KAUS ON DOWD: Mickey Kaus offers his view on Maureen Dowd:
One reason I don't share the near-universal blogospheric reaction against Maureen Dowd's Sunday column is that, despite the crude and overdone Bush caricaturing, she does acknowledge both the pro-war arguments just discussed. She distances herself by putting them in the fictionalized mouth of Richard Perle -- but she doesn't dismiss them. The column isn't substantively an anti-Bush rant so much as Dowd's equivalent of William Raspberry's taxi-driver dialogues, which are designed to ventilate the arguments while allowing the columnist to remain ambivalent. ... Much as I've done here!
A while back, I mentioned Eric Alterman's assessment of Dowd as "curiously apolitical". The Lying in Ponds take on Ms. Dowd is that she doesn't appear to be very partisan based on her columns this year. She has criticized the Bush administration pretty relentlessly, with special attention to Dick Cheney and Karl Rove. But she also has more negative than positive references to Democrats. My interpretation is that Ms. Dowd is mostly non-ideological and her relatively high current ranking is because most of the juicy targets in 2002 for her kind of personal criticism are Republicans.
| Author/ Affiliation |
Title/ Date |
words | PI | Partisan References |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bob Herbert New York Times |
Dancing in the Dark 21 October 2002 |
870 | 100 | 3R-: President Bush, Bush administration, Bush administration |
| Robert L. Bartley Wall Street Journal |
Bill's Party Does 21 October 2002 |
1351 | 56 | 3D+: Democrat, President Clinton, Jimmy Carter 24D-: Democrats, Clinton, Bill Clinton, Clinton, Democrats, Democrats, Jean Carnahan, Democratic, Democrats, Al Gore, Gore, Bob Torricelli, Democrats, Frank Lautenberg, Carnahan, Democratic, Democrats, Democratic, Democratic, Democrats, Terry McAuliffe, Clinton, Democratic National Committee, McAuliffe 10R+: Bob Dole, Republicans, Republican, Republican, Christopher Bond, Ashcroft, George Bush, Bush, Republican, Mike Taylor 4R-: GOP, Republican, John Ashcroft, President Bush 5D=, 2R= |
| William Safire New York Times |
A Chat With Sharon 21 October 2002 |
861 | 25 | 2R+: Bush, President Bush 2D=, 4R= |
| Sebastian Mallaby Washington Post |
The Lesson In MacArthur 21 October 2002 |
904 | 25 | 3R+: Bush, administration, administration 1R-: Bush 4R= |
| Brendan Miniter Wall Street Journal |
The Public's Right Not to Know 21 October 2002 |
1230 | 0 | |
| William Raspberry Washington Post |
A Contemptible System 21 October 2002 |
856 | 0 | |
| Jackson Diehl Washington Post |
Let the Muslims Win 21 October 2002 |
906 | 0 | 3R= |