then I am 100% certain that I have no idea what she's talking about here:

"...spending hundreds of millions on self-aggrandizing covert propaganda and puffery, fashioned like fake newscasts with faux anchor people that were peddled to local news outlets."

Does anyone know what this is referring to?

[Shad]

"...spending hundreds of millions on self-aggrandizing covert propaganda and puffery, fashioned like fake newscasts with faux anchor people that were peddled to local news outlets."

Does anyone know what this is referring to?

My guess would be it's a reference to video news releases (VNRs).

It's another one of those programs that was fine with liberals when Clinton initiated it, but since Bush continued the policy it's now evil evil evil! and requires loud, repetitive, vociferous denunciation. (see also CIA renditions, regime change in Iraq, Kyoto treaty, et al.)

[kim]

That's fit to print?

You've come a long way, baby.
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[susan]

MoDo Journalism
Tell the story no matter how much you have to lie, manipulation, and distort in order to get your message out to those poor unwashed masses.

Like when a Democrat politican is elected into power print one story (Saddam's Iraq) between 1998-2000 imploring the free world to remove the dangerous dictator then, when a Republician politician is elected into power completely rewrite the original story so that The Story fits the agenda and journalists can feel justified in condemning stupid Republicans as evil sheeple warmongers eating babies for breakfast.

MoDo journalism altering truth one lying word at a time.

[noah]

MoDowdy narrowly avoids an overt Freudian reference in this speech. But usually cannot.

Memo to Dowd: Freudian psychoanalysis is a fraud.

[windansea]

she doesn't know Dick either

LOL

[TP]

Poor Maureen Dowd. Always looking for love in all of the wrong places. One would hope that someday she would visit the Hall of Mirrors.

[kim]

Who needs to know Dick, you can just feel how cool it is to slide his name into the mix.

Times Select has impacted any number of fledgling liberals who now, instead of dosing with their daily Dowd, sit around flagellating themselsves with Krugman social security fantasies while preparing to make themselves useful to society.
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[kim]

And why the heck is she down on male escorts? Some of my best friends are....oh nevermind.
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[kim]

Re creton. Maybe she feels tossed, toasted on a macedoine of shredded schribben, soaking up the tangy drizzle of blackberry tears.
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[windansea]

OT but where are our rezident lefties who just love to cite polls saying americans are against the war??

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Democrats fumed last week at Vice President Cheney's suggestion that criticism of the administration's war policies was itself becoming a hindrance to the war effort. But a new poll indicates most Americans are sympathetic to Cheney's point.

Seventy percent of people surveyed said that criticism of the war by Democratic senators hurts troop morale -- with 44 percent saying morale is hurt "a lot," according to a poll taken by RT Strategies. Even self-identified Democrats agree: 55 percent believe criticism hurts morale, while 21 percent say it helps morale.

The results surely will rankle many Democrats, who argue that it is patriotic and supportive of the troops to call attention to what they believe are deep flaws in President Bush's Iraq strategy. But the survey itself cannot be dismissed as a partisan attack. The RTs in RT Strategies are Thomas Riehle, a Democrat, and Lance Tarrance, a veteran GOP pollster.

Their poll also indicates many Americans are skeptical of Democratic complaints about the war. Just three of 10 adults accept that Democrats are leveling criticism because they believe this will help U.S. efforts in Iraq. A majority believes the motive is really to "gain a partisan political advantage."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...2600745_pf.html

[kim]

It was a grave Kerry, or whoever, error to argue against the war 2 and 1/2 years ago, and it is a grave error for the argument to be resurrected after the SSCI buried Joe. The war was the right thing to do.

Game over. C'mon, it's overdue a day already.
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[kim]

It's gonna be like 'Who lost China'. Well, it was the Pope for failing to allow the popularization in China of the alignment of the Chinese Gods and Goddesses with the Christion Catholic theological hierarchy. It seemed too much like demonology to him.
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[TP]

Actually, what better vehicle than a secret Senate-House session to debate the war. This is what we hire them to do. We would eliminate this tawdry public scoring of debate points and incessant seeking of cover with the worst elements of both parties. Maybe we could even get a periodic joint statement out of Congress--kind of like what we see when there are summit meetings with foreign countries. Debates with our bitter enemies in the Cold War were handled in a more discreet and rational way than this debate.

Of course, the media might not like this because it would be a violation of those two Pillars of our system: "The People's Right To Know" so that we can have a trial in "The Court of Public Opinion".

[kim]

Who needs 'em, when you're dangerable.
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[Moqui]

"Paul Wolfowitz and the neocon cabal"

nothing coded there. Naked.

[kim]

Making sense, naked.
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[kim]

Making sensunusual? Naked sun sensual. Nun sense you all kaned. Maureen murmurs for select ears; none of it makes sense, I fears.
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[TM]

I feel 90% certain that JOM has already debunked both ends of the tale told here, and 95% certain that JOM should have linked to said debunking instead of just blandly referring to a "vivid lefty fantasy world."

And here I was, so proud of myself for manfully resisting.

As to spending "hundreds of millions" on propaganda - I would love to see a budget figure for that.

a strangely enervating twist, like the inclusion of a Mo Dowd column. LOL.

[kim]

Mo dowdily chasing the young paddlewheel apprentice all over the deck for the sake of his stories.
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[kim]

Stowed away on Farmer's vessel.
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[Syl]

MoDo journalism altering truth one lying word at a time.

PoMo MoDo Bought a Kimono!

Oh No, It was a Komodo!

Ouch!

No mo' PoMo MoDo!

[kim]

Drag on, Lady.
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[kim]

Crewed on.

Creed In Vincible or Risible?
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[clarkeee]

"It doesn't matter how you tell the story — with hieroglyphics, with a royal typewriter, with an IBM think pad, with a cell phone, with a Blackberry, with a carrier pigeon."
Looks like she forgot to mention MS Word on a 1972 typewriter.