# Maureen Dowd should be fired. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 30, 2001, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maureen-dowd-should-be-fired/90483 "2001-10-30T07:07:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![PhiloVance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e19adc/32.png) [@PhiloVance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhiloVance)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2001, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maureen-dowd-should-be-fired/90483/1 "2001-10-30T07:07:09Z")
[Maureen Dowd](http://www.nytimes.com/library/opinion/dowd/bio_dowd.html) is **not** a \*\*real \*\*reporter, much less a reporter sympathetic to womens issues and should be fired. :mad: Maureen came to her present position as the NY Times OP ed Womens columnist in 1995 as a replacement for [Anna Quindlen](http://www.bookbrowse.com/index.cfm?page=author&authorID=293). In the years since, Maureen has given her opinions on such pithy items as what to wear and when to wear it, Al Gore’s new hirsute visage and Viagara jokes. \*\*THIS WOMAN IS A TOTAL LOSER! \*\* :wally And the NY Times is the worse for it. Why they appointed her to this job is beyond me. The woman has never had a serious column. She’s the new [Louella Parsons](http://www.infoplease.com/ipea/A0880187.html), as if the NY Times needed that. :rolleyes: And, as luck would have it she has won awards. Maureen, bless her heart, is a 1999 Pulitzer Prize winner, in the commentary category, for her “unsparing columns on the hypocrisies involved in the Lewinsky affair and the effort to impeach President Clinton.” Whatever that means. Kind of shows you how much the Pulitzer is worth these days. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2001, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maureen-dowd-should-be-fired/90483/2 "2001-10-30T07:43:45Z")
This “rant” is obviously just a paper thin excuse to use the smileys.😉 ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2001, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maureen-dowd-should-be-fired/90483/3 "2001-10-30T13:25:52Z")
Be careful, you are also speaking of a former _Glamour_ magazine Woman Of The Year. 🙂 (unused smiley). I don’t see anything in her job description about her being a Women’s columnist, just an op-ed columnist. The description of her producing “witty, incisive and acerbic portraits of the powerful” is pretty accurate, and she spares no one, certainly not President Bush (in case you were thinking that she unfairly targets Democrats). Her column is worth reading most days. ---
**Author:** ![IzzyR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/2acd7d/32.png) [@IzzyR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IzzyR)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2001, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maureen-dowd-should-be-fired/90483/4 "2001-10-30T13:37:52Z")
Maureen Dowd wrote a column in which she portrayed Ken Starr as being sexually obsessed with Monica Lewinsky. Really brilliant insightful stuff - added a lot. I recall her trashing Matt Drudge for dealing with so much gossip - Drudge reprinted an old article she had written (as a reporter) in which she speculated about whether Nancy Reagan had had an affair with Frank Sinatra. It’s a shame that publications like the NY Times have a “women’s slot” and the like (I believe Bob Herbert fills the “African-American slot”). ---
**Author:** ![december](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@december](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/december)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2001, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maureen-dowd-should-be-fired/90483/5 "2001-10-30T13:47:41Z")
To give MD her due, she uses words well. However, her columns typically lack all content. She just doesn’t put in the effort needed to find out the facts. My wife, who agrees with MD’s politics, wouldn’t dream of reading her. Why has the Times not figured out that her column is an insult to women? It’s imlicit message is, “It’s OK for women to be ignorant. Men take care of serious matters.” And the Pulitzer prize! :o Goes to show that it’s merely something awarded by the vote of some committee. ---
**Author:** ![PhiloVance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e19adc/32.png) [@PhiloVance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhiloVance)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2001, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maureen-dowd-should-be-fired/90483/6 "2001-10-30T14:32:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Jackmannii \* > \*\*Be careful, you are also speaking of a former _Glamour_ magazine Woman Of The Year. 🙂 (unused smiley). > > \*\* Wow…sorry I missed that award. What was that for? Compared to Anna Quindlen, whom she replaced, she is nothing but minor league. ---
**Author:** ![Necros](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/necros/32/11086_2.png) [@Necros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Necros)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2001, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maureen-dowd-should-be-fired/90483/7 "2001-10-30T15:59:41Z")
So, being a former Washington, White House and metro correspondent for the _Times_, and a former reporter for the _Washington Star_ and _Time_ magazine doesn’t count as being a “ **real** reporter”? And I guess I’m misunderstanding. The qualification for the Pulitzer Prize was changed to “liked by **PhiloVance** ” when exactly? ---
**Author:** ![december](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@december](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/december)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2001, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maureen-dowd-should-be-fired/90483/8 "2001-10-30T17:31:49Z")
> [@](#): > > The way we weren’t: Meanwhile, Maureen Dowd is also frazzled in the wake of last month’s attacks. On October 14, the pundit pondered the naughty way “we” were before this fine mess got started: > > DOWD: Only five weeks ago, we inhabited a paradise of trivia, wallowing in celebrity, consumerism and cosmetic-surgery advances. Now we inhabit a paranoia of trivia, worrying about potential mortal threats in everyday actions—opening a letter, getting on a plane or train, going to the mall or a football game. > > “We” had been demons of trivia, Dowd said. Yep—“we” had been wallowing in celebrity, consumerism and advances in cosmetic surgery. > > Well sorry, Mo, but here at THE HOWLER, “we” aren’t signing up for that club. Here at THE HOWLER, only seven weeks ago, “we” were finishing a four-year run of slamming your love of sheer trivia. Who had “inhabited a paradise of trivia?” Many folks hadn’t, but one had—Maureen Dowd. For that reason, we had asked, again and again, why the Times put her column in print. > > Indeed, speaking of The Way We Were, we had recent occasion to list the topics Dowd explored in The Summer of 99. (All right, all right; our work was done for an early chapter of The Spinning of the President, Year 2000.) And no, dear friends, we aren’t making this up—survey Dowd’s topics in that period, after she returned from a four-week vacance: > > July 28: Dowd described her recent lazer eye surgery. > > August 1: Dowd reviewed the movie “Runaway Bride.” > > August 4: Dowd discussed a Talk magazine piece about the Clintons’ marriage. > > August 8: She interviewed Bob Dole on the prospect of being “first gentleman.” > > August 11: She compared the Talk magazine piece about the Clintons with an auction of Marilyn Monroe memorabilia. > > August 15: Will Warren Beatty run for president? > > August 18: Bush and the question of youthful drug use > > August 22: Bush and the question of youthful drug use > > August 25: Dowd reviewed a Showtime movie about Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas. > > August 29: She ruminated on the life story of John McCain. “Never have so many men wanted to run,” she mused, “to prove they are worthy to larger-than-life dads.” > > September 1: “I ran into Kato Kaelin the other night,” she wrote—at the start of a piece about Monica Lewinsky’s fashion business. > > September 5: Dowd penned a review of the Paris, the new Las Vegas casino-hotel. > > Amazing, isn’t it? Pre-9/11, Dowd hadn’t had a serious thought since the Times unwisely put her in print. She’d been the “it-woman” of an addled press culture—reigning queen of its “paradise of trivia.” > > We’re all in this thing together now, and we do wish Dowd and her cohort well. But “we” don’t plan to sign up for her club, and “we” wish she’d stop signing up for us. [http://www.dailyhowler.com/h102901\_1.shtml](http://www.dailyhowler.com/h102901_1.shtml)