Wanker of the Day: Maureen Dowd (RE: Michelle Obama)

[babylonsister]

Wanker of the Day: Maureen Dowd

by BooMan
Sun Aug 8th, 2010 at 01:46:42 PM EST


MoDo:

Andrea Tantaros, a Fox contributor and former Republican operative, wrote a harsh Daily News blog post calling the first lady a “material girl” for going on a glitzy vacation at a luxury resort in Marbella with a cavalcade of Secret Service agents, friends, children and staff, even as “most of the country is pinching pennies and downsizing summer sojourns — or forgoing them altogether.”

In politics and pop culture, optics are all. And Michelle’s optics sent a message that likely made some in the White House and the Democratic Party wince.

Let's think about that one line: "In politics and pop culture, optics are all."

First there is the lazy equating of politics with pop culture, which makes no effort to distinguish these two things from each other in their relative levels of importance. And then there is the assertion that in politics "optics are all." Both of these assertions are dangerously and irresponsibly wrong.

It doesn't matter one tiny bit who has jilted Jennifer Aniston or how many records Katy Perry and Snoop Dogg are selling at the moment. The box office sales of The Other Guys only really matter to Sony Pictures. Pop culture is unimportant almost by definition. Every once in a long while someone comes a long like Bob Dylan or The Beatles and they do something transformative through pop culture that actually means something, but they are the exceptions that prove the rule. Ninety-nine percent of the time, pop culture is vapid, stupid, and little better than a narcotic that puts people to sleep. Pop culture is a quarter pounder with cheese. It's meant for mass consumption and it's bad for you.

Treating politics as a mere extension of pop culture is a cynical act. Columnists like Maureen Dowd actually encourage politicians to engage in this cynicism. Everything is optics, which is a kind way of saying that everything is manipulative bullshit and surface-level chicanery. The proper response to someone who questions the First Lady's vacation choices is to tell them to grow the fuck up and start taking politics seriously for a change. Instead, we get this:

more...

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2010/8/8/134642/3398

[flpoljunkie]

1. Sadly typical of Mo Dowd.

[Jennicut]

2. I cannot stand Maureen Dowd. Ugg. She is always takes things to the cattiest level.

[Dragonfli]

3. She makes a point, I can't buy enough food let alone enjoy opulence.

They could at least pretend to feel our pain.

[babylonsister]

4. How much pain do you think Maureen Dowd is in?

I'm far from rich either, unemployed and recently divorced. I never expected to live like the First Lady.

[Cha]

20. modo is a freaking little hypocrite..

who's having trouble coming up with anything original so she borrows from rwhwack jobs.

[impik]

6. So because she went for a few days with her daughter to a private vacation

She doesn't feel your pain?

[BeyondGeography]

7. Michelle slept in a living room with her brother growing up

I think she "felt your pain" a long time ago. Maybe you can excuse her for having a life now.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

11. Maureen O probably gets paid a good salary

[avaistheone1]

15. Wow.

Many people these days would give their eye teeth to sleep in a living room with a roof over their heads.

Michelle Obama had a nice working/middle class upbringing. Her father was city pump operator. Not too shabby.

[Drunken Irishman]

17. Wow is right...

Incredible that people on DU would attack Michelle Obama for not being poor enough in her childhood.

[BeyondGeography]

18. They used a sheet to divide the room

Wow.

[July]

5. I sincerely hope

that Dowd is not enjoying a vacation anywhere this year and is "pinching pennies and downsizing summer sojourns -- or forgoing them altogether." Because it would be wrong, so very wrong, in these difficult times, to enjoy a vacation wherever her income allows her to go, when so many Americans cannot do so. Surely this rich Washington denizen is cutting back out of respect for those who cannot afford the vacations she can afford?

More of her mean girl bitchiness on display. Someone tell me why I should take this woman seriously?

[JI7]

8. i remember seeing a Maureen Dowd thing on CSPAN for her book, Tim Russert was there and a bunch of

other media people, they had thier champagne glasses in hand while whoring it up with each other.

[JI7]

9. if these whores think things are so bad why not demand politicians provide govt assistance

to those people. whores

[JI7]

10. whyd on't they call off the white house correspondents dinner or whatever that thing is

where all the whores show up with celebs ?

[hatrack]

12. Who?

nt

[Arkana]

13. This is from MoDo? The media's ultimate material girl?

[Nye Bevan]

14. Sorry. You *cannot* call a woman a "wanker".

No matter who she is or what she has done. Sarah Palin, for example, is many things, but she is not and never will be a "wanker". Newt Gingrich is a complete wanker. So is Sean Hannity. But not Mo Do. Let's keep our terminology gender-appropriate.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

19. I would like to engage in a spirited debate on this semantic point

But I spent three hours looking at websites after I Googled the term "strap on wanker"

So we'll have to do this another time...

[DevonRex]

22. .

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[Name removed]

16. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Cha]

21. "Michelle Obama's Spain trip: The inside story why she went "

by Lynn Sweet/Chicago Sun Times

<snip>

"..But the reason Mrs. Obama made the trip -- and other facts, not rumors about the travel -- are important in knowing the whole story and understanding why she made the call to go.

First, some numbers. Mrs. Obama did not travel with 40 friends, a number used by some news outlets.

She vacationed with two women, one of them a longtime Chicago pal, Anita Blanchard, who is the obstetrician who delivered Sasha and Malia. Blanchard is married to Marty Nesbitt -- President Obama's buddy and the treasurer of Obama's presidential campaign fund.

There was one other woman. Total: four daughters among the three women. They paid for their hotel rooms and other personal and travel expenses.

The trip involved six White House advance staffers and two East Wing staffers, deputy Chief of Staff Melissa Winter and Mrs. Obama's personal assistant, Kristen Jarvis, according to Mrs. Obama's spokeswoman Catherine McCormick Lelyveld.

Mrs. Obama does travel with significant security -- and in a trip like this, three shifts of uniformed and plain-clothes agents and military personnel flew with her on a big Air Force 757. No matter where she goes -- domestic or international -- any first lady gets protection and she does not decide how many agents are needed.

So why did Mrs. Obama go to Spain at this time? She's not tone-deaf politically. What was behind the "mother-daughter" vacation?

A White House source told me that Blanchard's father passed away and Mrs. Obama was not able to make the funeral at the beginning of July. Blanchard had promised her daughter she would take her to Spain for her birthday. She asked Mrs. Obama and Sasha to come with. (Malia is at overnight camp.)

"She felt it was important as a dear friend to do this," I was told.

How did they end up at the five star Villa Padierna, part of the Ritz-Carlton chain? Because of security concerns, there were just some places they could not go. Agents were able to secure Villa Padierna and the nearby beach area.

Totally not true, though reported by some big-league outlets that she went:
Mrs. Obama did not attend a charity ball at their hotel hosted by Antonio Banderas and Eva Longoria on Saturday night. Mrs. Obama went out to dinner with her pals."

<more>
http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2010/08/michelle_obamas_spain_trip_the.html

Once again the corporatemedia tries to scandalize an Obama..Michelle this time so all the little brainwashees can soak it up.

[Pathwalker]

23. So, about as much "factual" coverage as Chelsea's wedding.

IOW, very, very little actual facts. But that won't stop the circular firing squads. This is why those of us on the left should always doubt anything the Corporate Pravda press says.

[BeyondGeography]

24. That's Marty Nesbitt on her left