Special report: Frank Bruni was back, with a large Sunday platform, and the gentleman was upset. What had him concerned as he looked at the world?
Simple:
Rick Santorum had “mentioned his seven children” at the first major GOP debate! And no, it wasn’t just Santorum! “Jon Huntsman wasn’t on hand,” Bruni wrote, “but a week later he…and his wife rounded up six of their seven children for an endless trek across a verdant lawn to the podium set up for his presidential announcement.” Meanwhile, Michelle Obama had allowed her daughters to read a book to some South African kids on a recent visit to that country.
Bruni spent his last five paragraphs helping us see that Bristol Palin is a general mess. So it went as the Times’ new op-ed star gazed out on the firmament. (See THE DAILY HOWLER, 7/5/11.)
Bruni’s focus might have seemed a bit odd at a time of peace and prosperity. To us, his topic selection really stood out at a time when his floundering nation is sliding toward the sea. But then, the Times op-ed page has long been a place where the nation learns to be fatuous.
This morning, the queen of that page made Bruni seem like the world’s most serious man.
What’s on the mind of Maureen Dowd as her nation slides toward the sea? In today’s column, the Pulitzer-winner explains how she spent her long weekend. Surprise! Dowd propped herself near her TV set and she watched Twilight Zone reruns:
DOWD (7/6/11): I knew I should have been out eating charred meat or watching a bad Michael Bay movie.
But I couldn’t help myself. Every July Fourth weekend, I get sucked into the spooky little dimension of “The Twilight Zone.” As the annual Syfy marathon proves, Rod Serling’s hypnotic show is as relevant as ever.
If Anthony Weiner had watched it, he might have been more aware of how swiftly, and chillingly, our technology can turn on us. Prosecutors and reporters, dumbfounded by dramatic reversals in the cases of tabloid villains D.S.K. and Casey Anthony, might do well to keep in mind Serling’s postmodern mantra: Nothing is what it seems.
Dowd watched Twilight Zone reruns all weekend. Inevitably, they made her think about Anthony Weiner and two other tabloid events.
In the end, Dowd produced a pointless column about the “endlessly inventive” Rod Serling, who of course can’t be blamed for this.
Is it true? Is the Twilight Zone “as relevant as ever?” If memory serves, the endless sameness of Serling’s scripts began to wear on our 11-year-old set during the program’s first run. When we watch the occasional rerun today, we are constantly struck by how formulaic the various episodes were. How did we 11-year-olds remain enthralled for as long as we did? That’s what we find ourselves asking.
For Dowd, the enthrallment continues. How far ahead of his time was Rod Serling? His brilliance has even been “ripped off” “in a popular new Samsung ad,” Dowd reports. Without the slightest hint of irony, the prize-winner even types this:
DOWD: Looking at this summer’s lame crop of movies and previews you can appreciate Serling’s upbraiding of the entertainment industry for “our mediocrity, our imitativeness, our commercialism and, all too frequently, our deadening and deadly lack of creativity and courage.”
Fiddling dumbly as Washington burns, Dowd praised Serling for his timeless attack on mediocrity.
Dowd has been like this forever, of course. The republic is lucky when she tackles topics like this; the problem starts when she tries to discuss real politicians and real issues. But make no mistake: Over the past twenty-five years, Dowd has been your nation’s most influential print journalist. As a reporter and then as a columnist, she has spread the press corps’ fatuous culture like no one else has.
Question: How has Dowd’s nonsense persisted for so many years with so little liberal complaining? Why have so few of our top career liberals complained as Dowd has made a joke of our discourse? It’s possible to complain about Dowd, as at least two professional journalists have shown. It’s possible to complain about The Culture Dowd Built, but few career liberals have.
Which professional journalists have dared take the measure of Dowd? Again, we’ll recommended that you revisit Greg Sargent’s work in 2008, when he did something quite thrilling—when he routinely named the names of the mainstream scribes who were making a mess of our discourse. Every liberal knows how to rail against the clowning of Rush and Sean. But Sargent routinely challenged Dowd and Rich and others who aren’t in that camp.
Darlings! It just isn’t done! For the results, look around you.
A second journalist took Dowd’s measure in that same election year. That was Times public editor Clark Hoyt, who savaged Dowd’s appalling campaign work in this column on June 22. No one could cover all Dowd’s sins in a single effort, of course. But like Sargent, Hoyt established a basic principle: It’s possible to tell the truth about Dowd and her gruesome work.
(For our own reaction to Hoyt’s column, see the DAILY HOWLER, 6/23/08. And people, Clark Hoyt got results! See THE DAILY HOWLER, 6/25/08.)
Today, your nation is sliding toward the sea—and Dowd is discussing Twilight Zone reruns. She’s telephoning Serling’s friends to ask if he trusted in God. Last Sunday, she walked her way through a cut-and paste column about—what else?—the DSK sex assault case. (Understandably! The Twilight Zone was on!) But then, during her tenure at the Times, Dowd has helped create an utterly fatuous press corps culture. The nation is lucky when she doesn’t pretend to discuss our major events.
Dowd has been a nightmare. This dates to her days as a front-page presence, when she introduced The Snark and The Snide into this nation’s White House “reporting.” But have you ever seen career liberal leaders complain about Dowd or this fatuous culture? Have you ever seen big career liberals complain about where this all leads?
Tomorrow, we’ll look at a bit of the technical incompetence which is now assumed in this fatuous culture. But as your nation slides toward the sea, we ask you to ponder a basic question:
Why have so few major liberals complained about this fatuous press corps culture? Its effects can be seen all around. Why did so few folk complain?
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