Maureen Dowd and Flag Pins Will Decide the Election

*From the 2008 Election archive

Maureen Dowd will Decide theElection.

That’s the headline I can picture running through her mind as she smugly pecks at the keyboard, her dogs and chickens suppressing laughter at the earnest delusion of political and national relevance which has followed her throughout most of her career. I’m not sure I want to bone Maureen Dowd anymore. Her recent column defending the asinine questions posed by Charles Gibson and George Stephanopulous and the assertion that whether or not politicians wear flag pins on their lapels is a critical concern of most Americans, have made me think twice about her viability as a GILF, i.e., a Grandmother I’d Like to Fuck.

Oh Maureen, Maureen! I thought I knew you! Gone now, are your glory days when you were the answer to my most pressing exigencies; when on a wall by my bed, affixed to a glass box containing a towel, hand lotion and your cherished daguerreotype nudie, you were the answer to every midnight crisis, and every 3:00 a.m. call. Gone now, are the days when every time I pass by a fire hose encasement I stop in my tracks and remember our secret covenant: “In Case of Emergency Break Glass”. I would remember your coy little monochrome grin, your inviting, ample bosom, your freakishly enormous pudenda, beckoning me behind a similarly marked glass. How many times did I shatter that glass with a mighty swing of my love sausage? I can’t count that high. But then you started to whore yourself to the likes of Karl Rove, and flash your literary naughty bits like twirling nipple streamers to the highest bidder. You defended that which could not be defended: the ABC debate hosted by George Stephanopoulos and Charles Gibson. You write the following a column titled “Brush It Off”‘ and I will note the most offensive passages of the following excerpt in italics.

He needs to be less philosophical and abstract, and more visceral and personal. Some of the topics he acted dismissive about are real things on the minds of many Americans. Obama does not need to wear a flag pin. By the time NBC colored its peacock logo with the Stars and Stripes after 9/11, it was clear that patriotism had been co-opted by commercialism. And he’s right that W. and Cheney used patriotism in a corrosive way to goad Americans into going along with their trumped-up war. But when a voter from Latrobe asked in the debate why he doesn’t wear a flag pin, he high-hatted it as a “manufactured issue,” then, backing in tepidly, added, “I could not help but love this country for all that it’s given me.” Asked about his friendly relationship with the former Weather Underground anarchist William Ayers — an association that The Wall Street Journal suggests could turn into the Swift Boat of 2008 given Ayers’s statement that “I don’t regret setting bombs; I feel we didn’t do enough” — Obama defended him with a line that only the eggheads orbiting his campaign could appreciate. Ayers, he said, is “a professor of English in Chicago.” Obama has to prove to Americans that, despite his exotic background and multicultural looks, he shares or at least respects their values and understands why they would be upset about his associations with the Rev. Wright and an ex-Weatherman.

Sigh. Along with those “average” Americans whom have already decided they would never vote for Obama– the latter swayed by manufactured issues like flag pins and “Bittergate”, there are countless more “average” Americans concerned about health care, the economy, or the war. Perhaps you have never heard of this strange concept in journalism we call “relevance”, “statistical averages and analysis”, or “ethics”. If not, let me explain it to you, it’s one of the first things you learn in Journalism 101.

Let’s say you interview twenty voters. Nineteen of them say the issues that matters to them most are the economy, health care, and the war. One of the voters says her top priority is the candidates willingness to wear a flag pin on their lapel. If you choose to air the Fox News junkie as representative of the other nineteen voters, you are deceitful, manipulative, in violation of the most basic journalistic ethics, and worse than an asshole. You are Karl Rove’s footstool. And stool for that matter.

“Hey, I know what! let’s decide this election on who wears the nicest, most patriotic shoes!” Is that what you think is important to Americans? that may as well be your bubble-headed criteria for a good president, but certainly not ours. And by ours, I can rightfully, backed by countless independently amassed statistical averages, credibly speculate the main concerns and consensus of the majority of Americans. Not all Americans sure, but most of them, the same majority of Americans whose intellect ABC used as urinal cakes. This is why ABC got hammered by critics, viewers, and real journalists alike.

Hey Maureen, did you notice that along with McCabe, Hillary wasn’t wearing a pin, nor was she asked about it? Did you notice neither host wore one either? So why bring it up? In defending Gibson and Stephanopulous, you failed to point out that Nash McCabe, the so-called “undecided voter” in Pennsylvania is a Hillary supporter and was sought precisely for the purpose of ambushing Obama with the Gibson and Stephanopulous’ dumb ass questions heard ’round the world. Maybe you didn’t hear about the heckling both moderators got at the end of the debate which millions saw on You Tube, you know, where Gibson chuckles nervously, holds up his hands defensively and blurts “The crowd is turning on me!” You can see it below…

The Crowd Turns on ABC’s George Stephanopulous and Charles Gibson for Stupid Ass Flag Pin Heard Around the World Question

ABC’s Flag Pin Questioner Wore No Flag Pin

Here’s Nash McCabe, the “average” American who decides who to vote for by how politicians accessorize. But where the fuck is her own flag pin?

Maureen Dowd writes that “Some of the topics he [Obama] acted dismissive about are real things on the minds of many Americans.”

Many Americans? are you fucking kidding me? name them, and don’t include right-wing pundits. If only 1 out of 100 voters will cast their vote over a flag pin, and the others over the economy, what makes McCabe’s opinion more important than that of the other 99? When the audience turns on the moderators, it’s clear what was important to many Americans was never addressed and that which was addressed was only brushed over.

The outrage was shared even by most journalists who take the election seriously. Enraged viewers picketed an ABC studio in Burbank, handing out flag pins in mockery of the debate. Tens of thousands flooded the ABC web site with condemnation and scorn. What’s most annoying about your style, Maureen, is your pretentious insinuations that politicians who care about their careers should take your unsolicited advice seriously. Maureen, I love you babe, but you’ve never run for office, and you’ve never held office. You have as much right to tell Obama how to run a campaign as you have a right to tell a neurosurgeon how to operate a brain, or a dolphin how to swim. Sure, you can do it, you are a columnist and author and have a huge soapbox at the New York Times. But you’d still look like an idiot, wouldn’t you? So why do it? Let’s take one of your brilliant suggestions…

He needs to be less philosophical and abstract, and more visceral and personal.

Let’s say Obama was fool enough to take your advice, and was more visceral and personal. Let’s say he got really personal, and made fun of her cankles or overbite. We would have Canklegate. Let’s say he got visceral, and ran convincing, sobering ads comparing her to Tonya Harding: an unethical contender wishing to change the rules mid-game, whining about a broken shoelace when she sees the judges are unimpressed. he could juxtapose a clip of her crying in New Hampshire over that of Harding crying at the Winter Olympics, pointing at her skates with crocodile tears.

You know what Hillary would do? she would cry rape over his “gutter politics”. She would start crying at press conferences, and call him a sexist, cruel hypocrite for taking the low road he swore to avoid (the same low road, incidentally, which she never left). Obama would be ruined. But I guess that’s what you wanted in the first place, isn’t it? Maureen, let me offer some unsolicited — yet sincere — advice of my own:

• Advice should aim to help the person you are offering it to.
• If you want to give someone advice, think twice if you have an apprentice-eye view or worse. For your sake.

I could just picture the press conference… She’s led to the podium like a grieving widow. She blows her nose, and stands there in the same yellow pant suit she’s worn the last 15 days, mascara running down her face as she cries “Shame on you , Obama! shame on you!” Standing behind her, an idiot nodding his head with a mixture of faux indignation and complete bewilderment, like someone who never got the campaign memo from Howard Wolfson:

For Your Eyes Only: She’s gonna cry today. She put some pepper spray in her mascara, just to make sure. She’s gonna lay it on thick and try to appeal to conservative white male voters over 60. Our focus groups suggest that when this demo sees a black man with the audacity to disrespect a white woman, they will be the first to organize a lynch mob, no matter what their party affiliation. Rupert Murdoch and our assets at FOX News have assured us any sign of disrespect or impudence will be looped into the 24 hour news cycle. If we can get him to take the bait and disrespect her, if we can get him to go to the gutter and get visceral and personal, his supporters will know he’s just like any other politician, and everyone else will attack him. Hopefully. For more on this tactic, we have attached an excerpt from the playbook Karl Rove accidentally sent to us in person: “The Emmett Till Gambit”. Emmett Till was a 14 year old black kid from Chicago who was tortured and beaten to death in the Deep South for disrespecting a white woman; i.e., whistling at a white woman. You might want to study the events surrounding Till’s death for useful insight on the vestigial prejudice and racism of the aforementioned demo, and the strategic advantages to be gained by tapping into this well. Here’s a mini-documentary with a Bob Dylan soundtrack regarding the case.. P.S. Don’t pay the caterer, hold off on it. We’re broke and need 500 bucks to print some Rev. Wright attack ads to hand out at Wal-Mart.

So yeah, Maureen, great advice. Your insight on the unique racial dynamics of this particular election is astounding. You haven’t been this prescient and helpful since you told the Indians to accept the blankets with small pox, advised Gen. Custer to split his forces at Little Big Horn, or convinced Madonna she had a future in acting…

Let me ask you something Maureen. Have you ever drawn 35,000 to a crowd, in a spontaneous show of support, in a state that is supposedly unfriendly to you? How about 10,000? You’re a writer, you say, not a rock star or politician. To which I reply: EXACTLY. These types have more name recognition and a much larger audience by virtue of the fact they specialize in drawing people to them and know just how to do it. Your insight is superfluous and pretentious at best, particularly when Obama not only excels at a profession you’ve never practiced, he also excels at the profession you practice yourself: literature. Obama’s last book “The Audacity of Hope”, eclipsed your own book “Are Men Really Necessary?” in sales. If Obama went around saying “you know Maureen, you should do this and correct that if you want to make it as a writer” wouldn’t you be insulted? yet, he doesn’t do so, even though he now can, because he sells more books than you do. As a fellow New York Times best-seller himself, it is clear he is better at your profession than you are. But does he tell you how to do your job? No. maybe it’s because he has a little class. But I don’t. I will tell you how to do your job, and expect your eternal gratitude.

Karl Rove’s Flag Pin Controversy

 

I dare ya, I double dare ya, to tell this man, and his wife, that flag pins or Bittergate are more important than the quality and availability of the healthcare at the VA hospitals awaiting wounded vets. The real insult belched by Rove, Gibson, Stephanopulous, and Dowd is the implication that simply wearing a flag pin could be equated to the patriotism and sacrifice of this marine. What if, for instance, a group of terrorists decided to attack a US army camp and agreed that upon meeting up at a given rendezvous, they would identify each other by wearing identical flag pins? Would the flag pins magically convert them to patriots?

The media’s over-emphasis on Rove’s manufactured wedge-issue, and its spurious legitimization as an issue ranking far above those which rate much higher in national polling; issues such as the economy, the war, health care, etc. Now, there are medals on this brave marine’s uniform, sure, but I still have to question his patriotism. Why? because Sean Hannity says Americans who wear no flag pins on their lapels can have their patriotism questioned, and I don’t see a flag pin on this marine. Nor on his wife. They must be commies! terrorists! Illegal aliens!Do you agree with Hannity and his ilk in regards to the significance of the flag pin and how it affects yourself and children in everyday life? if you agree with him, you have a lot off soul-searching to do, my friend (the aforementioned “journalists” and political operative are excused from this request, they have no souls to speak of).

[pullquote]You haven’t been this prescient and helpful since you told the Indians to accept the blankets with small pox, advised Gen. Custer to split his forces at Little Big Horn, or convinced Madonna she had a future in acting…[/pullquote]Are you so stupid Maureen, that lapping from Rove’s toilet bowl of sound bites, and manufactured wedge issues is something you actually want to fess up to in public? Has it ever occurred to you, as you kneeled there with the Flag Pin Brigade and took turns dunking your faces into Rove’s unflushed bowl of 120 proof vomitus, that you might get sick or drunk with the same affliction that brought Rove to relieve himself here before you? Whether it was lapping the water for a cheap buzz or bobbing for Rove’s sound bite horse apples, you let yourself become a caricature of everything that’s wrong with the American press. Maureen, my sweet ex-GILF. Let me ask you this: how does it feel when someone condescendingly tells you what’s important to you with the smug familiarity of someone who has lived with you for years? Kind of annoying isn’t it?

In fact, how many people actually recognize your face nationally or even in New York? how many recognize your name, aside from “eggheads” like us whom you just insulted– eggheads who bother to read the papers from time to time, eggheads who actually bother to read columnists like yourself? You graduated from a prestigious university. You’re considered by many among the “intellectual elite” and embrace the label when convenient. So are you not an egghead too? Yet the way you derisively talk about “eggheads orbiting Obama” one would think you’re just one of the gals, a humble pole dancer and single mom living paycheck to paycheck, STD to STD, stoically holding firm to that fading dream of someday making it as a writer and ballerina. Sure, we’ve seen you on The Colbert Report, but once or twice is nothing, and moreover, your face is blurred out in the memory of viewers by hundreds, perhaps thousands now, of other authors that sat in the same chair to plug their book. Look at me honey. I’m an “internet columnist” and not much of one, my own cat doesn’t remember who the fuck I am until feeding time, but I have as much national recognition as you do, which means if I walk down the street, I have as much chance to get asked for an autograph as you do. Get over yourself.

Stop telling Obama or any other candidate what they need to do to win. He doesn’t need your help now and never did, nor does Hillary or McCain. All of the aforementioned have run for office and won, and all of them know that voters are swayed by many things, but newspaper columnists are the least of them. You might distract a fan for a day or two, until they pay for their prescription and go hungry for the week, or until they fill their gas tanks or are forced to ride a bike to work. You might keep fans distracted for a few moments until they hear from the son in Iraq that’s coming home soon because a land mine has left him crippled, and you may even distract them long enough to keep them from writing back to tell him a foreclosure leaves him no home to return to. But the likeliest scenario is this: it is at that moment of back-breaking duress when you might come across their mind again, and reality sets in as they reflect on your glib little column and the issues you told them mattered to them most when they really didn’t. They will see you’re nothing but a corporate shill, and that there is nothing true or respectful in your defense of idiots legitimizing Republican smears and distractions. If any of the candidates ask for your advice, instead of pedantically offering your faux hands-on experience as an observer whom has never practiced their profession, offer them the following caveat: “I am not a politician. I have never run for office or held office. Follow my advice at your own peril.” I should point out, by now, that the candidates whom do ask your advice know this to be true, but simply solicit your advice as they do any other voter. That said, I’m sorry I had to be the one to burst your bubble, but babe, your condescension in regards to Obama and the average American voter was really out of line. And that, my dear, is why you are officially off my GILF list.

P.S. Do you have a sister? P.S.S. Is she hot? P.S.S.S. Never you mind. My boner has found new inspiration in another GILF, Arianna Huffington.

Dixon Johanns, Editor, Ye GILF Lover Weekly