MoDo on Sunday decided to tackle the Michael Kinsley/Susan Estrich op-ed gender war- which is tricky, since despite nominally agreeing with Estrich about the paucity of female op-ed writers, she’s on Kinsley’s side, since he’s her friend and Estrich isn’t- therefore, the result is a muddled series of arguments that I still don't understand even after reading it twice.
Then MoDo launches into her usual schpiel about how “men take professional criticism more personally when it comes from a woman,” which Dowd has used, for her entire time as a columnist, as a virtual get-out-of-jail-free card against anyone ever not liking her. It got so popular that Teresa Heinz borrowed it throughout her husband's campaign.
Back during the Jayson Blair mess, I had a standard response whenever anyone blamed the whole thing on affirmative action: as America’s most prestigious newspaper, the New York Times has virtually unchecked power to hire whomever they want. The problem wasn’t that they hired a black guy, it was that, having their choice of any of the countless talented black writers in the country, they hired the wrong black guy.
Yes, it’s unfair that out of nine regular columnists on the NYT op-ed page, only one is a woman. But what’s even more unfair is that of all the talented female writers in America who would go to work for the Times in a heartbeat if asked, the only one with a column on the NYT op-ed page is a hack like Maureen Dowd. If the Times dropped Dowd, Herbert, and Rich, and replaced them with Virginia Postrel, Gretchen Morgenson, and Megan McArdle, I'd be thrilled.
Besides, if you don't think Jennifer 8. Lee is ultimately bound for the editorial page, you're fooling yourself.
(I enjoyed engaging in some fun MoDo-bashing with Ace of Spades and Petitedov at Ari’s soiree; Ace continues the fun here).
Posted by Stephen Silver at March 14, 2005 08:40 PMSee Blogger, no one cares about this topic but you...you are obviously obsessed with the half-talen MoDo!!!
Posted by: A at March 15, 2005 06:46 PM