Direckshun
08-06-2008, 11:44 AM
I'm a liberal, and I enjoy reading a lot of liberal writers across the internet, from both small media and the big guys. It doesn't get much bigger than Dowd, who is the leading liberal voice for one of the most important sources of political commentary, the NYTimes.
Dowd is a great writer stylistically, but she is so hit-and-miss factually and substantially that now you have to take a grain of salt with everything she says. Which I hate doing, when her language is so effortless and her tone is so directed.
Today (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/06/opinion/06dowd.html?_r=3&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&ref=opinion&adxnnlx=1218024273-J5ZhwOYxyj9D81L9B6hzNA&oref=slogin&oref=slogin) was almost one of the best articles by Dowd I've read in a long time.
Her target: John McCain's envy that Barack is the new "cool guy" on the block.
It's a fair take, if not a downright incisive one, and she attacks it with aplomb:
“Now somebody else is the celebrity,” the colleague continued, while John looks in the mirror and sees his face marred by skin cancer and looks at the TV and sees his dashing self-image replaced by visions of William Frawley, with Letterman jokes about his membership in the ham radio club and adventures with wagon trains.
For McCain, being cool meant being a rogue, not a policy wonk; but Obama manages to be a cool College Bowl type, which must irk McCain, who liked to play up his bad-boy cool. Now the guy in the back of the class is shooting spitballs at the class pet and is coming off as more juvenile than daring.
Around the McCain campaign, they grouse that Obama “hasn’t bled.” He hasn’t bled literally, in military service, just like W., the last holder of an E-ZPass who sped past McCain. And he hasn’t paid his dues in the Senate, since he basically just stopped by for directions to the Oval Office.
And then, with all this good work built up, she flatlines with writing at the end of her article that's so shitty, I can't believe she's won a Pullitzer and writes for one of the most distinguished media outlets on earth.
This is the end of her article, study how bad she falters here:
Obama wrote his own books, while McCain’s were written by Salter. McCain knows he’s the affirmative action scion of admirals who might not have gotten through Annapolis without being a legacy. Obama didn’t even tell Harvard Law School that he was black on his application.
McCain upbraids Obama for being a poppet, while he’s becoming a puppet. His mouth is moving but the words coming out belong to his new hard-boiled strategist, Steve Schmidt, a Rove protégé, nicknamed “The Bullet” for his bald pate.
Schmidt has turned Mr. Straight Talk into Mr. Desperate Straits. It’s not a good trade.
Capital UGH.
Perhaps exhausted with making her point, Dowd concludes her article on McCain with five consecutive zingers, with no rhyme or reason that I can get into. None of them with any set up or segues into one another. No transitions.
I know it's chic to bag on Dowd, but this is really just awful writing, especially when it marginalizes her own legitimate point that she was trying to make earlier in the article. She starts out acidic but sensible, then just loses her sense by the time she's done.
Dowd is a great writer stylistically, but she is so hit-and-miss factually and substantially that now you have to take a grain of salt with everything she says. Which I hate doing, when her language is so effortless and her tone is so directed.
Today (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/06/opinion/06dowd.html?_r=3&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&ref=opinion&adxnnlx=1218024273-J5ZhwOYxyj9D81L9B6hzNA&oref=slogin&oref=slogin) was almost one of the best articles by Dowd I've read in a long time.
Her target: John McCain's envy that Barack is the new "cool guy" on the block.
It's a fair take, if not a downright incisive one, and she attacks it with aplomb:
“Now somebody else is the celebrity,” the colleague continued, while John looks in the mirror and sees his face marred by skin cancer and looks at the TV and sees his dashing self-image replaced by visions of William Frawley, with Letterman jokes about his membership in the ham radio club and adventures with wagon trains.
For McCain, being cool meant being a rogue, not a policy wonk; but Obama manages to be a cool College Bowl type, which must irk McCain, who liked to play up his bad-boy cool. Now the guy in the back of the class is shooting spitballs at the class pet and is coming off as more juvenile than daring.
Around the McCain campaign, they grouse that Obama “hasn’t bled.” He hasn’t bled literally, in military service, just like W., the last holder of an E-ZPass who sped past McCain. And he hasn’t paid his dues in the Senate, since he basically just stopped by for directions to the Oval Office.
And then, with all this good work built up, she flatlines with writing at the end of her article that's so shitty, I can't believe she's won a Pullitzer and writes for one of the most distinguished media outlets on earth.
This is the end of her article, study how bad she falters here:
Obama wrote his own books, while McCain’s were written by Salter. McCain knows he’s the affirmative action scion of admirals who might not have gotten through Annapolis without being a legacy. Obama didn’t even tell Harvard Law School that he was black on his application.
McCain upbraids Obama for being a poppet, while he’s becoming a puppet. His mouth is moving but the words coming out belong to his new hard-boiled strategist, Steve Schmidt, a Rove protégé, nicknamed “The Bullet” for his bald pate.
Schmidt has turned Mr. Straight Talk into Mr. Desperate Straits. It’s not a good trade.
Capital UGH.
Perhaps exhausted with making her point, Dowd concludes her article on McCain with five consecutive zingers, with no rhyme or reason that I can get into. None of them with any set up or segues into one another. No transitions.
I know it's chic to bag on Dowd, but this is really just awful writing, especially when it marginalizes her own legitimate point that she was trying to make earlier in the article. She starts out acidic but sensible, then just loses her sense by the time she's done.