Maureen Dowd on Clarence Thomas: I Did Do It

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT: I Did Do It
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: October 7, 2007

....Your Yale law degree isn’t worth 15 cents when everyone assumes you got special treatment because of the color of your skin, when, really, it was the witless Wonder Bread elites who got special treatment because of the color of their daddy’s money. I still have a 15-cent sticker on the frame of my law degree because it’s tainted. I keep it in the basement.

That’s why I refuse, as a justice, to give a helping hand to blacks. I don’t want them to suffer from the advantages I had. Few of them will be able to climb to my heights, of course, but if they do, they will have the satisfaction of knowing that they made it on their own, as individuals. Because Poppy Bush put me on the Supreme Court after I’d been a judge for only a year, I’ll always wonder if I got the job just because of my race. I want to spare other blacks that kind of worry. That’s why I pulled the ladder up after myself — so that my brothers and sisters would have the peace of mind that comes with self-reliance.

I used to have grave reservations about working at white institutions, subject to the whims of white superiors. But when Poppy’s whim was to crown his son — one of those privileged Yale legacy types I always resented — I had to repay The Man for putting me on the court even though I was neither qualified nor honest. So I voted to shut down the vote-counting in Florida by A. — oh, I’ll just say it: Al — because if he’d kept going he might have won. I helped swing the court in case No. 00-949, Bush v. Gore, to narrowly achieve the Bush restoration. I know it wasn’t what my hero Atticus Finch would have done. But having the power to carjack the presidency and control the fate of the country did give me that old X-rated tingle.

Al Gore’s true claims didn’t matter in that standoff any more than Anita Hill’s true claims did during my confirmation. That’s the beautiful thing about being a conservative. We don’t push for the truth. We push to win, praise the Lord.

It’s a relief to finally admit it: I’m proud to have hastened Al’s premature political death, hanging by hanging chads. It was, you might say, a low-tech lynching.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/07/opinion/07dowd.html?hp

[still_one]

1. As the good ole boys in the south would say, that is mighty white of you Clarence /nt

[Richard Steele]

2. K&R

[Maccagirl]

3. What a royal smack-down by MoDo

Too bad she didn't write with that kind of clarity and passion when Mr."Earth Tones/Alpha Male" Gore (and the entire country) needed her help.

[TomInTib]

4. Ten-Fucking-Four.

You ain't worth thirty-five cents
when you're hugging the Moon, Oh, no..

You put your hands on the Bible,
Tears in your eyes.
Kneel on the corner,
Pray for more wine.

Well, it's beans and it's bread,
But what a small price to pay..

To hold hands and go dancing
To hold hands and go dancing on the ol' Devil's grave

[Quixote1818]

5. I love Maureen Dowd! K & R for you Goddess!

:loveya:

[book_worm]

6. absolutely awesome critique of Uncle Tom Thomas

[liberalla]

7. That was fun to read. Sometimes she's so so so... Maureen

"Al Gore’s true claims didn’t matter in that standoff any more than Anita Hill’s true claims did during my confirmation. That’s the beautiful thing about being a conservative. We don’t push for the truth. We push to win, praise the Lord."

[malaise]

8. Lovely read

K & R

[KharmaTrain]

9. Quote The Bartcop

"That MoDo hates EVERYONE" :rofl:

She's made making strawman a fine art.

[tomreedtoon]

10. YES! Dowd is no heroine; she's a gossipmonger.

If her writing was worth a damn, I'm sure Thomas would get angry and put pressure on her for a retraction. But since she's slimed everybody left, right and center - she has no point of view other than being better than everyone else - he's not going to bother.

Dowd is as hateful and venomous as Joan Rivers. 'Nuff said.

[ncteechur]

11. Blistering!

[Beausoir]

12. Dowd with the spank.

[Hepburn]

13. You know what makes me so fucking angry and upset about Clarence?

This POS asshole Clarence was picked to replace a totally outstanding human being and USSC justice, Thurgood Marshall.

OMG, that is like replacing a new Rolls Royce with a 20 year old Yugo. Fuck this....someone figures cuz the color of the skin is the same...this is how it works????

:puke:

I will NEVER get over the fact that some thought it OK and approved Clarence the Asshole filling the seat of Justice Thurgood Marshall. What a complete and total travesty!

[Gabi Hayes]

14. for those of you with attenuated memory....fuck HER! remember this:

Throughout much of 1999, Dowd promoted the falsehoods that Gore once claimed to have invented the Internet by repeatedly referring to him as "the Father of the Internet." Notably, on March 24, 1999, Dowd wrote that Gore had "drawn ridicule by boasting that he was the father of the Internet." In fact, as Media Matters for America has noted, Gore did not say he "invented" the Internet. In the March 9, 1999, interview on CNN's Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer that gave rise to the myth, Gore actually said: "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." Despite this, Dowd has mockingly referred to Gore as "the Father of the Internet" at least three different times in 1999.*

.........

she's one of the 'liberal media' who helped Bush get close enough to steal the election. she was an opinion leader who SET THE NARRATIVE early on. she can say all she wants now, but she's one of those most culpable for what we have now

lots and lots more here

http://mediamatters.org/items/200703010001?offset=20&show=1

[Flubadubya]

17. You are absolutely right Mr. Hayes...

See post #16. I am sorry, but my very first experiences of Ms. Dowd were not at all pleasant, nor did they reinforce my sense that she was a completely unbiased reporter. As a matter of fact, I was convinced of just the opposite... the woman seems a bit too much like Chris "Tweety" Matthews... forever unhinged and always willing to hype the latest flap. She and Chris are two of a kind... those who go with the prevailing winds of political gossip... period. They are neither true to their profession, nor to their own conscience, I would expect. I really despise that kind of willfulness and apparent bipolar disposition. They stand for nothing... except their willingness to whore themselves for the latest fad in "political acceptance", i.e. that which makes them seem "hep" to the most up-to-date in the opinion field. I do appreciate her writing skills and her ability to touch upon some aspect of the truth, yet I find her behavior rather despicable when it comes to the pronouncemt of real truth at all times!

[marlakay]

15. Is Maureen herself trying a do over?

She must have some guilt herself to write this article.

[Flubadubya]

16. Maureen should deservedly have some guilt...

I will never forget how she laid into Big Dog during the impeachment debacle. She was as adamant and vicious in her attack on the President as was any right-wing pit bull that attacked him at that time. I thought she was a complete disgrace in her offense on the President at that time. I appreciate when she recognizes and displays the truth in this case with Clarence Thomas, but she really needs to hang her head in shame for the way she skewered Bill Clinton when all it was for him was a Right Wing "high tech" lynching.

Ms. Dowd needs to, perhaps, reconsider this whole lynching thing... as she participated whole-heartedly in that of our 42nd President. :eyes: :thumbsdown: