Of course, the media in general and Dowd in particular, are irresponsible for pushing this story. Haircuts shouldn't matter.

The reality, however, is that the media and the public can't resist this kind of story. Unfortunately, these kinds of persanal details are viewed as giving some sort of insight into the character of the candidate in question.

Given the context of the previous comments about his hair and the famous You Tube "hair combing video," it is unexcusable that Edwards' campaign was not more careful to protect his image. This story will not go away. If Edwards is the nominee, we are going to be hearing about this ad nauseum.

It does no good to wail and moan on boards like this UNLESS one ALSO writes to Dowd and any other media whores to COMPLAIN about their writings.

Here's Dowd's e-mail address: dowd@nytimes.com

Go to it, guys.

(Yes, I have already written to her today.)

I actually expect Dowd to keep getting worse, as her looks continue to fade and plastic surgery bills pile up the "Mean Girl" is morphing into the bitter "Dragon Lady."

I stopped reading Maureen Dowd after she went all of the way to Saudi Arabia after 9/11 and all she could think of to write about was women's underwear.

i used to have a small degree of respect for modo, but i think she's gone rapidly south...

http://takeitpersonally.blogspot.com/

She just can't help herself. I'm not a psychologist, but the girl (and, I mean, emotionally speaking) needs help.
I suggest sending emails to the NYT editor (which I've already done), as a more effective way than contacting Ms. D herself.
This is such a non-story - and, yet, Nagourney yesterday (I think) and now Dowd keep it going. We just have to voice our objections to this drivel - as long as it takes.
Farinata X, I so agree. So lazy - so self-indulgent! It's not news - it's not new - and it's certainly not fit to print!

It's delicious that John Edwards, former varsity football player, and George Bush, Prep school graduate and Yale Cheerleader get such different coverage. The MSM not only insists on a puerile and cliched measurement of "character", but it doesn't even bother to let the basic facts interfere with its propaganda story.

Reading through the comments that have been posted here since my first post, I am surprised that everyone is attacking Dowd, and no one is commenting about the fact that the reason this matters is because it "sticks."

We may loathe the coverage and despise the commentator, but this stuff matters to everyday people. When a guy makes looking after the poor and the working poor the centerpiece of his economic agenda, then pays for $400 haircuts, people's BS/hypocracy detectors go into alarm mode. This becomes an important, understandable part of the narrative on Edwards. It completely supports the Repubs "slick trial lawyer, vain pretty-boy" meme.

I would like to know if others are as worried about this as I am. I think this was a significant gaffe.

Great column, but I take exception to the idea that Edwards bears any responsibility for this "gaffe". Every national candidate is groomed and cleaned and coiffed to the max: they buy the best and most expensive suits and hairdos they can afford. And they are all rich, they can all afford A LOT.

Why should Edwards be singled out for this behavior? This is the kind of trivializing, deliberately demasculinizing, crap that lost Gore the election in 2000.

So I just wrote Maureen Dowd. A pretty straightforward email, maybe not well written, but here it is:

"I implore you, this country is
facing grave and serious problems. You personally do bear some
responsibility for this --writing in 2000 about how Bush and Cheney
were grown ups while Gore was wooden and making fun of the color of
suits, by pushing the war (please read your column), by making fun of
the recount in Florida when it was absolutely one of the most
important moments in this country's history, by making fun of Kerry
--who for all his faults would not have generated the over 100,000
dead Iraqis and Americans, by sneeringly talking of pretty boys and
haircuts when what we need to talk about is corruption, croneyism,
incompetence, poverty and health care."

here is her reply, in full:

"you don't know what you're talking about"

THAT was her response? That's really sad. I don't expect her to agree with you or to write long answers to every email she receives but I'm a journalist and I often get letters, emails and phone calls from readers. A lot of them are cranks. I still answer every one of them in some substantive way, even though I worry I'm going to get myself in trouble by doing so. I do that because the reader is why I get to make a living. She should know that, better than me.

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

of course, it'e easy to talk about things like Edwards' haircut...the thing that bothers me is that Dowd seems to spend all of her venom on those who are supposedly on her "side" and not one word about the evils of somebody like Giuliani-who was her mayor for all those years. what about HIS toupee? any poison ever drip from her pen about HIM?

she waited until it was safe to start picking apart GWB, and flayed Judith Miller only after everyone else was done with her.

You can wail all you want, but personal behavior that is at odds with stated values is very important. Average voters may not follow politics closely enopugh to understand the details of public policy issues, but they do understand hypocracy.

The average working class guy, who is struggling to pay the mortgage and make the minimum payments on his credit cards, understands that someone who pays $400 for a haircut lives in a different world.

This is why the "cost of a loaf of bread or a gallon of milk" question matters. Perhaps the journalists or pundits who write this stuff are all Republican slime-balls who are playing "gotcha" games, but the fact is that this stuff resonates.

Dems have been saddled with the image of rich, elitist snobs who talk about average people but who live very different lives. Republican applaud and celibrate the rich, so they are less susceptible to accusations of hypocracy. It may not be fair, but it is real.

Look, being called a "concern troll" for pointing out that this commentary is relevant, if unwelcome and unwanted, is BS. You can look through hundreds of my posts on this site.

You may not like it, but my "concern" is warranted. This is to take nothing away from your observations about the media. My observations are about the voters and what they remember and care about. Have a little respect.

PS Thanks for the spelling tip.

I still think it's ridiculous. NOBODY on the campaign trail is poor.

Edwards' didn't cultivate a properly hypocritical appearance? He should what, assume the guise of a pauper? Start dressing down? I sincerely hope he doesn't.

If the MSM wants to attack him for being rich, there's not a goddamn thing he can do about it. If it's not a haircut, then it's his house, or his bank account.

Nope, responsibility still lies with MoDo and the creeps who push this storyline -- given that Edwards (like *every* other candidate) is already rich and successful, there's no defense against the charge that he is hypocritical --

Unless you (general you, not "bp" you) stop to think for two seconds and remember that someone can be rich and still be concerned about the welfare of the poor.

Bingo!

Most men are ambivalent about $40 haircuts, so it is understandable that the anti-Edwards forces (no matter what political stripe) would have an interest in pushing the story. But most of the cited expenses are not even for haircuts. The NH bill was for make-up prep for a TV appearance. Surely, some of the other expenses had similar basis. But it's almost impossible to find this in print, especially from "columnists".

The greatest problem is that, notwithstanding the individual instances that can be found to support the stereotypes of individual politicians, the creation of these stereotypes (Kerry as flip-flopper, Edwards as "Breck girl", Hillary as a robotic, man-eating, manipulative [FITB], etc.), fundamentally, has the same foundation as racism and other bigotry. No wonder, then, that most of these appear against Democrats. W is the first Republican presidential candidate in many years that had an obvious stereotype associated with him (idiot, coke-head in '00, dry-drunk in '04). This is not because Republican candidates defy stereotypes, but the stereotypes that come from the Left tend to be policy-based ("hawk"), and even those are rare.

This is why you have someone like Rove create these tags--the best suited people for the job would be bigots themselves and those who know their bigots. Note that the memes appear first, followed by reported evidence of their fitness for the characters in question.

Excellent post.

Republicans seem to have a much better understanding of the fact that electoral politics is about story-telling and character.

They are highly skilled character assasins. Dems need to learn to tell their own stories better and more authentically so that when the inevitable attacks come they are less likely to stick. Dems also need to counter these attacks immediately so that they don't become fixed in the minds of the voters.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! GREG!!!!!!! You ALMOST had this exactly right until your HUGE omission!!!!!

You said that "We watched this silly movie in 2004"

But Greg!!!!! We also watched this silly movie in 2000!!!!! And it was the worst movie of all!!!!!!!!

You MUST NOT forget election 2000!!!!!!!!!

Please Greg!

revere success except when the fruits of that success are reaped by a Democratic candidate for president.

 It's more than that. They think there is something unseemly about a Democrat having money.

Jimmy Carter was subjected to a criminal investigation over his finances. They found nothing. The Clintons were subjected to a decade long $100 million witchunt over their $40K investment in which they lost money. John Kerry was ridiculed for having married a rich woman.

The press yawned over stories  about Bush's suspicious business dealings with Arab sheiks and corporate welfare. John McCain has a rich wife and nobody cares. Mitt Romney is super rich and it is seem as OK.

Also, and I think more to the point, the reason for focusing on Edwards' haircut (rather than his bank account) isn't so much to paint him as a hypocritical rich man pretending to care about the poor -- it's to portray him as a vain girly-man who should not be taken seriously.

It's MoDo's stock in trade, to attack Dems for not being manly enough. She's out to trivialize them and to get the public to view them through a lens of prejudiced emotion. Not so much an appeal to the intellect...

I'm serious about this Greg! I have a lot of admiration for you. You're one of the best media critics around! And I'm so glad you're at TPM now. But Jesus! You know as well as anyone else what these fops in elite media did during 2000! You know what Maureen Dowd did! So say it! And repeat it every single time it's relevant to the discussion!

She is the most fatuous media star we have. The damage she has done to political discourse in this country is enormous and should be discussed often!

I'm not quite old enough to remember, but I wonder if anyone can shed any light on whether or not this type of resentment was directed at John F. Kennedy.

What I want to know is: how expensive are George Bush's haircuts? Laura Bush's haircuts?

Actually, I don't really give a crap. But if these assholes insist on Focusing on the Fatuous, they ought not exclude republicans as they have for the past 15 frigging years.

Sad thing is Maureen Dowd, the only woman columnist for the NYT, perpetuates the worst stereotypes about woman; that they are not serious, obsessed with gossip, trivia, clothes and hairdos.

I don't care for the views of WP columnist Anne Applebaum. She is the female Fred Hiatt, an unhinged neocon. But at least she writes about serious policy matters.

Maureen Dowd OTOH comes across as a giggly teenager, an airhead. In a week where we had serious news stories from the killings in Virginia Tech to the massacres in Iraq to SCOTUS abortion decision to Alberto Gonzales testimony she has written columns about; 1) Wolfowitz love life 2) Edwards haircut.

I am looking forward to Gail Collins writing a column. She usually writes about serious policy matters.

Sad thing is Maureen Dowd, the only woman columnist for the NYT, perpetuates the worst stereotypes about woman; that they are not serious, obsessed with gossip, trivia, clothes and hairdos.

I don't care for the views of WP columnist Anne Applebaum. She is the female Fred Hiatt, an unhinged neocon. But at least she writes about serious policy matters.

Maureen Dowd OTOH comes across as a giggly teenager, an airhead. In a week where we had serious news stories from the killings in Virginia Tech to the massacres in Iraq to SCOTUS abortion decision to Alberto Gonzales testimony she has written columns about; 1) Wolfowitz love life 2) Edwards haircut.

I am looking forward to Gail Collins writing a column. She usually writes about serious policy matters.

It's MoDo's stock in trade, to attack Dems for not being manly enough.

Maureen Dowd is an upscale Ann Coulter. They have the same talking points, GOP=manly, Democrats=girly.

Just bringing over my comment from Eschacan made this morning; nice to see Atrios agrees this is Wanker of the Day material:

TPM notes that MoDo devotes her entire column today to--ta dah!--John Edwards' hair, replete with the obligatory RNC-generated, Dowd-promulgated "Breck Girl" reference.

To reinforce her contention that all Big Dems are wusses.

BTW, since I haven't been following MoDo since she makes herself both irrelevant and destructive to American politics, what is her approach to Hillary? Pussy? What, for those who read her?

Wanker of the Day material, if I ever heard of any. Not just for this column, but because it captures perfectly the role of the NYTimes snarksters and "reporters," which they always greet with "Who, me?".

And MoDo gets out into the smaller regional/city papers--Krugman, not so much. What's with that?

So, once again, the NYTimes gives me a reason to not subscribe.
jawbone | 04.21.07 - 10:00 am | #

Can we call this Dowd's snide, dismissive response gaffe?

Seriously, I don't bother to write to these people because I assume anything from the plebes just gets instantly round-filed (thanks in part to mass automated e-mail campaigns, which I deplore). But it's good to put them on record as correspondents. Other letter-writers on this thread -- could you please share any responses?

"I would like to know if others are as worried about this as I am. I think this was a significant gaffe."

It's rather disheartening to see an ostensible fellow lefty swallow the GOP bait hook, line, and sinker.

Thanks for a thoughtful reply rather than the "stone the messenger" treatment I have been getting in this thread.

If you are familiar with George Lakoff books, in particular Moral Politics, he argues that the basic organization of our political thinking evolves out of the ethical reasoning we learn in our families of origin. Repubs are "authoritarian father centered" thinking and Dems are "nurturant mother" centered thinking.

I think Lakoff's model explains a lot. According to this line of reasoning, it is the overall culture that creates the Dems are effete meme not the MSM. The MSM may pick it up and reinforce it consciously or unconsciously. This just underlines my thinking that attacks like this "stick," whether they are fair or not.

I have a general question for all the people who have given low ratings to my comments in this thread: are you giving me low marks because you disagree with me, or are you giving me low marks because I am pointing out an uncomfortable truth?

How come we never see this "manliness" argument made on the Republican side?

Sure, John McCain has proven himself a tough guy.

But Rudy Giuliani? If John Kerry wearing spandex while engaging in a sport makes him so effete that his war service didn't matter, then shouldn't wearing a dress and playing Dame Edna to Donald's Trump invalidate Giuliani's 9-11 moment?

Mitt Romney? Isn't he just the GOP's pretty boy candidate?

And what about other prominent Republicans? Roger Ailes? Rush Limbaugh? Can you pretend to be a tough guy when you're so out of shape that you could be winded by three flights of stairs?

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

A little along the same line: I think Edwards framing a "poverty issue" is just a big mistake. Obama had a speech maybe a week ago where he contrasted the cost of the Iraq war with what we could be doing here at home with that money. Tom Schaller framed it that way in Whistling Past Dixie: Democrats should talk about being for a culture of investment.

Who is John Edwards talking to when he brings up "poverty?" Most Americans don't think they have extra money and the Democrats run on the "middle class squeeze." Does Edwards think the "squeezed" middle class should be doing something about poverty? Thats not something that works politically and, really, it never has worked and never will.

I don't make a habit of reading Dowd. I buy the print version of the NYT several times a week but not everyday. So I am not familiar with any particular column.

I can, however, recognize when I am being called a hypocrite. Maybe, maybe not. I have been trying hard to "call 'em as I see 'em." If Obama screws up, I hope I will be honest enough to say so.

I actually think this has turned into a semi-useful discussion about campaigns as narratives and about the need to be careful about the symbolism of small actions. I think those are good things for Dems to be aware of no matter who we support.

Oh, please do send it to MoDo--edit it a bit, because she or her assistant won't read very far without a major hook.

But I do love it.

Your comments tie in with the other favorite MCM* reporting, about the money horse race, which currently takes the place of the polling horse race reporting.

I keep thinking, why won't they at least glancingly discuss the candidates' positions on issues???

I mean, how are people supposed to decide whether or not to support a candiate, much less chose to give money to one or more of them?

I'm getting so sick of our juvenile MCMers.

Bless TPMers!

*Mainstream Corporate Media

I've been thinking about this a bit, and I have to say that I honestly think Dowd's column, and this story is an important aspect of the campaign.

It's similar to the pictures of Obama in a bathing suit.

The story isn't what happened, how it happened, who is at fault for talking about it.

The story is how the candidate responds.

In that sense, Obama had the best response... talking about how just positively irrelevant it was and what a waste of time the media was for reporting on it.

Thus far the response, not necessarily from Edwards, but from the liberal blogosphere to the Edwards haircut story has been what you call Whining. Whining doesn't kill stories, it makes them stronger.

Now certainly Greg here is trying to say it's irrelevant, but he's using too many words. That's what makes it sound like Whining.

anyway, that's my take.

MoDo, Frank Rich, other pundits, cable shouters, and several political reporters of the 2000 campaign, primarily from the NYTimes and the WaPo, going back to '98 actually, made it a point to diss and diminish Gore at every opportunity. Points might originate with the Bush campaign or the RNC, but it was made mainstream by, uh, the MCM*.

We must not forget this--it was not mentioned for years. Bob Somerby over at the DailyHowler.com had been drilling this into his reader's slowly dawning consciousness for years. And thank god for him--I would have gone crazy trying to figure out what was wrong with out vaunted "liberal" media without him and then some other bloggers.

I believe absolutely that Gore would have won comfortably in 2000, no cliff hanger in FL, no worry about the butterfly ballot, if the press, the MCM had been fair and not very biased against Gore.

Exaggerator, even liar, manipulated wuss, spoiled rich kid, uncomfortable in his own skin--the stories never stopped or varied. There were a few exceptions, but these deviations from the MCM "narrative" were quickly squelched or ignored. The favored narrative was repeated over and over and over and over.

In 2004, the MCM was just more practiced at whacking the Dem candidate. It's finally becoming ludicrously obvious that they say the same things about every Dem, however.

So I concur wholeheartedly that we must not let the MCM off the hook--and you've got a brilliant platform here. Use it--do not let the press coup of 2000 be forgot. The press coup preceded the Supreme 5's coup.

*Mainstream Corporate Media

ULC, I agree with you on this point. Edwards' campaign has made a very serious mistake with the expensive haircut added to the hair fluffing video. And, yes, these sorts of images can reinforce an image of "political playboy". If the hair-fluffing video was out in the public domain (which it was), then I consider the latest incident of the $400 haircut a failure of the Edwards' campaign. There's no reason for any of our folks to add fuel to an already existing image. That's what this did and it was a failure for Edwards.

I understand the position of those criticizing supposedly liberal pundits for calling attention to this sort of thing. It would certainly be better if we all lifted the edge of the rug and swept these images under it. Strange, though, that the GOP will just lift the rug and sweep it right back out again in a general election. That matters, IMO.

The media is not going to revert to the niceties displayed in the past--when FDR's use of a wheelchair or canes was deliberately not photographed by the media or when JFK's womanizaing was secretively tittered over and never hit a serious media outlet during his lifetime. It's different now and the sharpest knives in the Democratic drawer are going to be aware of it and not provide fuel that starts a narrative or fuel that adds to one.

Does anyone here think that McCain's silly Iran song is going away any time soon? That image will haunt him for the rest of his life.

I don't believe that Edwards has damaged his campaign seriously....but they do need to sharpen their senses and not add any more of these kinds of images to the narrative. I don't care what Dowd writes....and her readership is, well, limited isn't it?

Maureen Dowd's column about John Edwards's haircut is just the latest in a long series of past columns focusing on superficialities such as Al Gore's brown suit and John Kerry's windsurfing. My husband has pointed out to me that since Dowd's "clever" takedown of Gore, almost 4000 Americans and a quarter of a million Iraquis have died, an historic American city has been destroyed, and two reactionary judges hostile to the rights of women have been installed for life on the Supreme Court.

I spent time reading all the commenters and I still don't think our people get it: $400 haircuts paid by a campaign account is a no!no! Blame the MSM but who gave MoDo her opening? Let's get real. Dem candidates are going to face an uphill task. The RNC dirty tricks machine will be geared up. And the punditry will be ready with scalpels. So why give them such obvious opening? I live on a modest income. I pay $15 for a haircut. Please don't tell me that I have to listen to Edwards talking about poverty against this information.

I will vote Dem no matter what. But I will not accept self inflicted wounds without complaint. This one was self-inflicted.

In future shall we apply the MoDo test. Lets get that out to all the candidates. Apply the MoDo test : expect the trivial to be highlighted and act accordingly.

Edwards has defused it with humor and a smile. Which is the proper way to do it.

From the Des Moines Register:

Speaking to voters here Friday, he wove a reference to the hubbub into comments about why immigrants flock to America.

"They want to come here because people like me can come from nowhere ... and now be running for president of the United States and paying $400 for a haircut," he said, grinning as the crowd of about 100 people laughed.

Edwards, a Democrat who stresses his blue-collar roots and promises to help poor people, has repaid his campaign for the expense.

In an interview, he said the situation never should have happened.

"It's embarrassing to me," he said. "It's a ridiculous amount of money for a haircut. It was an obvious mistake for the campaign to pay for that."

The money, he said, "should have come from me."

Edwards predicted that fallout from the gaffe would pass quickly as Americans focus on the country's more serious problems.

I've read in other stories that the bill came to the campaign headquarters and they mistakenly paid for it.

Look, it shouldn't have happened, it was definitely a gaffe, but there is no such thing as a perfect candidate nor a perfect campaign. In fact, the way I look at it is, it's contradictory to at once rail against leashed candidates boxed-in by influential consultants and then also want a candidate to not ever make a mistake. If the only way to prevent stupid mistakes is to hire more and more consultants to watch for them, I'd prefer to let these minor mistakes just happen.

I think we need to frame poverty as a question of equal opportunity. We should talk about living up to the most fundamental values of our country, "we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men (and women) are created equal."

The story of our country has been a long struggle to live up to this sentence. If equal opportunity is to be a reality rather than just rhetoric, we have to do a more to level the playing field at least a little.
We need access to quality public education from Head Start to Post Graduate work. We need to enforce the civil rights and anti-discrimination laws of this country. We need to understand that a majority of the poor in this country are children, and they can't compete on an empty stomach.

Framed in this way, anti-poverty programs are something that most people in this country can support.

I agree with you that someone who -- quite sincerely, I believe -- is basing his campaign on ordinary peoples' concerns, and economic justice, has got to be tone deaf at the least, to get a $400 haircut.

It does undercut his message, and he not only should not be spending as much on his haircut as a lot of the voters he wants to woo make in a week, he shouldn't have ever allowed his own vanity to grow to the point that he thinks he needs a $400 haircut. Who needs a $400 haircut?

Oh, and by the way, Maureen Dowd is too precious for words most of the time, too. But only complaining about her misses the point of why stuff like this sticks. Because it shows something about the candidate.

There was some of this, as I remember it.  The Republicans went after Joseph Kennedy hammer and tongs.  It was as much about how he made his money as the amount of money he made.  Nixon in his Checkers speech back in 1952 had capitalized on the associating the Republicans with "respectable cloth coats" and democrats with "mink".  Candidates of both parties were determined to cast themselves as of the middle.  Kennedy did this by campaigning in his shirtsleeves...something pretty nearly every candidate has had to do since.

But I think Kennedy's secret weapon was Rose, his mother.  No matter what one thought about Kennedy wealth, she came across as the archetypal good mom, putting up with her husband's hijinks and raising her kids to be good citizens.

aMike

I spent time reading all the commenters and I still don't think our people get it: $400 haircuts paid by a campaign account is a no!no!

Of course it is a no, no. But we are talking about proportionality. In a week with major news stories a prominent columnist decides to dedicate a column to a trivial no, no.

This is the criticism of MSM. It is not that they are reporting the story but they are giving it disproportionate amount of ink.  And this is part of a pattern. We saw it during the Clinton years with the MSM hyping pseudo scandals. We saw it with Al Gore's "earth tones" in 2000, John Kerry's alleged flip flopping and now Edwards hair.

And don't forget Kerry's botched joke before the 2006 election that became a media obsession for a week. There was no justification for the amount of coverage.

As Bob Somerby argues it was in this media environment that Bush managed to get "elected" in 2000 and take the country to war with deceptions. If the MSM spends disproportionate amount of time focusing on the trivial it is easy for a president to take advantage of the distraction and do serious damage to the country.

Thanks for the thoughtful response.

My belief is that the story here is not John Edwards and his haircuts.

The story is that the GOP will slime any progressive candidate any way they can, so (and here's where I believe our respective opinions diverge) it's a fool's errand to do or not do something based on what the GOP might say about it.

If Edwards had NOT gotten a $400 haircut, do you think the GOP slime machine would have just called it a day? Of course not, they would have just slimed him on something else that is equally inconsequential (not to mention hypocritical - ALL the candidates on both sides are grotesquely wealthy).

"The Anti-Poverty Candidate

People who know me intimately know that I’m pretty passionate about ending poverty. I’ll get teary-eyed when I spit out sad statistics, curse efforts that increase poverty, curse when common sense solutions are ignored, and ask most politicians I meet pointed questions on poverty. It occassionally makes me callous to other people’s problems, sometimes even my own. Given that, one would imagine that I’d run to sign up for John Edwards campaign. But I didn’t. And I won’t.

I am glad that Edwards talks a lot about poverty. To me its a serious moral and practical problem and it should be discussed. I was excited when Edwards started a poverty center in North Carolina–a truly noble goal. Unfortunately, I never noticed anything in Edwards’s Senate career that showed the same level of concern for anti-poverty measures as he’s pushed in his presidential campaigns. What’s worse is looking at the events calendar on the UNC Poverty Center website. Perhaps there are events missing, but the last event noted on the website took place November 9, 2006. That’s three and a half months ago! The last press on the website was from October 11, 2006–over four months ago.

I don’t mean to question the people at the center, but this, along with his lack of effort in the senate on these measures, makes me question the real level of commitment that Edwards has when it comes to poverty. What’s more, I don’t get a feeling from listening to Edwards talk about poverty that he truly understands the situation or the solutions. I don’t care that he’s wealthy because wealthy people can understand the burdens of poverty as well as the solutions. FDR wasn’t exactly poor, but he set up Social Security which dramatically decreased poverty amongst elderly Americans. A truly heroic feat.

I’ve never met or talked to Edwards so he may very well possess a deep understanding of what it takes to combat poverty. But I have yet to see that in anything he has said or has done."......

http://un2g.ooeoyi.com/The-Anti-Poverty-Candidate/

(I have no idea who the person is who wrote this, it came to me via a Google alert.)

Maybe Maureen needs to research Edwards' health plan the way Paul Krugman has done and worry less about his haircut.

Tom

While I admit Edwards should have the sense to stay away from $400 haircuts, this doesn't negate the fact that people like Dowd seem to be engaged in a campaign to trivialize every Dem candidate that comes down the pike. Everybody is going to make a gaffe, and the the repub slime machine's technique is to first create a stereotype and then look for every possible step or misstep that can be fed into the image. They're still trying to perfect one for Obama. The real question is, where were all these clever pundits on the issues of George Bush's manifold and obvious deficiencies in 2000 and again in 2004? It was just too much fun to pile on Gore and later, Kerry, never mind that the evidence for the other side was blindingly obvious. It will always be possible to caricature an opponent. The question is why Dowd and the others want to skewer all the Dems.

Greg,

I totally agree that the press coverage lowers campaigns to gossipy nonsense, and that MoDo does this regularly to Dems, and that this haircut piece is an attempt to do that. But what I don't understand is why it’s even of interest to the media.

Edwards and the rest of them are all millionaires, plus as a presidential candidate they are celebrities. So why not get a top dollar haircut? Isn’t that part of the job of being president – looking presidential? I think if you look at celebrity grooming costs $400 dollar hair cuts are not the exception. The whole meme doesn’t make any sense. Clever attacks are one thing, but this doesn’t even seem to be clever.

Note to MoDo: You are supposed to be a smarty. Why don’t you show us some in your column?

But he shouldn't have charged this to his campaign. He gets haircuts whether he's campaigning or not, so it is not a justifiable campaign expense. It was obvious that he was going to blame this on staff, which he did, then said he would reimburse. He obviously did not look at his quarterly financial returns, or if it was a mistake he would have noticed.

Maybe Maureen needs to research Edwards' health plan the way Paul Krugman has done and worry less about his haircut.

Maureen Dowd doesn't care about health care. She has it and beyond that she doesn't care.

Maureen Dowd doesn't see politics as policy that effects the lives of people. She views it as gossip, personality, amusement. Which is why she had such contempt for Gore. He bored her and her friends with detailed discussions of policy, from Social Security lockbox to global warming.

As much as I hate saying this I have more respect for the Robert Novaks of punditry. He has an issue he cares about; tax cuts for the rich. He writes about it year after year and supports politicians who support his cause. He is fixated on a policy matter not trivia like Dowd.

Hi - new here, tho I registered a long time ago.

I was pleased to see that you were discussing this here - when I logged on to The Nytimes site I saw the title of Dowd's latest...

Didn't Bill Clinton get clobbered for a pricey haircut at LAX. Ended up being another non story. Did she write that one, too?

Anyway,the guy has real things to think about and I hope he doesnt bother to respond to this nonsense.

How much does Maureen fucking Dowd spend on her haircuts? On her lunches?

Jesus Christ.

I am Sorry, but I DO NOT think I want a guy running the world who doesn't know what to put on a Philly Cheesesteak sandwich. The windsurfing I can forgive, even at this late date. I can even overlook the fact that this person has the personality of a conch (Yeah! Go Teresa, a vastly better choice!). I can overlook the fact that in all his years in the Senate, he has the achievement record of, yes, you guessed it....a conch!
BUT
To put Swiss on a cheesesteak....beyond the pale.

On a related note, I like the designation of Wolfie's girlfriend (by the World Bank staff, a group who KNOW analysis) as his "neoconcubine." This is a neologism that is liable to spawn all manner of acquisition and merger in the Bush League.

Pretty Boy Edwards is the "Breck girl." That coinage, incidentally, is now in our lexicon mainly because of...Dowd and The Times, both of whom quoted anonymous Bushies floating the slur in 2003.

Laura "War Whore" Ingraham has also pushed this line on her radio show.

Ni!

Piggy has the conch!

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

I haven't read through all of the comments here so if someone already brought this up, I apologize.

Maureen Dowd pulls this crap on Democrats so often that I wonder if she is on the take or, for some other reason, she is determined to sink the next Democratic presidential candidate.

Dowd writes about her right wing family all of the time as if she is on the left but we all know she is not. Quite the contrary.

I started to seriously wonder about how closely Dowd works with the government when I read her pre-Iraq War "review" of a so-called movie about Saddam Hussein by a so-called French filmaker. The movie was supposedly shot with Saddam's consent and purportedly showed a mile-long underground runway built under one of Saddam's palaces.

Somebody ought to grab Dowd by her scrawny, somewhat wrinkled neck and wring the truth out of her about who told her to write about that movie.

Maureen Dowd - Bush Propaganda Queen.

Stupid cunt.

Sorry, Tom:

I should have been clearer.  My bad, as the kiddies say.  I was talking about Joseph Kennedy JFK's dad and Rose Kennedy, JFK's mom.  Pop had a bit of a reputation as a rogue, and not only for financial reasons.  Rose, as I remember it, was seen as the long-suffering mom, responsible for raising good kids.  This plays into stereotypes of the Irish Catholic Family, sort of... Dad down at the saloon, mom in Church telling the Rosary.

Joseph the brother of John F. was the one groomed for the Presidency by his father as, as my memory has it.  A quick bop over to Wikipedia seems to confirm that.  :-) 

aMike

MoDo is not left nor right; she probably considers herself a Democrat only because it's tres gauche to be a Republican in New York City.

No, she's a card-carrying member of the infamous Cocktail Weenie Party. She will write whatever keeps her ingratiated to the people who keep her invited to the A-list events. Why do you think she waited until it was safe, to stab Judy Miller in the back?

If the MSM are going to attack appearances, when are we going to get the story about the Bush family's oil wealth and its relation to the war?
How about the Bush family's base in New England and it's move to Texas to avoid state taxes? Everyone's given up on getting a story on Georgie's coke habit and his AWOL stint, but we would get it over and over if he was a Dem (heck, they'd have started impeachment proceedings in 2001). It's been, oh, 8 years including the campaign. You'd think we'd have seen one hard story by now. If these were Dems, there would be front-page pictures of them holding hands with people wearging kaffias every day, in front of coffins, flags, oil wells, and maimed veterans.

Not sure what you mean.

A *woman* who gets a $400 cut-and-color is paying about 25% more than market rate -- IOW it's pricy but says nothing about her, particularly. A man who pays $400 for one is doing something only the rich (and conceivably only the *vain* rich) can afford to do.

That's what I see, and I'm deliberately including both gender and economics in my analysis because I think that's what the attack is really about. And really it's the implicit attack against Edwards' masculinity which is most pernicious, because it tends to bypass most people's intellects and lands straight in their "gut feelings".

Which symbolism do you mean?

Karl Rove: "Let's attempt to sow seeds of doubt about Edwards by hyping a non-story about where he gets his hair cut!"

Certain Liberals (obligingly): "I'm not so sure about Edwards anymore because of where he gets his hair cut."

Can you not see how this is a problem for our side?

It. Is. A. Smear. Those who fall for it should be thoroughly ashamed. Karl gave the command, and you jumped into action.

I'd like to remind everyone that the last time the press got its knickers in a twist about a politician's haircut we ended up with a fairly decent president and successful administration.

you're too kind, david.

dowd is not the queen bee;

she's the alpha bitch -

of mean-spirited commentary,

a cultured, sophisticated, harpy,

sort of the ann coulter of the sushi and psychiatry set.

looked at differently,

maureen dowd is an intellectual valley girl,

given to belching psycho-sociolbabble about married men and women.

but hey,

once your pals have given you a pulitzer or two for psychobabble about the clintons,

the nytimes will let you keep babbling away for as long as the ink and trees last.

now that john tierney has been let go,

were i ever appointed editor of the editorial page an the nytimes,

dowd would be the airhead i first fired.

(if you must know, david brooks would be the second airhead to go.)

If Maureen Dowd wants to behave like she's in junior high school, then the Edwards campaign should treat her that way and respond with commensurate cattiness. Send her some flowers and the following note:

Dear Ms. Dowd,
We're writing to thank you for your extensive coverage of John Edwards in your recent column. We noticed how interested you were in his hairstylist, and please forgive us for our presumption, but your continued focus on John's hair seems to suggest that you are unhappy with your own stylist's efforts. Please accept this gift as a token of our appreciation for your continued efforts at elevating the level of discourse in this campaign. Joseph does an excellent job and we are confident that you will be delighted with what he could do for you.

Then include a gift certificate for one session at the Joseph Torrenueva salon. Then sit back and watch Dowd lose her shit like the whining brat that she is.

The name of the "documentary" is "Uncle Saddam" by French journalist Joel Soler. The documentary was supposed to air on Cinemax in the fall of 2002 but I don't know if it ever did. I've never seen the film.

I read that the "documentary" was supposed to be satirical but Dowd wrote as if it was l00% true. The fact that this "documentary" about Saddam showed up just in time to be used as anti-Iraq propaganda is interesting in itself.

I'd check Soler's bank account and ask him who funded the documentary if I could. I'd also ask the former Iraq Minister of Information Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf how much of the "documentary" is true if I could.

Again, somebody ought to make Dowd 'fess up as to how she came to write about this "documentary" in September 2002. Ask her, too, how she knew it was not government anti-Iraq propaganda. I'd love to hear her answer.

Maureen Dowd's 9/1/02 NYT column in its entirety:

"Scent of a Madman"

The Bush case against Saddam Hussein can be summed up in four melodramatic words: Evil. Weapons. Mass. Destruction.

But what do we really know about the man America wants to terminate with extreme prejudice?

An intriguing and bizarre documentary, ''Uncle Saddam,'' by the French journalist Joel Soler, airing on Cinemax this fall, paints Saddam as the genocidal Jerry Seinfeld. He gasses the Kurds without flinching and murders his relatives without twitching. But when it comes to personal hygiene, the guy is extremely fastidious.

After he wakes at 5 a.m. and has coffee, the narrator says of the dictator, he moves on to personal hygiene: ''This is especially important because Saddam prefers to be greeted with a kiss near the armpit.''

As Hussein himself says, ''It's not appropriate for someone to attend a gathering or to be with his children with his body odor trailing behind him emitting sweet or stinky smell mixed with perspiration.'' Never mind the stench of Halabja.

''It's preferable to bathe twice a day, but at least . . . once a day,'' continues the clean freak who craves dirty bombs. ''And when the male bathes once a day, the female should bathe twice a day. The reason is that the female is more delicate and the smell of a woman is more noticeable than the male.'' He's a cross between Mohamed Atta and Pithecanthropus erectus.

A former Iraqi minister observes: ''If you want to meet with Saddam Hussein, there are many protocols: Pat you down, check your body, you have to clean. Saddam is scared to be contaminated by people.'' No doubt the feeling is mutual.

''Germs terrify the great leader,'' the minister says. ''The smallest cut is dealt with immediately.'' Odd in a man whose stock in trade is germs.

''If the son does not remember his father's nice scent, this will take away some of his son's love toward his father,'' Saddam says. ''If a woman can't afford to brush her teeth with toothpaste and toothbrush, she should use her finger.'' To keep things fragrant while he develops chemical weapons, the dictator likes to be surrounded by flowers.

In the documentary, shot a couple of years ago, Saddam obsesses over his image. ''He has a huge collection of hats for every occasion, even bulletproof hats for those pesky assassination attempts,'' the narrator notes snidely. ''He's fastidious about his nails, and he regularly dyes his mustache a rich and regal black. Looking young . . . is one of his greatest concerns. Iraqis joke privately that there are 20 million Iraqis and 20 million portraits of Saddam. As if this isn't enough, every day the cover of Iraq's biggest newspaper features a photo of his excellency in a dashing new pose.'' Saddam jokingly tells his people, if a TV breaks, just put a poster of him over it.

There's something chilling about the anti-Semitic head of a military power who gasses people obsessing about his mustache. Heil Hussein.

The megalomaniacal Iraqi leader has clearly succumbed to what a C.I.A. shrink called, in the case of Osama, ''a narcissistic explosion.'' He wrote his name into many of the bricks used for rebuilding Babylon.

Iraq is fixated on the diet of the leader fixated on mustard gas. In the 90's, the sanctioned dictator asked the U.N. to send him liposuction equipment as part of a humanitarian aid package, along with silicone breast implants and acne cream.

The U.N. refused. We all know that liposuction may be an instrument of torture.

His worst vice, aside from mass murder, is cigars sent to him by his pal Fidel Castro. ''Obesity is not a good thing,'' he has written, ''especially with a military uniform.''

(As Mark Bowden wrote in an Atlantic Monthly profile, the billionaire Saddam defies the Islamic ban on alcohol to sneak his wine of choice, Mateus rose.)

He loves fish, and catches them himself. No effete flyfishing for this madman. He goes grenade fishing, pre-filleting his catch. There is strange film of Saddam, wearing a long coat and beret, lobbing a grenade, underhanded, into the water. Aides in scuba gear retrieve the catch.

If his henchmen swim back without his dinner, he no doubt tosses another grenade in the water.

Mr. Soler talks about Saddam's underground palace, tunnels and airstrip. (An underground airstrip?)

The madness of kings was never this mad.

Cancel your NYT subscriptions.  Too bad to lose 1-2 decent columnists, but... hey... NYTimes needs to understand how offensive they are.

(I am late to the party, reading this @ 7 pm in Cal.)
The "wuss meme" is key. Excellent book on this: The Wimp Factor by Stephen Ducat (2004) explores the "anxious masculinity" problem. Dowd has found no subject she could not trivialize in the pursuit of cute. She is an evil cow. That said- Edwards knows by now, MSCM will exploit anything, such very bad judgement giving them low hanging fruit. Doesn't he have advisors?
I was 12 yo when JFK was elected. There was some anti-Catholic anxiety & wink & nudge about rum-running, but never a word about Joseph Sr.'s Nazi sympathies.

renarich

Why is Edwards a hypocrite if he sticks up for the little guy and he happens to have enough money for a really expensive haircut? Did he ever claim to be poor?

FDR came from a rich family, and I don't remember anyone ever calling him a hypocrite.

All it means to me is that he did well in his practice.

-Dave Adams-

I think the contrast with the war and investing in America is such a natural and people are ready to hear it: We could do so much with that money here at home. And it kicks the Republicans in the can for wasting so much money and getting nothing for it but disaster.

I agree. While I loathe what Dowd did, she has a precious piece of real estate in the Times and a brain and this is the best she can do to advance the liberal cause. Hello "the ship of state is being steered over a cliff" I don't think hair cuts matter.

But that's me.

The truth is, a populist candidate, can campaign on a theme of poverty reduction and then get $400 haircuts. It's just plane stupid. And it isssss hypocracy. This is politics. It plays to a similar meme with Edwards: he's a pretty boy, but he didn't have the spine to stand up to Cheney's blantent bald face lie on prime time tv during the debates, how's he going to stand up to more of the same in different arenas to advance our cause? Pretty boy? Patsy? He's got to shed that and role up his sleaves and start fighting for our country as if it were the eleventh hour, because it is, it's five minutes to midnight on the titanic. We can't have pretty boys with no grit advancing the populist cause.

Can't Edwards find someone to do it for a reasonable price? How about the person who gave him the hair cut, is he a liberal? Does he like what his $400 bill did to the cause of Edwards? Why not give it to Edwards for free? Lots of the hair dressers struggling on near minimum wage saleries I am sure would have been glade to give him a hair cut for free just in thanks for advancing the cause.

If I were Edwards, that's what I would have done. He doesn't need consultants or Mareen Dowd to bitchslap him all over the place. He just needs to use common sense.

He that hath a trade, hath an estate - from Poor Richards Almanac - Benjamin Franklin

There is one highly effective way to deal with this idiotic kind of "reporting" from Dowd. It's very simple, but someone will have to pony up the money to get it done:

Hire someone to tail this self-important half-wit.

Find out how much SHE pays for HER hair! What do you bet it's a whole helluva lot more than what Edwards paid? Find out how much she pays for fucking lunch! I doubt she is on a Plebian budget. Above all else, Dowd and her ilk are pathetic hypocrites. Let's find out how much money Dowd gets paid annually shall we? And then let's find out how much she gets each time she appears on tv whadya say? And then let's publish that information for all the world to know. Then folks can size up that information with the bullshit, worthless garbage she writes for the NYT and let's see if the public thinks she worth it.

MoDo is not left nor right; she probably considers herself a Democrat only because it's tres gauche to be a Republican in New York City.

Dowd lives in Washington DC. She's lived there all her life. Her loyalty is to power.

I'm just so confused!

I read one Mo Dowd column one day, and she is telling me about how George W. Bush is dangerously incompetent. And then the next day, she is telling me that a Democratic candidate is too pretty and has an expensive haircut.

Well, I just can't figure it all out! Democrats are bad, Republicans are bad, what sense can anybody make of it? I guess it doesn't matter who we vote for? If we don't vote for people who give us fake wars, we'll get somebody with an expensive haircut!

did he know it was 400? maybe he thought it was 20

wisdom and insight from guy who votes republican

Random side note, but if I remember correctly didn't Gore catch a lot of slack for changing his hairdo in the primaries to look more Reaganesque or something? Does anyone else remember that?

SeeDee
FDR and the guys who fought (AND WON) WW II would be surprised to learn that you, upperleft corner, classify them as 'nuturant oriented' or as 'mommies'.

Did it ever occur to you that the MSM and their 'prompters' from the right-wing (those really, really tough guys who stay as far from combat as possible) have spent the last 30 years trying to saddle ALL Democrats with the 'weak sister' label. Of course, Democrats still make up the majority of those who fight and die in our wars, just wars or otherwise.

I do not castigate you as the messenger...I just think, like MoDo and her ilk hope, that you have picked up an untrue message and run with it.

And every telling re-inforces the falsity of it...do you think that is possible?

I take it from your comments that you have not read Lakoff's book, Moral Politics. It is an excellent book and makes a compelling argument that has been much discussed in Democratic circles over the past four years.

His argument suggests that Republican attacks on the Dems "manliness" are inevitable. We can ignore this fact and rail at the media, or we can learn to innoculate ourselves and learn how to respond effectively to these attacks.

As a personal aside, I am a man who graduated with a minor in Women's Studies back in the early '80s. I actually taught a Sociology course called "Men and Masculinity" that looked at maleness as a social and economic construct. I have remained fascinated by the whole subject.

I agree with you Karen. I think the cost of the war has not gotten nearly enough attention, and I think comparing those costs to domestic needs is excellent. I have been doing this in my conversations with friends and family for years now.

My only hesitation with this way of framing the issue is that I think the "investment" frame is inherently pro-business/pro-capitalist. In general, I prefer to frame anti-poverty issues as a question of "equal opportunity," because I think this is a more human centered image. I also think taking it back to the founding documents of the country gives it real resonance with the patriotic impulses of the working class.

But the fact that so many listen is an indication that the conservative message resonates. I think we need a better understanding of how and why these messages work

The messages work because the GOP preys on the worst of human character, selfishness and superiority. The GOP makes it acceptable to deny others to further your own self interests and to beleive that you are superior for doing so as those who do not get ahead have pathetic weak characters that are lazy and unmotivated. It is the ageless divide and conquer message which has been terribly effective throughout time as havenot groups pit themselves against each other while the havemores walk away with the jackpot.

The Democratic message is inclusive it is about sharing and lifting up everyone by pooling the resources of the few to benefit the many. That message does not resonate with even the havenots as they are much more inclined to be selfish and  not share than to do what is in their self-interest by to sacrificing  their wants for the needs of the whole, which includes them as well.

So, the Democratic message will not resonate with the country until the downtrodden and the havenots realize they have been duped and recognize the enemy is not each other but the wealthy havemores and that they have been starved, whipped and abused for thinking they could prosper by denying the poor among them, which includes themselves even though they are too blinded by arrogance to realize it. 

Bottom line...no one wants to believe they are the havenots, they want to believe that someone else is the havenot and feel better because they are oneup on that person. That 'better than' attitude is the downfall of the havenots. It is also known as the southern strategy.

... and more subtle about it.

Tom

The definition of insanity: engage in the same behavior and expect a different outcome.

Dems need to learn from our past failures. I think the key is for Dems to become better at creating their own positive narratives so the smears do not stick as well. Putting our head in the sand and saying "they are just going to smear us no matter what we do" does not sound like a winning strategy.

Why? Because people understand haircuts. You can complain that voters are stupid for understanding harcuts and for thinking that because someone buys $400 haircuts that it says something about their life and perhaps their character, but it won't change the reality. At a certain point, complaining that the voters and the media are stupid or venile for caring about such things is highly elitist.

Let's put our energy into learning how to avoid such attacks and in learning how to tell our candidates stories so that these smears don't stick.

Ebie:

You must live somewhere different than I do or have a different bank balance. I stand in front of the mirror and cut my own hair most of the time. A couple of times a year I go get my hair cut for about $20 including tip. My wife pays about $50 to have her's done at a nice salon in downtown Portland, OR.

$400 is almost 30% of a monthly mortgage on a median priced home in the Portland area which is about $280,000. My wife and I are fortunate to own a house that is worth about $600-700k, but $400 is still real money.

At a minimum someone who is paying that much has a very different life, which calls into question how well they understand the problems of an average person. Worse, it can raise doubts about the sincerity of Edwards stated commitment to helping the poor. Even if his sincerity is not called into question, his ability to relate to the middle class squeeze is. Someone could easily say, "JE may be able to afford to pay more taxes to help the poor, and thats nice for him, but I can't. He is going to raise my taxes so I won't vote for him."

I didn't rate you low, but I think it may have been seen as snarky, since you could quickly figure out who he was talking about by the process of elimination? Jawboner spoke of JFK's father in his post and the son who died in WWII was not a political figure so why would the GOP have went after him with hammer and tong. Also the son of Bobby would possibly be your generation and there has not been news of the GOP going after him with hammer tong.

 I think as a frequent poster and member on this site folks would be more likely give you the benefit of the doubt and think you are more politically knowledgeable than the average person and therefore your post was a ridiculously absurd WTF query?

It's not an issue unless you actually use it as a point of comparison between the parties and the candidates. If you don't, it's just a simple-minded smear. It's all garbage and no matter how long you argue that it brings up issues, it's relevant, it's a concern for candidates, it was a ``mistake'' it doesn't change the fact that discussing haircuts is intrinsically irrelevant, it's clowning masquerading as journalism. Haircuts have exactly the same level of relevance as Obama's middle name. None whatsoever.

It is relevant because it is meaningful to those who are least likely to be swayed by policy positions and substance. Which means the masses. Who watch Anna Nicole and white girl missing endlessly covered on the news and Brittany being bald. Who yammer on about 'cut and run' and 'bring it on' Grade school 3 letter words which are SO IMPACTFUL, because they lack NUANCE or TRUTH. The masses RELATE to that. Those are the voters who this is relevant to and THEY COUNT.

This may not be information that sways us, the frequent visitors to this site, but it is VERY RELEVANT to the rest of the country. Otherwise, GWBush, 'kinda guy you can have a beer with' would not be our President!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No offense, but give me a break!

National Enquirer
People Magazine
Inside Edition

The public loves celebrity gossip and human interest stories. Humans have been telling stories around the campfire for tens of thousands of years. If you don't understand this, you will never understand the media or electoral politics.

It blows me away that so many progressives think electoral politics is about who has the best ten point plan for every policy issue. Try getting most of the public to pay attention to that stuff, and they will hit the mute button or change the channel faster than you can say Homer Simpson.

People understand haircuts. Even progressives intuitively understand the symbolic importance of this issue, whether they want to admit it or not. Why do you think this thread has provoked more than 160 responses in less than 24 hours?

Thank you Buddy, but an important correction if I may:

Maureen could not respond to it not because Elizabeth is ill, but because Elizabeth would be right!

Keep yer paws off MY man, MoDo - I LIKE the way he looks thank you very much.

Wow! Just Wow!

Speaking of levels of discourse, can you stop being yourself at your age, or is that only off limits once you reach a "certain age"? When does that start - the certain age thingie - I want to mark my calendar. Cause I thought we could all keep learning at any age.

Yelling doesn't work.  A boycott will work.

But they do and so do the Democrats. Actually, people who make only $97.5K can't afford an ordinary house in LOTS of places in the US. No Democrat will propose raising taxes on people making $97.5K or double that.

I understand the emotion behind your response. Emotion certainly has a role in elections, but I would submit that pushing the Republicans into the dust in 2008 will depend more on other factors.

I have asked my traditional Republican friends if they have an explanation for this radical administration. A significant number, though not a majority, express their own concerns that match mine. These folks are like Hagel--and perhaps now, Snowe--in their dismay with these radicals.

My idea of a victory in 2008 is a crushing voter and electoral defeat in the Presidential race and a crushing voter defeat of incumbent Republicans who have revealed themselves to either be a radical or willing to support them.

We don't need Democrats yelling nose to nose with these radicals to accomplish that. I saw tough, smart and pragmatic Democrats spearheading the 2006 election here for McCaskill. More of the same multiplied across the country will ensure 2008 is a crushing defeat for the Republicans.

 Dowd is not a GOB flak, she just specializes in the shallow. If she were a water fowl, she would be a green heron: pouncing on the little critters that she can spot at the muddy edge of the pond.

This reminds me of a cartoon a colleague of mine had posted on his door.  One heron (dunno if green or not), one little critter, already pounced upon, in the heron's beak, head first. 

Little critter arms out, hands around the heron's neck choking the life out of the bird.  The caption?

Never Give Up!

(The heron looked a little Dowdy, I thought)

aMike

Well, Bush has never learned anything at any age and he ain't changing now.

Tom

I just love your pithy humor.

G4A

I think over 50% of the members of this site are in that 5%.

Follow the link. But perhaps you should have followed the news.

You obviously don't read Dowd very much, and I'd guess what you you find in blog-posts of people who are pissed off at one of her columns.
She's got nothing to do with Coulter. Dowd's a tabloid writer who got kicked upstairs to The Paper of Record. She's a liberal but not an academic (or a pseudo-academic like Friedman) and yes, the democrats need her audience.

I'm sorry if you're unhappy that the rest of the people in the US aren't as intelligent as your avant-garde sensibility would have it. I'm farther to the left than most people here, and more so than the anyone howling at MoDo. But the country, and it's politics are what they are.
And Clinton was a republican.

Well, on the "experience" part, its hard to say thats a qualification any more since all the experienced people (plus Edwards) were on board for the Iraq War. If experience didn't tell them that was a bad idea . . .

But, back to poverty. I agree. Means-tested social programs are a very hard sell. Maybe childrens health coverage. Beyond that, I see the public less amenable than in the 60's with the Great Society. People lose their jobs all the time, they don't have pensions, they can't buy a house, etc. --- its going to be harder to tell them they should accept higher taxes to provide other people with security. Another poster thinks that $97,000/year is high income but I wonder how many households with a $97,000 income are actually 2 earner. Probably lots and they feel like they work too much and pay too much taxes already.

No offense but the way you think about people who are good citizens, pay taxes, live responsibly, raise their children responsibly, obey the laws, etc. is the way they think of the poor! I.e., not a lot of sympathy. Thats why the Democrats are not talking about raising taxes on anyone with less than $250K adjusted gross income. Poverty programs are a tough sell.

"But the fact that so many listen is an indication that the conservative message resonates."

it may resonate somewhat but no one wants to be made a fool if they were lied to. the problem is that in many parts of the country there are no alternatives for people who want to get some politics or current events while at work or commuting before they get home and fight the kids for the remote. We can thank Reagan for much of that- for abolishing the Fairness Doctrine. that got the ball rolling.

the first thing dems/progressives need to do is support some new kind of Fairness Doctrine because evidence of talk radio being used as a govt propaganda tool is clear. these are PUBLIC airwaves.

more and more bush voters are recognizing how wrong they have been about bush and they can blame talk radio for enabling the GOP to be taken over by the right wing minority that's destroying this country.

it is absurd to analyze modern american politics and trends and motivations without factoring in the giant sack of 20 years of elephant crap under the living room rug. but that's what's been happening. dems and progressives have made their lives so much harder. one frat boy blowhard with a communicatios degree, a quick tongue, and a giant microphone can undo the work of thousands of citizens volunteering a few hours and dollars here and there.

liberals would rather listen to music and media critics have completely ignored it because it's so hard and painful to monitor. they read and watch tv for a living and discuss media in print and tv. the Dem Party or some rich liberal think tank (prob an oxymoron) need to monitor it with paid analysts.

talk radio needs recognition that it has been rove's most important tool and we probably wouldnt be in iraq, ignoring global warming, and putting ideological unwise ayn randian certainty addicts like alito and roberts on the supreme court without it.

once it's importance as a state propaganda tool is recognized it will become apparent that it may be more useful to protest at the local talk radio station than at the local republican reps office. war protesters may want to protest there- every day all day Limbaugh and Hannity call their reps who want the troops out traitors.

until there is a Fairness Doctrine of some kind they cant call it free speech. a guy on a spoapbox on the corner is exercising free speech rights. limbaugh and his clones who completely monopolize large parts of the country (the red states) and can lie repeatedly without correction to a nearly captive audience. they often do so in a coordinated way, repeating the same talking points that show up on the fax machines every morning. mainstream tv and print icons can then repeat them without looking like ignorant fools and hypocrites while dancing to rove's tune. if that's protected free speech then anyone who wants to protest this administration may want to start waving their signs at the giant local bush/rove soapbox- the local talk radio station. and boycot their local sponsors- how can they continue to have their products and services represented by blowhards who have been wrong about everything?. it doesnt do much to protest the main office- they just hire more staff.

and limbaugh was heavily subsidized while monopolizing the market so the free market crap is not a good excuse for local managers and owners to use for being paul reveres in reverse.

and definitely support air am and any of the independents like Mike Malloy.

No, I do understand. I simply choose to not buy the NY Times or any paper where this sort of column appears. In light of their dwindling readership, it seems I'm not alone in ignoring the supposedly liberal columnists writing for the NY Times.

I'll do exactly what I did for the 2006 midterms. Give money to the Democratic candidates and wear out shoes walking my ward and personally convincing folks to vote for a Democratic candidate. For 2008, I plan to widen my support even more.

I think that will bring the result I want--and not focusing on Dowd's silly opinions that matter to probably less than 0.5% of the voting population.

G4A,
I get it that you would like to place a truly draconian tax on people who are not enjoying the high life and you would like to make life more difficult for them, even though they are paying their way and not burdening you except that you are annoyed by what you assume to be their attitude!

Really, its not going to happen. If anything, a revision to the Alternative Minimum Tax, which hits those $97.5K - $200K households more and more - is likely to happen before any new poverty programs.

The higher share that the near poor pay in taxes is Social Security and Medicare tax, right? Thats most of the taxes they pay and many get that back as an Earned Income Tax Credit. They will all get the FICA back as benefits. The Soc Sec benefits are progressive and the Medicare tax is progressive all one's working life. If they have a gripe, its how much they earn, not how much they pay in taxes on income.

But I didn't say FICA is draconian! I said you want to raise INCOME taxes on people at $97.5K in a way thats draconian.

FICA is certainly not draconian for the lower incomes who get it all back with the EITC and since they will benefit from being in the system more than they ever contributed, its a great deal, a deal only possible because higher income people subsidize it, especially Medicare.

I can't see being hostile to millions of people based on what you think is their attitude. Everyone's for themselves first, including poor and near poor. The Democrats came to understand after Reagan that they have to communicate being on the side of people who work for a living or those people will line up with the party of the rich. Thats how the Republicans almost had the support to do away with estate tax entirely.

I think 'psychoanalyzing' from hundreds of miles away is dirty pool

but...

Dowd specializes in it, so she should get a dose of her own medicine (or is it snake oil?).

Dowd is hung up on sex because she is a dried up old maid. She lashes out at men who seem vital or virile because these men are threatening to her.

She likes 'comfortable' ugly old Republicans because they remind her of Daddy - Daddy never broke her poor little heart to pieces.

Her sexual experience with men has been a failure - hence her Old Maid status - that's why she's eager to attack vital younger men, and defend old windbag father figures.

And they wonder why people are sick of being treated like children.

Their number one priority is to feed their perception of themselves as far superior to 'the masses' of ugly people in America.

They have this clubby 'in crowd' attitude that is about two degrees away from the town gossip.

Even as this 'gatekeeper' and sort of "Hello I'm talking down to you, prole" attitude is their undoing (even as the blog notion of a learned - at least interested and literate - audience keeps growing) and yet that is the last thing they will let go of.

It's not about 'economics' or something - it's far more deep seated than that - it's elitism.

I certainly didn't.  I took the question as valid, and in the context, with all the Joes in that clan it was clear that I could have explained myself better, so I did.

I have to say that across the time I've been here I've found Tom's comments very good and very valuable reading.  He deserved better than he got this time around, and if I believed in karma balancing ratings I'd certainly give him one which made the average more fair and representative of his general contributions to TPM Café. 

Glad you're around, Tlees2!

aMike

We'll be hyphenating 5 letter words!

I think my values are what keep this country a good country for ordinary people. But thats not what matters anyway because the fact is, no political party that can win an election is going to raise income taxes like you want any more than if you wanted them to make everyone have to wear yellow on Tuesdays. Its not going to happen; but the AMT will be revised and should be.

I've been following this commentary with interest, and while it's a day later, I have to say that I fully agree with:

Dems need to learn from our past failures. I think the key is for Dems to become better at creating their own positive narratives so the smears do not stick as well

I don't find myself agreeing with ULC many times, but in this case, I do. Dems should create positive narratives so that the smears don't stick, and, they should keep the focus on Republican all out sleaziness. And stop inviting MoDo to those cocktail parties if necessary!

I am not disputing that the garbage Dowd and others insist on pushing into the public discourse doesn't have an impact. Of course it does. It generates idiotic attacks and talking points for disingenuous political hacks and smear merchants.
It is IRRELEVANT in that the price of a haircut or choice of windsurfing outfits or earth-tone clothing says absolutely nothing about a candidate's positions and qualifications. Nada. Zero. This sort of infantile trivia is a contemptible substitute for journalism and anyone -- e.g. Dowd -- who purports to have a viewpoint worth considering should stop indulging in this clowning. They should treat these ``issues'' and incidents for the irrelevant nonsense they are.

 I've found Tom's comments very good and very valuable reading.  He deserved better than he got this time around, and if I believed in karma balancing ratings I'd certainly give him one which made the average more fair and representative of his general contributions to TPM Café. 

ITA!

I did follow the news. Your link confirms what I thought. Clinton was characterized as a black Democrat.

My question to you was what do you mean by Black Republican. Can you answer that?