Posted by Damozel | Maybe I'm being too hard on MoDo here. I always suspect her of being disingenuous no matter what. Disregard if you believe it is inapplicable.
Today MoDo wants you to know that her mom didn't approve of men who cheated on their wives, but that this disapproval didn't extend to John McCain. (NYT)
I figured, given her stringent moral standards, that her great affection for McCain would be dimmed.
“So,” I asked her, “what do you think of that?”
“A man who lives in a box for five years can do whatever he wants,” she replied matter-of-factly. (NYT)
That tells me all I need to know about Maureen Dowd and the way she thinks about virtue right there. You're apparently awarded for virtue on a point system. Accumulate enough credit on one side and you can balance it against any amount of debt.
His brutal hiatus in the Hanoi Hilton is one of the most stirring narratives ever told on the presidential trail — a trail full of heroic war stories. It created an enormous credit line of good will with the American people. It also allowed McCain, the errant son of the admiral who was the commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific during Vietnam — his jailers dubbed McCain the “Crown Prince” — to give himself some credit. (NYT)
That's kind of how some Americans look at rock stars and celebrities they admire. Not me, though.
Personally, I feel that heroes should be held to higher, not lower, standards than the rest of us. It's not fair, but there it is. Either you're a good role model or you aren't. I don't particularly care about his marital escapades or his divorce, but being brave in war isn't enough by itself.
But Dowd, who was merciless towards John Edwards and his dying wife, is quite ready to buy into excuses for McCain's marital dalliances. She can't really dismiss it without dismissing Edwards' as well, and she's already had too much fun with Edwards. So she has to find a way to distinguish the cases: Edwards is a mere narcissist, despite the stress of living in a relationship with a dying person (which I can tell you is high indeed); McCain was just doing what the psychiatrist says heroes do.
Next she has to pretend to take seriously the notion that he is "cheapening" his "get out of jail free" card. She ends by raising---exactly as if they are original insights that she's just thought up on the spot--- three collateral "concerns.
While McCain’s experience was heroic, did it create a worldview incapable of anticipating the limits to U.S. military power in Iraq? Did he fail to absorb the lessons of Vietnam, so that he is doomed to always want to refight it? Did his captivity inform a search-and-destroy, shoot-first-ask-questions-later, “We are all Georgians,” mentality? (NYT)
But whatever: okay, MoDo, good point. Why didn't any liberal bloggers or commentators think of these? Oh, that's right: they did: when these events were happening.
When you look at the criticism of the liberal media, then look at the columnists who generally hold forth at The New York Times, it's impossible not to laugh before you roll your eyes to high heaven and ask why Dowd's cheap---speaking of cheap---high school slam-book approach to politics earns her a column in the nation's most prestigious paper.
Every day in every way, her commentary becomes a little less meaningful or relevant to anything but the circus in her head, in which she is ringmaster, tightrope walker, lion tamer, and audience all at the same time. Every column tells you more than you ever wanted to know about Dowd and virtually nothing about the people she writes about.
Ron Beasley at Newhoggers gives her more credit for calling out McCain than I would. All I see is a transparent attempt to explain why she's not hopping after him with her hatchet the way she did for Edwards.
Big Tent Democrat also seems to take her criticisms seriously. I think they're the criticism equivalent of a back-handed compliment: the criticism comes wrapped up in so many reasons why it shouldn't apply that you end up wondering if maybe it doesn't.
Open Left just hopes, as I do, that the POW excuse has worn out its usefulness.
[B]y absorbing so many blows from McCain with a rather passive response, Obama has lost ground nationally, to the point of having almost no lead in national polls, and no longer holding a clear EV majority, but if McCain has finally lost his free pass with Versailles, then that should just about do it for him. Because without that free pass, he's just "A Dangerously Hot-Headed Celebrity POW Who Can't Remember How Many Houses He Owns"....
[F]lipping the POW card--even though it's only just begun, and is far from a done deal--...builds on the McCain "housing gaffe" and takes it to the next level, taking it to a direct attack on McCain's brand as the only POW in the world.
BillW at Crooks and Liars makes a point that needs to be made over and over, because it infuriated me at the time.
McCain has relied on his service and sacrifice to his country as a major campaign asset from day one, and repeatedly ever since despite claims to the contrary. Not that there should be anything wrong with that in that context, but, as Steve Benen pointed out:
Four years ago, when John Kerry campaigned in part on his military service, McCain criticized him for it, saying he was “sick and tired of re-fighting the Vietnam War.” McCain even disparaged Kerry personally, saying his emphasis on his military record is “clearly a tactical or strategic move.”
What makes McCain’s claim all the more hypocritical is the fact that his campaign has recently been invoking the ‘POW card’ anytime their candidate is questioned, not just biographically for political benefit as the senator did over and over during pastor Rick Warren’s Saddleback Presidential Candidates Forum, but quite literally offering it as an excuse for anything and everything to the point many in the media have begun questioning the tactic. (C&L)
Blogger round up at Memeorandum here.
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