| MND COMMENTARY |
The Maureen Dowd Two Minute Mock
by Bernard Chapin Today’s column, "Ritalin for America", happens to touch on issues of which this particular writer is unusually familiar. I’ll sum the column up for you in the same fashion that Soap Opera Digest will. Maureen discovers Attention Deficit Disorder. She then determines she may have it herself. Therefore, because Ms. Dowd has it, all of America must be afflicted with it as well! We know this to be true as the reader and I, along with the rest of mankind, exist only as props in the cosmic endeavor known as “Maureen’s Day.” The belief that the outer world exists for your individual manipulation is a manifestation of the narcissism that Ms. Dowd’s “Liberties” columns have provided us over the years. Speaking of which, I’m not certain I can continue writing with these omnipresent hotflashes I’ve been suffering from since yesterday. This column contains a real gem that I am positive most of the mensnewsdaily audience will appreciate. It concerns a friend of hers diagnosed with the adult version of ADD: “His wife had complained he wasn't paying enough attention to her and sent him to a doctor, who prescribed Ritalin for spousal attention deficit disorder. My friend lost weight, became more focused on his work and left his complaining wife.” Now that’s funny! Enough lines like that and I’ll have to switch my attention to the drivel of Frank Rich. Her work today leaves little for the parodist. As she reads a questionnaire regarding the condition one of the questions asks if she is “‘distressed by the disorganized way [her] brain works.’” Dowd responds, “You bet.” Well put. Then, predictably, the column turns toxic as she uses ADD as a springboard from which to attack America and George W. Bush. In the context of her past work, this is about as surprising as having to go to the bathroom an hour after finishing a quart of coffee. America, according to her, has a bad case of attention and this is why we’re bad at building empires. Either that or because we attempt to breed democracy every where we go and democracy is usually antithetical to the creation of minion states. This, to me, is a better reason why we don’t have an empire than missing Cylert prescriptions. She then says we have no clear strategy in nation building (yawn). Perhaps we rarely have clear successes but our strategy is to build democracies and encourage countries to have free markets. Then she attacks our president for not being the type of feminized nancy boy who roams the hallways of the New York Times: “Like the president [having a short fuse], taunting the Iraqi militants, saying, ‘Bring 'em on.’ Shouldn't that sort of trash talking be reserved for football and Schwarzenegger sequels?” No, it’s perfect for dealing with terrorists and dictators who gas their own people. People don’t fear androgynous Pats or metrosexuals, and indecisiveness is the worst possible trait in a leader. The questionnaire becomes the gospel to Maureen. She reads another question: “In group activities it is hard for me to wait my turn” and thinks it applies to President Bush, “(Why wait for the pansy allies, even if you'll need their help after?)” This is pretty easy isn’t it? Waiting for your turn results in death in the context of warfare or foreign policy. Had Carter remained in office we’d be receiving shipments of the bones of the Iranian embassy hostages right about now. The Maginot Line experience should also teach one about what happens when you give the strategic initiative to the enemy. Indeed, it was Napoleon who said that the side that is content to merely sit behind its fortifications is already beaten. Yet, how could we expect a writer at the NYT to know about this, as an objective reading of history dispels one of anti-Americanism. Without the religious conviction that America is always wrong, one would be a pariah working for the gray [syphilitic] lady (the NYT). Since Maureen gives advice to everyone, I have some for her. “Don’t waste your time reading about ADD. Read about Narcissistic Personality Disorder. It would be time better spent. Oh, and one more thing– bring it on! Dowd is Coulter? A related issue is today’s Dorothy Rabinowitz piece in the Opinion Journal that describes Ann Coulter as being “the Maureen Dowd of the Conservatives.” She makes this observation in light of finishing Coulter’s brand new work, Treason. I just finished Treason on Saturday and I could not disagree with Rabinowitz more. Such a work coming from Dowd is unthinkable. Rabinowitz does make some valuable points but none of them justify the incredibly slanderous comparison of Coulter being like Dowd. Treason may well depict Senator McCarthy in a more flattering historical light than he deserves but, with the emergence of the Venona Documents in 1995, we know that obsession with communist threat was more right than wrong fifty years ago. Many kind-hearted people were clueless about the effectiveness of the Soviet spy machine in the forties and fifties and their defense of the Soviet Union was at least negligent even if one believes that Coulter’s use of the word “treason” is too strong. To close, in the opinion of this writer, Ann Coulter is the anti-Dowd. Oh, she certainly has a volatile personality but, professionally, she is a devoted and thorough researcher. Coulter’s book has 47 pages of endnotes after its body, and most of her points are made with the support of documentary evidence. Dowd would never do that. Why would she bother when Newsweek is delivered to her door each week? Coulter is a fierce debater and it is her logical ability, as opposed to misandric emotionality, that has provided her with much of her success as a writer and media figure. She made Alan Colmes, on his Fox show last week, stammer after she asked him to list the names of people whose lives were ruined by Senator McCarthy. He had no answers. Dowd would have unraveled some conspiracy theory from the Oliver Stone Reader to Hannity had she been in Coulter’s place or had the courage to go on that show. There is no meaningful comparison between these two highly successful women. So, to corrupt Lloyd Bentsen, “I know Maureen Dowd’s work. She is not a friend of my mine, and Ann Coulter, well, well, she is no Maureen Dowd.” Thank God! Bernard Chapin is a writer in Chicago. |
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