Christopher Hitchens on Maureen Dowd of the New York Times (1995)

May 15, 1995 http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww....

Maureen Bridgid Dowd http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.... (born January 14, 1952) is a Washington D.C.-based columnist for The New York Times and best-selling author. During the 1970s and the early 1980s, she worked for Time magazine and the Washington Star, where she covered news as well as sports and wrote feature articles. Dowd joined the Times in 1983 as a metropolitan reporter and eventually became an Op-Ed writer for the newspaper in 1995. In 1999, she was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for her series of columns on the Monica Lewinsky scandal in the Clinton administration.

Dowd was born the youngest of five children in Washington, D.C. Her father, Mike, worked as a D.C. police inspector while her mother, Peggy, was a homemaker. In 1973, Dowd received a B.A. in English from Catholic University in Washington, D.C.

Dowd began her career in 1974 as an editorial assistant for the Washington Star, where she later became a sports columnist, metropolitan reporter, and feature writer. When the newspaper closed in 1981, she went to work at Time. In 1983, she joined The New York Times, initially as a metropolitan reporter. She began serving as correspondent in The Times Washington bureau in 1986.

In 1991, Dowd received a Breakthrough Award from Columbia University. In 1992, she was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for national reporting, and in 1994 she won a Matrix Award from New York Women in Communications.

Dowd became a columnist on The New York Times Op-Ed page in 1995, replacing Anna Quindlen, who left to become a full-time novelist. Dowd was named a Woman of the Year by Glamour magazine in 1996, and won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary. She won The Damon Runyon Award for outstanding contributions to journalism in 2000, and became the first Mary Alice Davis Lectureship speaker (sponsored by the School of Journalism and the Center for American History) at The University of Texas at Austin in 2005. In 2010, Dowd was ranked #43 on The Daily Telegraph's list of the 100 most influential liberals in America; in 2007, she was ranked #37 on the same list.

Dowd's columns have been described as letters to her mother, whom friends credit as "the source, the fountain of Maureen's humor and her Irish sensibilities and her intellectual take." Dowd herself has said, "she is in my head in the sense that I want to inform and amuse the reader." Dowd's columns are distinguished by an acerbic, often polemical writing style. Her columns often display a critical and irreverent attitude towards powerful, mostly political, figures such as former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Dowd is also noted for her tendency to refer to her subject by nicknames. For example, she has often referred to Bush as "W." and former Vice President Dick Cheney as "Big Time." She has alluded to former President George H. W. Bush, whom she covered during her stint as the Times White House Correspondent, as "41"; and has called President Barack Obama "Spock." Dowd's interest in candidate's personalities earned her criticism early in her career: "She focuses too much on the person but not enough on policy."

Dowd, who perceives her columns to be an exploration of politics, Hollywood, and gender related topics, often uses popular culture to support and metaphorically enhance her political commentary. In a Times video debate, she said of the North Korean government: "...you could look at a movie like Mean Girls and figure out the way these North Koreans are reacting; you know it's like high school girls with nuclear weapons—they just want some attention from us, you know?"

Dowd's columns have also been often described as political cartoons that capture the caricatured image of the current political landscape, with both precision and exaggeration. In the run-up to the 2000 presidential election, for example, Dowd wrote that Democratic candidate "Al Gore is so feminized and diversified and ecologically correct that he's practically lactating," while referring to the Democratic party as the "mommy party." In a Fresh Dialogues interview years later, she said, "I was just teasing him a little bit because he was so earnest and he could be a little righteous and self important. That's not always the most effective way to communicate your ideas, even if the ideas themselves are right. I mean, certainly his ideas were right but he himself was - sometimes - a pompous messenger for them."

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[wubbadubdub]

RIP hitch

[aoxomoxoa88]

@AgonyInCrisis Right.....keep doing the puzzles.

[zackhanscom]

why are her tits out would be my primary response to that picture.

[iBeep2009]

..and a knitting pattern with every article!

[jhohcable]

Dowd had a pretty severe nosedive since way back then.

[umbrellaman75]

She's only 3 years younger than Hitchens.

[kdemco]

@rodeo179 Love how you go from video to video saying the same exact thing. Wonderful insight.

[rodeo179]

Americans like Brit accent, like the shows that have Brit hosts and judges. His cult followers perceive themselves to be smarter than others. Hitchens never published any scholarly work, he was not a journalist, he was a terrible historian, and his views on politics (e.g. Iraq) are shameful. One thing he is known for is his atheist stand, still inferior to Dawkins. Good Riddance to a warmonger.

[AgonyInCrisis]

Appealing to a totalitarian regime's humanitarian/egalitarian/human­itarian mercies won't keep your coconuts intact, uncracked and otherwise marketable. Apologists for the police, and the imminent police-state, you have no credibility. Their position will not provide for immunity. They shall be placed in concentration camps too.

[SethHesio]

@AgonyInCrisis Nutcase.

[AgonyInCrisis]

If babes were nutrients I'd be physically fit. If tubes were hoses I'd be wearing open-toed shoes to the gas chamber.

[AgonyInCrisis]

@aoxomoxoa88 : Don't abort your baby!

[aoxomoxoa88]

@AgonyInCrisis I'm not gay, or proud. What's with the obsession about gays?

[AgonyInCrisis]

@aoxomoxoa88 : Where's your gay-pride now? Have you nothing more to give to the gay community?

[aoxomoxoa88]

@AgonyInCrisis How profound. Just how far up your own ass, is your head?

[AgonyInCrisis]

If we don't gather the dead wood and underbrush, nature will burn it for us.

[AgonyInCrisis]

@tylerdurden4495 : What's your native language?

[tylerdurden4495]

@AgonyInCrisis As aposed to your useless ramblings on youtube?

[BrendanIsCool]

@AgonyInCrisis wat

[AgonyInCrisis]

"The Vic & Helen Show" : Heart Attack #2

[AgonyInCrisis]

@BrendanIsCool : Where's your gay-pride now?

[BrendanIsCool]

@AgonyInCrisis lol. don't wake up tomorrow, none shall weep

[AgonyInCrisis]

Hitchens is a cipher; a useless passion.