Maureen Dowd's constant snark is really, really tiresome.

[markpkessinger]

Here is the text of a comment I posted to Maureen Dowd's column in The New York Times today:

Mark Kessinger
[font color="gray"]New York, NY[/font]

"The man formerly hailed as a messiah was having a bad day. "

I stopped reading after that sentence. Really, Ms. Dowd -- "hailed as a messiah?" The only people who ever used that term in reference to the President were people on the right, who used it in a sneering manner in order to mock anybody who supported then-candidate Obama. There are plenty of valid criticisms to make of this President. And sure, at least some of the support he received seems to have been a little wide-eyed. But he was never called a "Messiah" among Democrats, and for you to suggest that it was a term employed by his supporters is just dishonest.

Look, I am among those who have been profoundly disappointed on some fronts by President Obama (mostly because he has been a much, much more conservative President than I thought I was voting for). But even with those disappointments, given the same electoral choices we were given in the last two presidential elections, I would vote the same way again. Would I prefer a significantly more progressive candidate? Sure. But this President is still far and away better than either the 2008 or 2012 alternative.

[Puzzledtraveller]

1. I seem to recall she was quite enamored of the president early on.

[CTyankee]

2. GMTA! I did the same with her column today.

Does she even realize she's being tiresome and repetitive and has nothing at all interesting to say any more?

[FourScore]

4. Pardon my ignorance, but what is GMTA?

I'm trying to learn all these...I don't even know what they are called...abbreviations?

[leftynyc]

6. They're acronyms

That particular one is Great Minds Think Alike.

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. Technically, an acronym should be one that you pronounce as a word

so 'NASA' and 'radar' are acronyms, but unless anyone tries to say 'guhmtaa', 'GMTA' isn't an acronym - just an abbreviation.

[leftynyc]

12. Not according to this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acronym

but whatever.

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. Well, I hadn't read that, but notice it says some dictionaries say

"The distinction, when made, hinges on whether the abbreviation is pronounced as a word, or as a string of letters. In such cases, examples found in dictionaries include NATO /ˈneɪtoʊ/, scuba /ˈskuːbə/, and radar /ˈreɪdɑr/ for acronyms, and FBI /ˌɛfˌbiːˈaɪ/ and HTML /ˌeɪtʃˌtiːˌɛmˈɛl/ for initialisms".

[CTyankee]

25. Great minds think alike.

I learned it here on DU!

[leveymg]

3. Her polemics and hyperbole can be entertaining, sharp, and cutting.

You know the old aphorism about rape . . . but, I agree, that one was a bit of a blunt force way to introduce the subject. Not her best work.

But, you know and I know, that you and I will continue reading her, regardless. Chalk it up to perversity.

[FourScore]

5. Personally, I find her to be the most over-rated columnist out there --

She reminds me of Peggy Noonan. Those two women can say so much NOTHING -- it just boggles the mind. I haven't wasted my time reading her column in years.

[trumad]

7. She's a total windbag

who like Peggy, is well past her prime.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

17. This

They act like two drunks down at the country club who've been getting sloshed all afternoon on martinis, commenting on everyone who comes in, the hired help, and whatnot. Both are irrelevant to any interesting political thought.

[FourScore]

26. Best. Analogy. EVER!

They act like two drunks down at the country club who've been getting sloshed all afternoon on martinis, commenting on everyone who comes in, the hired help, and whatnot.

ROFLMAO!

[RevStPatrick]

8. She's a gossip columnist.

I can't believe you actually read that crap!
And took the time and bother to respond to it!!!

(for the record, my father spent his career as an editor at the NYTimes. It was the likes of Dowd, Friedman and Miller that made him decide to retire early and ultimately come to hate the Grey Lady...)

[JHB]

15. Your father sounds like a newspaperman of quality and taste...

...unlike, say, Artie Sultzberger Jr., who gives all those people 800 words twice a week.

[RevStPatrick]

16. Yes, he was a "newspaperman."

That's what they called themselves back in the day, and they meant it.

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. Does anyone pay much attention to her now?

When I joined DU in 2003, and through the 2004 election at least, she was talked about often here - and, I presume, elsewhere in the USA. But now she just gets an occasional 'Dowd is at it again' mention, and I don't see her mentioned on any American blogs I follow. Is she relevant to anyone, these days?

[lunatica]

11. Like a lot of witty women when she was younger

She's crossed the line into bitter sarcasm as she ages. I feel sorry for her because this is so obviously attempts to get attention. Kind of like Sarah Palin only not stupid.

[Johonny]

14. I don't think there is anything wrong with bitter sarcasm

That is what Ted Rall and Rude Pundit use. They also throw out facts to go with their opinions. You don't always agree with those people but there is at least something in their opinion piece to agree or disagree with. I think her problem is she has always been a style over substance fluff writer and she has lost her style and there is no heart of the opinion to fall back on. Talking about Obama as a Messiah is so inside the beltway 2008. It is neither funny, interesting, informed, or relevant to Obama in 2013. That is her problem and why so few DUers read her anymore.

[stevenleser]

23. I would say that the Rude Pundit's sarcasm is pretty joyous. He's not angry or bitter, he is having

a great time at it. It's fun and that comes out.

When MoDo does it, it's not fun, it's just nasty.

[Demit]

30. Good take. She's what we call too clever by half.

[lunatica]

35. There's a difference between humorous sarcasm and bitter sarcasm

And it reflects on the person using it.

[Skidmore]

18. I've always believed Dowd's audience is not greater America but the

bored socialites and overly pretentious lower skin of the 1% which drag their zombie-like carcasses through an endless stream of social gatherings and visit their jobs to justify their wealth. Mouthpiece for the perpetually bored and never satisfied hedonist snob.

[Scurrilous]

27. Well said!

[AngryAmish]

19. No, her constant snark is not tiresome

What it is is ignored. I have not read anything by her since the last millenium.

[Rex]

20. You never know which way the wind is blowing when Dowd pens an article.

She seems to be an equal opportunity hater.

[DemocracyInaction]

21. Sophomoric

Always felt I was reading a paper written by a sophomore when reading her. That is why I don't read her. Can't believe she is paid to write at a high school paper level.

[hrmjustin]

22. I have to say I never cared for her at all.

[Orrex]

24. She lost me when she worked so hard to get Bush elected in 2000

Her constant juvenile attacks on Gore were enough to convince me that she's full of shit, and nothing she's written since then has inspired me to reconsider that assessment.

[The Second Stone]

28. Thirty years ago I was in a focus group that the NY Times had commissioned

for how to expand into the SFBay (or maybe nationwide). I told the people behind the mirrors repeatedly that a real newspaper has daily comics and I wouldn't bother with a paper that didn't. I had recently been in the business and praised the SF Chronicle and the SJ Mercury.

With Judith Miller, their war against Wen Ho Le and the Clinton's, the NYT has really amounted to nothing more than the worst of Joe Pulitizer and WR Hearst's yellow journalism. They have opinion writers of a very narrow political spectrum who write no better than college undergrads and really don't know their own subjects. I make an exception for Paul Krugman who actually seems to have credentials to write about economics. Why they haven't fired him for a 1% cheerleader, puzzles me. And the Washington Post doesn't seem to be any better.

News in the US is an embarrassment. And the opinion pages are worse.

[SheilaT]

29. I can't remember a time when she wasn't overrated, decidely NOT liberal,

and largely inarticulate.

I have never understood why Democrats think she's one of theirs.

The supposedly Left media has been moving steadily away from the left for a very long time. I recall quite readily how in early 1992 Cokie Roberts and the rest of the gang at NPR were saying there was no way on God's green earth that Bill Clinton would win the election, and what a fine and upstanding President that George Bush fella was, and wasn't his little war in Iraq just the cutest thing ever!

That was when I realized that if THIS was supposed to be Democratic, or Progressive, or even on the Left then nothing I thought I knew about any of those things was real.

[GeorgeGist]

31. The 2nd paragraph ...

Weakened the first. IMO.

[quinnox]

32. Honestly, I can't believe anyone reads her column in the first place

I think I tried to read one of her columns in the early 2000s, but it was so bad that I couldn't finish it. Haven't read her since. I don't have any patience for crap.

[July]

33. Her other "tell" is her use of "Barry" to refer to Obama

I've never seen anyone but Republicans and Dowd call him that.

In both cases, it's a junior-high form of disrespect.

[LWolf]

34. You know, there is an easy solution to your problem.

Quit reading her. Seriously. You're spending more time complaining about her than it takes to read her column, let alone the time it takes to trash it without reading it. Starting posts about her here, posting to her column there...that not only takes more time in which you are focused on her, it causes other people to spend more time paying attention to her.

Isn't that counterproductive, if you don't find value in what she has to say?

[Dreamer Tatum]

36. She's just bitter that it's not 1999. nt