I still remember when Tweedy went on and on to Elizabeth Edwards that he liked her and so she must be a good Catholic girl. She said no, and he just could fathom that she wasn't and he could still like her. What are they all drinking. OK, I didn't mean that as an irish joke esp. as part of my extensive mutt makeup includes irish. But seriously, kool-aid much.

Even she, I think, by assailing Clinton in gender-heavy terms in column after column, went over the top this election season

Yes, she did.

Dowd is a sort of center-left Peggy Noonan/Dorothy Parker wannabe.

Occasionally I have laughed at her writing, but usually she seems to be trying waaaaay too hard, so I rarely read her. I would agree that with her that Hillary comes across as more masculine and Obama as more feminine, which are both positive strengths and add to electability, imo. For her to spin  negatives out of where they fit on the gender identification scale, is very, very Leave It To Beaver.

I don't know - maybe it's that we're not all eating cocktail weenies with the powerful people, and pretending that we are in with the in crowd.

There are times when I want to tell Dowd that she has to stop playing out the horrors of her junior-high school years - that that's what therapy is for - she seems to write from a deep well of hate that she projects onto others, and either she is just not as good at disguising it as she used to be, or that well is much deeper than we imagined.

Cause MoDo always was, like George Bush, a NASCAR-luvin corn-chip scarfin' down to earth Real American. She's good people as they -- except snootynez like Kerry -- say.

But in fact, she is somehow stuck in the June Cleaver world, trying desperately to be hip and meaningful. Instead, she's just dowdy. And vicious.

She makes her points through mockery and name-calling.

i could go on (and on and on and on, ad infinitum) about ms. dowd, but really, what point would be served? everyone (except, apparently, those who sign her paycheck at the times), realizes she went off the edge and over the cliff years ago, this primary season isn't anything unique.

As an aside, is it just me or has Dowd's preening self-regard recently made a shift into Norma Desmond territory? (digby 2/27/2008)

I added my $0.03 on Her Dowdiness in the comments:

Thing is, the character of Norma, at one time in her life, was somebody. She had talent and craft best suited to another time and an earlier medium.

MoDo hasn't even earned nerd points (like Krugman).

She's just some lame camp follower, never progressed beyond trying to impress a gaggle of can gossips who aren't EVEN the kewl kids -- they have kewler things to do -- or even the "popular" kids, who are the subjects of the can-gossip.

Comparing herself to a fluffy white cat [as MoDo did in the column digby cited] is so telling. Were she half her age, her puerile fascinations would be excusable and even fun the way breathless young entertainment reporters are when they're on the red carpet and just digging being at Some Function.

But alas, quel fromage, MoDo's a bit ungainly to demand kittenish treatment for herself and she's sad to watch: a smelly old cat prancing out of the room with a big piece of its last dump stuck onto its incontinent posterior.

Boston Herald has now called me twice asking why I cancelled.  Each time I explain, as I did online, that Eagan's Hillary bashing was the reason.  Margery is also Irish Catholic.  She blames Hillary for Bill's philandering.  What planet are these writers from?  I told her to research more and write less. Here comments on the Rulz Comm evidenced that she did not know what the heck she was talking about.  

She takes all the negative things about Madame Sarkozy that are likely to shock puritannical American sensibilities - promiscuity, drugs, infidelity - and connects them rhetorically for no apparent reason with the spouse of the Democratic nominee. And all the positive aspects, like Mme Sarkozy's charm, diplomacy, erudition, and political acumen are placed rhetorically with the dumb@ss George Bush, as if this can like for Sarkozy lift him up.

He's an ex-editor, if I recall, and he assumes his audience won't catch that he only focuses on Dowd, doesn't look at rhetoric, and only searches for key words. The times was rancid with Dowd/Rich and other op-ed columnists as well as Editorials and their selection of Opinion pieces.  All around, sexism and race-baiting was horrible on the nytimes this season.