Maureen Dowd and the latest presidential subject of her writing, George W. Bush, share an uncanny ability to polarize large groups of Americans. Readers either love The New York Times columnist or they hate her.
In order to get a taste of this polarization, one need only cruise over to the Maureen Dowd online discussion board at the Time's homepage. What once was a slingshot battle of words has escalated into an all out war zone with its own collection of spamming looters, brave Dowdist foot soldiers, and even braver Times insurgents.
It's a rough, rugged world in the midst of cyberspace, unmatched by any other columnist's discussion board. People are being kicked off and essentially picked off by the invisible hand of the almighty New York Times moderator.
So why all the fuss?
Dowd - the somewhat controversial winner of a Pulitzer for her work on the Bill Clinton sexcapades - writes an entertaining and oftentimes intriguing column for the Times. She's responsible for such fine lines as "Bubba eye for the Brahmin guy" and "Iraq is a vision of hell, and the Republicans act as if it's a model kitchen." Recently, she authored her first book, "Bushworld," about her experiences covering both Bush presidencies.
Because her columns are so deliciously readable, Dowd commands an enormous audience - as evidenced by the new home "Bushworld" has found amidst the cuddly confines of the NY Times bestseller list. And in recent months, her columns may have even caught one John Kerry's eye.
After weeks and weeks of Dowd pounding the point home that Kerry should fight off third party threats to his Vietnam record, the presidential nominee - finally awakening from his swift boat slumber - shot back at his opponent with some censure of his own.
While her observations are undeniably astute and witty, Dowd is often accused of writing some frighteningly light pieces on foreign policy and homeland security - issues that might not merit such trivializing commentary. According to a number of her critics, Dowd's cute catchphrases and movie metaphors, while adding color to issues that typically appear in shades of gray, are often insufficient surrogates for the facts.
Still others scorn Dowd for refusing to recognize the consequences of her barbs; they claim that the writer has served as an unwitting missile for Democratic Party targets.
Both of these criticisms caught up with Dowd during last week's "A Conversation with Maureen Dowd" at the JFK Library. Three-quarters of the way through the event, a man approached the microphone and asked whether Dowd had entertained any second thoughts about some petty remarks that she had made about Al Gore during his bid for the presidency in 2000. The man was alluding to the charge that by concentrating on Gore's personality flaws rather than the merits of his policies, Dowd had contributed to the electoral success of George W. Bush.
Dowd, who offered the man a sensible defense, was correct in responding, "I don't see it as my job to build up politicians." And as George W. Bush will certainly attest, the columnist attacks Democrats and Republicans with equal fervor.
However, I would take a slightly different approach and argue that although it isn't Dowd's job to worship the current occupant of the presidential throne, she does have an obligation to be coherent and sensible in her arguments. In other words, she shouldn't jibe just for the sake of jibing.
Yet, time and time again, that's exactly what Dowd does.
Take her May 27 commentary "Marquis de Bush?" on a speech that Al Gore gave at New York University, in which the former vice president called for the resignations of six major players in the Bush administration (including Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice). In it, Dowd casually dismisses Gore and Howard Dean as members of the "wackadoo wing of the Democratic Party."
To be sure, Gore has certainly had his share of disingenuous moments in the past. However, this particular speech of his was a stirring denunciation of the Bush administration. If anyone, it should have been Dowd to defend Gore's boldness, which in fact was a source of fresh air in the midst of the stale, dead heat of this 2004 presidential campaign.
But Dowd did not stop there.
After dismantling Gore, she then took it upon herself to attack the Kerry Democrats, claiming that the Democratic nominee would be better off skipping out on his own campaign acceptance speech because conventioneers would be "dulled to distraction by Kerry."
Dowd, who never seems satisfied without a Dubya diss somewhere in the middle of her prose, caps off the column with: "Mr. Bush's speech about the Iraqi makeover, as he wore all that makeup, couldn't even pre-empt the more convincing makeovers on "The Swan" on Fox."
At the time, a good portion of these remarks (except of course the line about Bush) did indeed serve as Republican fodder for President Bush's campaign. However, this didn't bother me as much as the fact that the writer had reduced the most important election of my lifetime into a mere exercise in vanity.
I guess the question that I would pose to Ms. Dowd is this: if Gore, Kerry, Bush and Dean are all wrong; then who is right?
Somehow, I think that in the columnist's heavily editorialized world, it doesn't make a whiff of difference.
Ian Sands is a senior majoring in political science.<$>
