Maureen Dowd
Morning Memo: Rosie's 'Mo Mo' Coo; Modo's Billets-Doux
The Tribeca Film Festival annual Vanity Fair party is held at the State Supreme Courthouse because it reminds everyone about the better days of divorce and custody battles. [NY Mag]
Anna Wintour's got herself a new assistant and it's a Swanson! As in Swanson TV dinners. [Daily Intel] read more »
Use Your Allusions, Volume 1
On March 28, Democratic frontrunner Barack Obama quipped that the primary race felt like "a good movie that lasted about a half an hour too long."
True enough, but what movie? read more »
Talking Points Memo Responds to Rosenthal
At Talking Points Memo today, Greg Sargent concedes that the whole Dowd-dateline dust-up "isn't the hugest deal in the world" and doesn't suggest any rules were broken, but asks, "If datelines are an 'anachronism' and an 'affectation,' why bother having them at all?"
He continues: read more »
Adam Clymer Defends Editor in Dowd Dateline Dust-Up
The former Times political reporter Adam Clymer offered his opinion on datelines in the comments section of our earlier post, in which Andy Rosenthal offered a strong defense to his critics over the Maureen Dowd-dateline row. (Clymer confirmed to Media Mob over the phone that he wrote the note.) He wrote: read more »
Obama Camp Giddy, Hillaryland Reserved
Hillary Clinton began one of her last appeals to Iowa voters by lifting Barack Obama’s signature line.
"We are fired up and we are ready to go," she said in the Starlight Building of Davenport’s Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds. Later in her speech, she talked about “hopeful, hopeful programs for the future.”
Whether the imitation was a direct expression of faltering confidence or merely a fatigue-induced slip-up, even some of her genuine admirers in the crowd couldn’t help but notice that things felt a little flat.
“It was kind of a sad contrast,” said Owen Rogal, a 59-year-old English teacher at St. Ambrose University, who had seen Obama speak that morning. “He’s got people walking around in ‘fired up’ t-shirts and I sort of felt he was my high school football coach. He elicited a much more visceral response.” read more »
All That Glitters? Times Building Bash Guest List Unsurprises Many
Last night, The New York Times turned its lobby into a party space, complete with couches, at least three open bars and a band. Press was denied access, but as was most of the newsroom.
Except for those who were invited. A press release said that the building opened before a "glittering crowd" and here's who they consider glittering: Thomas Friedman was there, along with reporter Helene Cooper, Maureen Dowd, Baghdad bureau chief James Glanz, Beijing bureau chief Joseph Kahn and assistant business editor and columnist Gretchen Morgenson. They all spoke on a panel to a crowd that included Arthur Sulzberger, Bill Keller, Frank Rich, Ray Kelly and--if they made it, though the Media Mob never spotted them while peering through the glass of the lobby for about 45 minutes--Eliot Spitzer, Chuck Schumer and Michael Bloomberg.
Is NYT's Dowd Out of Ideas?
Most people lucky enough to be given a regular opinion column in The New York Times use it to, you know, say stuff about the things they think are important.
Not Maureen Dowd.
Last month, she handed off her column to Stephen Colbert, so he could lamely tout his new book. Then yesterday, she turned things over to SNL writer Seth Myers, to do only slightly funnier gags about the writers strike.
Maybe we don't need another pundit pontificating on the presidential campaign. But it kind of feels like she's out of ideas. read more »
Times Columnists Dance on TimesSelect Grave
“If you mention the words ‘subscription’ and ‘Internet,’” said Andrew Rosenthal, “the bloggers come after you with pitchforks!”
Mr. Rosenthal, the New York Times editorial page editor, of course won’t have to deal with pitchfork-wielding bloggers, now that TimesSelect, the newspaper’s paid subscription service—complete with a op-ed columnist-shielding pay wall—has officially been killed off.
Nor will Mr. Rosenthal have to fend off the 22 opinion columnists who had been behind the paywall. read more »
Rethinking Miller: Was She So Bad?
Maureen Dowd: The Mirror Has Two Faces
Reviewers have been noticing a certain resonance about the fiery-tressed femme fatale portrayed on the cover of Maureen Dowd's new book, Are Men Necessary?.
Is the "bombshell in a clinging red dress" or the "flame-haired bombshell in a clingy crimson dress and matching pumps," described by Katherine Harrison and Joy Press in The New York Times Book Review and The Village Voice, respectively, meant as a stand-in for the author herself? Dowd's vampy hose-and-heels full-page portrait accompanying a recent New York Times Magazine excerpt from the book—and her portrayal in the noirishly headlined New York magazine cover story The Redhead and the Gray Lady—reinforced the notion that the two redheads are one and the same.
But there's another reason Dowd's cover girl looks so familiar: She's virtually identical to the woman gracing the cover of the June 26, 1995 'Fiction Issue' of The New Yorker
The two paintings, both by 40-year-old East Bay, CA illustrator Owen Smith, are near mirror images. The earlier woman has slightly lighter hair and a slightly less clingy dress, but both women are reading a book with one hand and straphanging with the other—while a fellow passenger in the foreground looks up and studies her curves with what undergrads might call "the male gaze."
"She wanted me to do this woman I'd done, this archetypal 40s dame," Smith said by phone. The woman was never meant to specifically reference Dowd, he said, but the two share some qualities: "She's a redhead and she's attractive... She's a strong woman, but she's comfortable dressing like a woman in a traditional sense."Initially, Dowd had wanted to buy the New Yorker cover outright, but Smith offered to update it for her. "We did a lot of sketches. It was weeks of sketches. [Dowd] had a lot of input and it was a back and forth. She was a little more hands on."
Earlier versions of the cover depicted the redhead in different locations, sometimes reading, sometimes writing. After twenty versions faxed back and forth, the cover of Are Men Necessary? wound up resembling the original New Yorker one—albeit, in reverse.
According to Smith, the original illustration prompted a some letters to then-editor Tina Brown "from little old ladies in New Jersey" complaining that "This isn't Playboy magazine. I expect more from The New Yorker." (In hindsight, one is tempted to ask these writers, "Still? Under Tina Brown? Really?")
The artist, whose retro work has adorned everything from Aimee Mann's recent concept album The Forgotten Arm to a mosaic in the 36th Street subway station in Brooklyn, knew that some might see his illustration as a portrait of the author: "I think she was worried that it would look like she was showing off. But I think it needs to look like her a little bit. That was just a concern: We're not illustrating her, but we're illustrating a type."
After all the back and forth with Dowd and her publisher, that 'type' coalesced: "They want to make sure she didn't look just like a streetwalker. They wanted her to look like a working girl of the time. That kind of 40s 'getting out in the world' woman: she's got a brain but she's also attractive, she's got a job, she's going some place. Maybe she's a writer." read more »
—Matt HaberPerplexed on the Op-Ed Page, Dowd Clings to Categories
Miller At Gates, Negotiating Exit With Sulzberger
Perplexed on the Op-Ed Page, Dowd Clings to Categories
Miller Media Tour Part Two: Breakfast With Peyser
The Media Mob sighted the two at a table at Balthazar--where Miller went last week for an interview with Lynn Duke of The Washington Post--shortly after 9 a.m. Peyser, who had previously waded with glee into the dustup between Miller and Times op-ed columnist Maureen Dowd, was scribbling notes throughout the conversation; Miller was expressive, at times waving her arms in the air. read more »
UPDATE: Gawker got a photo, but somehow was unable to recognize the former Columnist of the Year.
--Gabriel ShermanJudy, Come Home! Miller’s Return On Times’ Table
Judy, Come Home! Miller's Return On Times' Table
Miller's Times Return Delayed
Previously, the Times had been negotiating with Miller about leaving the paper, discussing severance pay and a joint statement about her departure.
But both proposals--Miller going and Miller staying--have stalled out on the same negotiating point: Miller's desire to publish an op-ed in the Times to rebut her critics.
Miller is insistent, sources on both sides of the negotiation said, on getting a forum to rebut public criticisms of her by executive editor Bill Keller, columnist Maureen Dowd and public editor Byron Calame. With the Times unwilling to grant Miller the space, the negotiations are at an impasse. read more »
--Gabriel ShermanDon't Forget Abe
"No one contemporaneously employed by a newspaper has ever been assailed by a colleague in its pages the way Maureen Dowd assailed Miller on Saturday." read more »
Our correspondent writes:
"I guess he's not counting Abe 'Who is this nut?' Hirschfeld. He was only the owner."Newhouses Right Times-Picayune As It Bails Water
Who's Heavier, Florio or September Vogue? You Can't Lift Either!
To Maureen Dowd, Saturday Times Is Loneliest Day
Learning to Like Bush
Militant Smokers Wage an Unjust War
Real Men Don't Get Intimidated-Or Why Maureen Dowd Was Wrong
The Filthiest, Nastiest Word Gets a Cool, Lawyerly Airing
Bush Is a Lucky Guy: Consider His Enemies
The Bidding, the Buying, the Bedroom
Maureen Dowd and Gail Collins Have Too Much in Common
Feminist Queen Bee Susan Faludi Tackles Men With Book
Children of D-Day Refuse to Grow Up
Johnnie Cochran's Odd Libel Suit Hits Post Tough Gal Andrea Peyser
A Grave Situation Demanded Skepticism
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