I honestly don't think very many people really care one way or another about what Maureen Dowd thinks.
Hmm, two responses. The first is that is a good reason for you not to read her. I don't read a long line of vituperous right wing columnists and a couple of the same kind of left wing columnists. For instance, I quit reading Alexander Cockburn, one of Christopher Hitchens buddies (no longer) at The Nation, a long time back for precisely those reasons.
Second, is that your comment about no one reads Dowd reminds me of the Yoggi Berra comment, that no one goes to that restaurant anymore because it's too crowded. Or some such. The only reason folk attack Dowd is because she is so influential. Who would care if very few read her.
Compare the Washington Times piece sometime back which made up, virtually out of whole cloth, an attack on a 9-11 curricular proposal. After a bit of to and froing in the newspapers, the criticisms went away. Because few expect better from the WashTimes. In Dowd's case, we will be subjected to the criticisms over the Bush quote change, an error, admittedly, but well down the list of sins, we'll be subjected to that for some time. Because it's a handle for the right to go after the New York Times. But, far more important, because we simply expect better. We expect NYTimes columnists to get the facts right. And that expectation partially explains their influence.
Yep, Dowd is read. You may well be right, that her tone has taken a turn for the worse over the past several years. But right wing criticisms of her tone hardly pass the smell test. Far too much of that tries to emulate much worse models than Dowd. |
