Asymmetrical Information

Take it from a properly seasoned, one might say professional Curmudgeon: Maureen Dowd ain't got the horses for it. To quote a movie of which I'm fond, "It takes discipline and years of training."

Give it up, Mo. Try something less demanding, like slandering your in-laws.

I marvel at your ability to read all the way through a Dowd column. I can't get past the first paragraph without wondering, what ever happened to adult supervision of high school papers? The same goes for Krugman, Ivens, et al.

Speaking of the Loving v. Virginia case about VMI, I can't possibly see how that can be reconiciled with the recently handed down Michigan affirmative action case.

The Court promised to take the Michigan Law School's assertions in good faith, and further laid down a doctrine of deferring to a university's educational judgement for why it needed to discriminate on accout of raise. No such deference was given to VMI, even though sex is supposed to be subject to less strict scrutiny than race.

One might even think that the Supreme Court is focused on results, or privileges affirmative action as compared to single sex education.

(I generally agree with Loving v. Virginia, since VMI is a public institution. But I agree with it for the same reasons I disagree with the affirmative action decision.)

Wait a minute. Are you telling me that Maureen Dowd's columns are NOT lampoon humor? Honestly, I've only started reading them recently and I've always found them hilarious. I thought they were like the New York Times' version of The Onion. I did think it was odd that the NYT would do a humor column, but I figured they were trying to compete with Dave Barry.

So, honestly, are these columns supposed to be serious commentary?

It's not just that her columns are offensive--they're incoherent. Near the end of this piece she's throwing out insults like a maddened peanut vendor tossing bags to a crowd of barking seals--not a pretty picture. Naturally, earlier on there was a gratuitous shot at Clarence Thomas--why stop at one bigoted slanderous column earlier this week?

Andrew Sullivan posted a link to a guest column by Eugene Volokh (sitting in for the vacationing Professor Reynolds) that efficiently pulls apart MoDo's previous column about Justice Thomas:

http://www.msnbc.com/news/856672.asp

Admittedly, noticing that MoDo's work seems to be drifting into white liberal racism doesn't require a genius--merely eyes--but Professor Volokh does the job well.

Mindless:

If MoDo is not worth reading, why is she worth writing about?

I yield to no one in my contempt for Dowd.

But why not discuss the more substantive issue of Scalia's dissent? Why instead spend 320 words and 1852 characters trashing MoDo? I've read a bunch of blogs trashing MoDo. I've not seen much substantive discussion of actual minority opinion in the case at hand.

Why instead spend 320 words and 1852 characters trashing MoDo?

Very good point. I've never heard of this MoDo freak before I started reading blogs, many of which seem to have some kind of New York Times codependency thing going.

Can't we declare this a Modo-free zone? If you don't like that dumb rag, just put it down. Let it go. Stop the insanity.

I should add: Krugman too.

As long as liberals continue to claim that the Times is important, there is good reason to show how stupid, foolish and biased it really is. Krugman and Dowd are pathetic examples of how bad the Times has become so shining a light of truth on them is always worthwhile.

I realized a long time ago that MoDo rants served no purpose other than some therapy for yours truly. That's why you haven't seen them. And, to the extent I do 'rant', I try to pick out something worth discussing along the way.

The basic problem is that the NYT is the paper I settle down with on Sundays after cooking the family pancakes. You open it and there she is. It's like getting a Howler.

Brian: Try that approach for dealing with a family of skunks taken residence in the woodshed, and see how effective it is.

You don't want to deal with 'em more often than necessary but ocassional reminders that (a) they are there, and (b) they are influential, are hardly malapropos.

Implicitly comparing homosexuals to mass murders? It's a stupid column, but Jesus, Jane.

The basic problem is that the NYT is the paper I settle down with on Sundays after cooking the family pancakes. You open it and there she is.

Hmmm... More evidence where none is needed that the WSJ should do weekends.

"Implicitly comparing homosexuals to mass murders (sic)? It's a stupid column, but Jesus, Jane."

Jason you fulminating blister:

1. This is Mindles.

2. An analogy to illuminate a point about legality is not akin to a normative or moral comparison.

These laws, pathetic, invasive and wasteful as they are, do not criminalize homosexuality, they criminalize sodomy. This which makes criminals of many non-homosexuals as well, incidentally. Did I just compare Bill Clinton, Hugh Grant and myself to Dahmer as well?

I think riding that three-legged high horse of yours is affecting your brain.

There's something about MoDo that reminds me of a line in Bujold's novel Komarr. Miles (the protagonist) is at an awkward family dinner: "The conversation was left to the Professor, who was abstracted, and Tien, who, bereft of direction, spoke forcefully and without depth of local Komarran politics, authoritatively explaining the inner workings of the minds of people he had never, so far as Miles could discern, actually met."

Possibly MoDo has met Justice Scalia and/or Justice Thomas. But I do have to wonder about her knowledge of the inner workings of Republican minds.

And this Archie Bunker reference jarred me. It's a little before my time, but I'd guess that Archie would not like to be compared to an Eye-talian. (I guess Italians inhabit that wonderful middle ground: not white enough for Archie Bunker or the WASP crowd, but too white for MoDo.)

Scott, thanks for the link to Volokh's excellent column on Justice Thomas and affirmative action.

P.S. I wholeheartedly recommend Lois McMaster Bujold's books, which can be found in the SF section.

I've been saying for some time that Dowd's the Ann Coulter of the Left: no arguments, and no sense of proportion, just sneers. She didn't used to be as mean or as sloppy with the facts as Coulter, but she's there now on both counts.

In some sense she's even worse than Coulter, who occasionally puts together a semi-logical argument, albeit one that has no hope of persuading anyone who's not already a true believer (I occasionally enjoy Coulter when she locks on a deserving target of scorn, but if you're not a conservative, she's fingernails on the blackboard). Publishing Dowd is a declaration that you expect only true believers on the Left to read your paper.

Mindles --

I also yield to nobody in my contempt for MoDo. Perhaps it's just semantics, but I must say your analogy is a little misleading.

First, I'm not sure of this, but unlike Texas I think not all of the state laws in question criminalize the act as performed by two adults of any sexual persuasion. I think some the states only criminalize the act as between male homosexuals, raising a question of equal protection. Apologies in advance if I'm wrong on this.

Second, you contend that the Texas law does not criminalize homosexuality, rather only certain types of acts. Yet don't these very acts themselves largely define whether one is a homosexual male to begin with? Isn't that like saying that a law that criminalizes the act of playing golf is not a criminalization of being a golfer?

It seems disingenuous to deny that the laws in question were, at least in part, designed to punish people for who they are.

As for the legal question of whether the Texas law is constitutional...I'm not a ConLaw expert, but it seems to me that the Ninth and Tenth Amendments are strong arguments against any state criminalizing the intimate acts of consenting adults.

"2. An analogy to illuminate a point about legality is not akin to a normative or moral comparison."

Perhaps you should choose a less inflammatory comparision then. It strains belief that conservatives wouldn't object to, say, George Bush, or conservatives in general, being used in the place of "homosexuals" in this comparison. "Hey, it's just analogizing based on acts! Why are you so touchy that I used Dahmer?"

I'm going with Lithwick's opinion on "criminalizing only homosexual sodomy doesn't criminalize homosexuality."

Jason - when I penned my reply to you I was trying to think of a "less inflammatory comparison". In order to satisfy the legality analogy it had to be a behavior both illegal in the United States and at least perceived by many as symptomatic of a genetic or acquired condition. Kleptomania? It's not that easy.

The key word is illegal. Thus far, with sodomy being a highlighted exception, most of these supposed 'identity laws' actually prohibit activity that infringes on others' rights (i.e. pretty bad). If I have to find an example that would be unobjectionable if the reader horribly misreads me and thinksI am saying the example is morally similar to sodomy then I would have a difficult time. Fortunately, I was not comparing the morality of these activities, I was comparing the laws' mechanics and perhaps I shouldn't worry about readers who want to see me as something I emphatically am not.

Which brings me to my point. Only a reader looking hard for demons where they don't exist would see this. By your own strained logic, you compared Bush to a homosexual in your comment. That's exactly how irrelevant your accusation is.

Incidentally, I don't know if Scalia's a homophobe, but I'm certainly not taking Dowd's word for it.

Michael - I'm not aware of a state that limits anti-sodomy statutes by gender, but it certainly seems possible (and I wouldn't be the one to know). In that case, I would say that is punishing/selectively criminalizing identity. That would also be much more clearly unconstitutional, wouldn't it?

John Thacker:
"Speaking of the Loving v. Virginia case about VMI, I can't possibly see how that can be reconiciled with the recently handed down Michigan affirmative action case."

Loving was a 1967 case, striking down the state law banning interracial marriage; nothing to do with VMI.

I'm not aware of a state that limits anti-sodomy statutes by gender

The Texas statute at issue prohibited sodomy between members of the same sex, a fact on which the Court placed great reliance in distinguishing it from traditional laws that banned sodomy regardless of the sex of the participants.

There you go, that's why I blogged on Dowd and not the decision. Haven't read the damn decision.

I stand corrected. This law then meets my definition of selectively punishing people for who they are.

Thanks for that, 'Crank'.

I feel confident, however, I shan't be corrected on my position as regards the mind reading in the rest of Dowd's piece.

"Which brings me to my point. Only a reader looking hard for demons where they don't exist would see this. By your own strained logic, you compared Bush to a homosexual in your comment. That's exactly how irrelevant your accusation is."

Okeedokee. Maybe I should bookmark this for the next time a conservative complains about being compared to a Nazi.

Guess I'm in the minority (at least in the blog world), but I'm a MoDo fan. She's sharp, witty, and equally adept at skewering both sides of the aisle. I think the ending to her Scalia column puts things about as well as you can put it:

"Most Americans, even Republicans, have a more tolerant and happy vision of the country than Mr. Scalia and other nattering nabobs of negativism. Their jeremiads yearn for an airbrushed 50's America that never really existed. (The pedophile scandal in the Catholic Church, which condemns homosexuality, proves that.) And the America they feared — everyone having orgies, getting stoned and burning the flag — never came to pass...

Justice Scalia may play patriotic songs on the piano, but Justice Anthony Kennedy gave patriotism true meaning in time for the Fourth of July. His ruling eloquently reminded the country, "Liberty presumes an autonomy of self that includes freedom of thought, belief, expression, and certain intimate conduct."

In the immortal words of John Riggins, loosen up, Nino, baby."

A supreme court justice disgraces himself in the writing of his dissenting opinion, and who does Mindles choose to rant about? A columnist.

Mindles, you need a serious adjustment in your priorities. Unless, of course, you MEAN to be taken for a right-wing hack. In which case, steady on!

"Okeedokee. Maybe I should bookmark this for the next time a conservative complains about being compared to a Nazi."

Gee, and maybe I should bookmark this comment when someone wants an example of the flimsy excuses that lefties use to call conservatives Nazis.

Lame, Jason.

Guys

Shrinks have identified personalities who thrive on attention, positive or negative (apparently the vast majority of 'em).

Newspaper business offices count the amount of comments received on a piece written by a personality.

Editors, knowing that the choir is happy when the sinners are visibly angry, are, therefore, happy as long as the rest of the congregation is still listening & putting $$$ in the collection box, in this case buying the paper. The NYT won't even put MoDo down when she deceives thru ellipses.

So MoDo marches on despite her disgraceful performance & our apoplexy.

But while most of you sinners writing in this blog seem to think that no one takes her seriously, I recently had two separate discussions on two different subjects, (1) with a bien pensant Loony liberal & (2) with a middle of the roader. Both quoted MoDo as a gotcha when challenged.

I understand the orthodox, robotic one, but do not understand the supposedly independent thinker. Personally, I'd give up an argument rather than quoting a Right Wing Nut job mirror-image of MoDo, but some naïfs believe that it's a show stopper when they quote The NYT & its flacks. And it often is with listeners who don't know the facts of the issue that you & the loony left-wing lapdog are arguing about.

I despair, you decide.

TomCom

Love the way she segues from grinding her teeth (for the umpteenth time) over Bush v Gore to telling Scalia to "loosen up".

Jason - that'll be fine, unless they actually compare someone to a Nazi.

Hmm.

I yield to no one in my scorn for anti-religion laws (like the Romans throwing Christians to the lions.) But "illegitimate to punish people for who they are" is an interesting way to interpret the law. I thought we punish or don't punish people for acts. Did we punish Jeffrey Dahmer for "who he is"?

A supreme court justice disgraces himself in the writing of his dissenting opinion, and who does Mindles choose to rant about? A columnist.

A wildly vituperative columnist who was writing about the alleged disgrace by aforementioned supreme court justice? You mean Mindles is not allowed to have an opinion on that?

Mindles, you need a serious adjustment in your priorities. Unless, of course, you MEAN to be taken for a right-wing hack. In which case, steady on!

I suppose bones@noneofyour.biz could not possibly be mistaken for a left-wing hack...

Even giving Jason a whole lot of latitude in quoting Mindles, I notice that nowhere in the entire paragraph he quoted is there a letter "z". Kinda hard to spell Nazi by rearranging letters without "z". And no fair turning the "n" on its side; it doesn't work in this font anyhow.

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