When Maureen Dowd Lost Hillary Clinton

In the latest chapter in Maureen Dowd's never-ending story of the Clintons, "When Hillary Clinton Killed Feminism",  the long-time New York Times columnist builds her case in the only way Maureen seems to know how: by putting thoughts into Hillary's head and words into Hillary's mouth.. 

Even after all these years, Maureen is still trying to invent Hillary the Terrible, Hillary the Prevaricator, Hillary the Shallow.  And every time she's sure she's got it, every time Dowd writes the perfect scenario, in which her character lives up to her previous, masterful buildup, Hillary the Unpredictable takes off in another direction.

And Dowd fumes! Even on the printed page you can see Dowd fuming. Hillary is HER invention!  HER antagonist!  Who the hell does she think she is?

Because Maureen Dowd's version of Hillary Clinton doesn't exist in real life, the author resorts to  the phrasing of a fiction writer:

"Hillary believed. . ."

"The Clintons seemed to have. . ."

"It turned out that female voters seem to be looking at. . ."

"This attitude intensified the unappetizing solipsistic subtext of her campaign. . . "  (Thrown in because, come on!  That took some work!)

"Hillary started from a place of entitlement. . ."

"Hillary’s coronation was predicated on. . ."

"The Clintons assumed. . ."

"And now she's even angrier. . ."

"Hillary has an 'I' message: I have been abused and misunderstood and it’s my turn."

"It’s a victim mind-set that is exhausting. . ."

"Hillary knew that she could count on the complicity of feminist leaders. . ." 

"And that’s always the ugly Faustian bargain with the Clintons. . ."

What a story!  The stuff of great fiction, and Maureen Dowd is without a doubt a great story-teller.  But if there was a part in there about Hillary killing feminism--as the title suggests--I must have missed it.

But let's say it's in there and I did miss it:  Hillary Clinton has been accused of a lot of things, but killing feminism is a new one.  The last I looked, feminism is alive and well and doing just fine.  The plot twist comes when Dowd tries to portray Hillary as a perennial victim, only to give her the power to kill an entire movement.  It stretches credulity, even for fiction.

The theme of Hillary as either victim or villain is growing old.  She is neither.  But Dowd has lived with this character for so long, building her into a larger-than-life creature of her own making (as every good writer of fiction must do), she can't let her go.  Not her Hillary.  Not this version.  It's driving the poor woman mad!  (No, not really. I made that up. See how easy it is?)

 At risk of seeming presumptuous, let me just say,  writer to writer, woman to woman: Maureen, honey, it's time.  It's time to let it go, to move on to something new.  You've done all you can with this one, and it's just not working.  Now you're repeating yourself.

Even in fiction, the same old story is still the same old story.


(Cross-posted at Dagblog, The Broad-Side and Crooks and Liars)

Men, power, reckless sex: Why? What are we missing?

I don't always read or agree with Maureen Dowd, but I do have her on my blogroll and now and then a title grabs me.  Yesterday she wrote "Your Tweetin' Heart".  Yes, I knew it was going to be about Anthony Weiner, but I read it anyway because sometimes her take on odd things like that is refreshingly different.

She talked not just about Rep. Weiner, but about what has been bothering me for so long about the men (it's been men so far)  we liberals count on to help solve the country's problems.

First there was Gary Hart, who practically begged the press to catch him with a babe on a boat and got caught. Bill Clinton fooled around with women (whose appeal caused some real head-scratching for most of us) and got caught.  Then it was John Edwards, who co-created a child with a woman who was not his wife and got caught.  Now it's Anthony Weiner, who got down and dirty in words and pictures and got caught.

(In earlier times it was FDR, JFK and Lyndon Johnson, but, while rumors flew, they didn't get caught.  And who knows how many others there were?)

They were all supposed populists -- my kind of people.  Their ability to speak up convincingly for the poor and disenfranchised is what got them where they were.  Their inability to tame their penises is what brought them down and ended any chance for us to count on their intelligence, their compassion, their flair for skewering the lies.

Dowd says:

Often powerful men crave more than love and admiration from The Good Wife. Sometimes they want risk, even danger. Sometimes they’re turned on by a power differential. They adore a fan reaction like the one from Lisa Weiss, the Vegas blackjack dealer, who flirted with Weiner on Facebook: “you are sooo awesome when you yell at those fox news” pundits, and “I bet you have so many chicks after you! you are our liberal stud.”
In her book, Elizabeth Edwards wrote that she would have bet her big house that her husband would not fall for a cheesy line like the one Rielle Hunter tossed at him: “You are so hot.”

But clichés work. As Weiner wrote to Weiss: “What are you wearing?”
Meagan Broussard, a 26-year-old college student and single mom from Texas, wrote on BigGovernment.com, conservative Andrew Breitbart’s site, that her relationship with Weiner began when she wrote on his Facebook page that one of his speeches to construction workers was “hot.”

“Within an hour,” she wrote, “we were sending messages back and forth.”

So what is it?  What happens there?  Isn't the chance at saving the country a big enough ego-driver?  What is it about power that makes it such an aphrodisiac?  These are all men who worked long and hard to get to the top.  They're men who prided themselves on their willingness and their ability to help those who can't help themselves.  Their passion for progressive causes made them heroes in the eyes of millions of people.  We trusted them to help us move mountains.  Was that too much to ask?

They're men, not Gods.  I get that.  They don't always want to be the Good Guys.  But there are easier, more dignified ways to end a career than to self-destruct with your pants down.

So I'm asking:  Why?  Why do they do it? 

Anybody?

Liberals for Obama: What a Concept!

 Yesterday Maureen Dowd devoted an entire column to why her Republican sister is angry that she voted for Obama:

One of the independent voters Obama will be trying to charm over the next two years is my sister, Peggy, a formerly ardent Obamican (a Republican who changed spots to vote for Obama).
Disillusioned with her beloved W. over Iraq and Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and the disdain for bipartisanship, she gave her affections — and small cash infusions — to Barack Obama in 2008.
Despite being a Washington native, Peggy believed that the dazzling young newcomer could change Washington.
But she has lost a lot of faith now, saying she might vote for Mitt Romney over Obama if Romney is the Republican nominee in 2012. (Sarah Palin shouldn’t count on her vote though. In Peggy’s words, “Are you nuts?”)

 Give credit to Peggy for dismissing Palin as President, but really--what would a Republican who loved George W want from someone like Barack Obama anyway?

No credit, however, to her sister, who either panicked at deadline or thought another jab at Obama was just the ticket on 9/11.  (I would say to Mo "Are you nuts?", but I don't want to be a copycat.)

I'm watching what's happening these days, with friend and foe alike turning against the president, and I'm starting to think like a fiercely protective mother here.  Just as with my own children, when they did wrong I'd let them know, and I expected a ready fix,  but I wasn't about to go out into the neighborhood telling everybody what rotten little brats they sometimes were.  I didn't want the whole neighborhood to think they were rotten little brats.

Same with my president.  I'm not happy with the way things are going, either.  At risk of sounding like a broken record, I wanted a New Deal/WPA/CCC approach to fixing our nation. I wanted every leader in the Democratic Party to thumb their noses at the outgoing regime on Day One by coming up with creative ways of creating economy-sustaining American jobs, hang the cost or the damage to the Fat Cats.

I thought bank bailouts without gajillions of strings attached would fail almost as badly as they did.  I hate the idea of still having a military presence in both Iraq and Afghanistan.  I've never been happy about the Wall Street and Chicago guys Obama chose to help with his "Hope and Change" program.

That he reads from a teleprompter or acts "lawyerly", thus boring us to tears when he's explaining his plans to us, bothers me not, and I wish everybody would just shut up about it.  It's the actions, not the delivery, that counts.  Concentrate on the big stuff, and screw the small stuff.

Every time Obama's allies make fun or go on the attack they've put one foot  into the enemy camp.  There are enough enemies there already, but believe me, they'll welcome those they see as turncoats with open arms.   And pretty soon they've won and we've lost and we'll be on the outside looking in, bitching about our loss more than we're bitching now about how Obama has let us down.

There are enough real issues we can use against the Republicans without wasting valuable time reinforcing the prevailing opinion that Obama is the baddest of the bad guys.  Come on.  We know better.  Go on the attack against Obama's dithering and doddering and seeming bad judgment if you must, but do it as a family member--as an ally.  He may be a disappointment, but he is the least of our enemies.  Stop making him into one, even and especially from our side.

Just today Dick Armey ruffled his breast feathers and cackled to CNN's Candy Crowley about how the Democrats are "confused and demoralized" and are going to lose in November.  That's the weapon the Republicans and the new Tea Party party are going to be using against us--that we don't know what the hell we're doing and we don't like each other much--and unless we prove them wrong it's going to work.
 
I want Obama and the Democrats to do better, but they can't do better if they don't have the chance.  They have to win in November because it'll be just insane if they don't.  So, yeah, let's knock their heads together and twist their arms until they holler "uncle", and then let's get this show on the road.  But we have to get them elected first and we have less than two months to do it.

Here's a parting thought:

In the Nevada Senate race Harry Reid and Sharron Angle are running neck and neck.


Let me repeat that:  Harry Reid and Sharron Angle are running NECK AND NECK.

In the California Senate race Barbara Boxer and Carly Fiorina are running neck and neck.

Again--Boxer and Fiorina, NECK AND NECK.

And so it goes.

So unless you want the Republicans to give you something really bad to bitch about, I would suggest you tuck any gripes you have about Obama and the Dems behind your left ear (as my Aunt Ingrid used to say--meaning they'll still be there, festering), and get on with keeping in place the only party in office that has any hope of getting us out of this mess.

It's not a matter of rewarding them, it's a matter of protecting us.   All of us.  Every single one of us.

Ramona

Shades of Dr. Phil! Pop Psych at HuffPo, and AIG is the patient

Today is Sunday and I started my day by reading Frank Rich, Maureen Dowd, and Tom Friedman. They all talked about AIG and the current money crisis, and I have to say--the wheelings and dealings and sheer dollar amounts are so beyond me I don't even pretend to understand. I just take their superbly-written words for it. Those jackals screwed us, we let them, and now we're in so much trouble we may all have to go back to living in caves and foraging for food. It's scary, I tell you. . .

Then I moved over to the Huffington Post to see what they had to say about it all. (I started reading the HuffPo on its very first day online (before it became HuffPo), and I can almost always find something worthwhile to read there. I admit I cringed a little when they added an Entertainment section, and I absolutely hated their screaming Tabloid headlines last week when they reported hour-by-hour the latest on Natasha Richardson's skiing accident and subsequent death. Disgusting ("She is brain-dead!") and more than gagworthy.)

After reading that triad of truth-seekers , I was ready for bear. But I saw a headline for an article called, "How Corporate America can Earn Forgiveness and Rebuild Trust", and decided to take a little humor break before I went hunting again. Arianna often has comedians or humorists giving their takes on politics, and after that whole Jon Stewart thing in the last couple of weeks, I could hardly wait.

But here's the weird part. I think the guy who wrote this was serious!

I don't know the author, Mark Goulston, and again, I'm no expert, but after reading those NYT columnists I'm having a hard time making a connection between what those AIG crooks have done so far and the notion that they're now humbled enough to work on earning forgiveness and rebuilding trust.

But the good doctor (He's an MD) seems to think that if they will just follow his "Four Hs" and his "Four Rs" (We'll get to that) all will be well in Dizzyland and there will be no more need for tent cities or snaking unemployment lines. (He doesn't actually say that, but it's implied.)

He starts off like this: To err is human; To admit and accept complete responsibility for it, divine.

Really. That was "erring"?

He goes on:

"There is a way to repair the damage wrought by corporate transgressions. Be forewarned. This solution is not for the faint of heart or the uncommitted.

THE FOUR H'S: THE FALLOUT OF IMPROPRIETY & DECEIT

When a company, CEO or Board of Directors commits an unethical, if not immoral act, it triggers Four H's in investors, shareholders, employees, and the public at large:

• HURT
• HATE
• HESITATION TO TRUST
• HOLDING ON TO RESENTMENT"

Uh huh. But wait--the Good Doc has thought this all out and there's a solution. The Four Rs:

THE FOUR R'S: DAMAGE CONTROL AND HEALING THE PAIN

The corrective responses to the Four H's are the Four R's: Remorse, Restitution, Rehabilitation and Request for Forgiveness. If you are the CEO or part of the team responsible for guiding your company or industry through such a crisis, these are the steps you will need to take, (You is used to describe an individual, management team or company).

Remember now, he's writing this for all those execs who've conned, are conning and will continue to con. But there's apparently hope for them--which means there's hope for us. Here's what the Doctor ordered:

"Delivering the 3 R's of Remorse, Restitution and Rehabilitation may not prevent the injured from holding on to their resentment. If that's the case, you will need to exercise the 4^th R -to Request Forgiveness. Make this request only after you have demonstrated a track record of remorse, restitution and rehabilitation for at least six months (and perhaps even as long as the length of the transgression). Forgiveness, like trust is something that must be earned. One hopeful point to keep in mind: If you demonstrate a solid track record of Remorse, Restitution and Rehabilitation, and then Request Forgiveness and are not forgiven, it is not you that is unforgivable. Your investors, shareholders and employees are unforgiving. You cannot control other's feelings. You can only be true to and control yourself."

Oh my God. "It is not you who is unforgivable"???

And NOW he tells them to control themselves. Where was he when all this was going on? Probably delivering homilies to Oscar the Grouch in hopes of turning a frown upside down.

This is pop psychology at the kindergarten level--the very reason we came up with "psychobabble" . Here is Dr. Goulston's last word to those naughty execs:

"Your ability to handle this crisis may be the lifesaver they've been reaching for, and the lift needed that will finally allow them to believe in you and more importantly to begin to believe in corporate America again."

Have you ever believed in Corporate America?  No, neither have I. So here's my last word: You want an "R"? I'll give you an "R". How about "Revenge"?

(The REST of this story: I tried to leave a comment at the bottom of Gouldston's article and it was rejected! I mentioned some of the same things I wrote about here, but I did it in a polite way. Really. I might have said "You've got to be kidding!" and maybe I mentioned "kindergarten stuff" and I think I might have sounded like I was scoffing a little, but is that reason enough to just delete me? I don't know what's going on over there at HuffPo. Who's running that show, anyway?  But I got a blog post out of it, which wouldn't have happened if I hadn't been--I'll just say it--rejected.)
 

Ramona