Wednesday, April 14, 2004
Translating MoDo
Taking a page from the felicitious Wonkette, who skillfully dissects the often immutable Tina Brown every Friday (do check it out), I have decided to provide the same service for fans, and anti-fans, of the, yes, still babelicious, Maureen Dowd.
MoDo, this Marxist maven of the deft left, serves as the twice-week (Sunday-Thursday) absurdly partisan commentator at the former paper of record, now DNC newsletter, known as The New York Times. This entry will deal with her last two pieces and from then on I will suffice to settle her hash in schedule.
From April 11th:
“It would come in handy for Karen Hughes's Bush-nannying book tour and Condoleezza Rice's Clarke-riposting 9/11 commission testimony.”
Means: Yes, I am pissed about the book’s sales and Rice’s slam-dunk.
“And I was desperately wishing for it yesterday, when Donald Rumsfeld held forth at a Pentagon briefing.”
Means: I don’t “hold forth.” Only other people, Republicans, “hold forth.”
Even though the assumptions the Bush administration used to go to war have now proved to be astonishingly arrogant, naïve and ideological, Mr. Rumsfeld is as testy and Delphic as ever about the fragility of Iraq.
Means: One adjective is never enough, even when they contradict each other. It’s cadence, okay? Whatever. I have a Pulitzer.
“Our troops in Iraq don't know who they're fighting and who they're saving. They don't know when they're coming home or when they're being forcibly re-upped by Rummy. Our diplomats in Baghdad don't know who they're handing the country over to next month. And Bush officials don't know where to go for help, since the military's tapped out, the allies have cold feet, the Arab world's angry and the rest of the globe is thinking, ‘You got what you deserved.’”
Means: Hey, I watch the BBC. I know what’s going on.
“The marines had to fire rockets at a mosque in Falluja used by the Shiite followers of the radical cleric Moktada al-Sadr, and the hospitals are filled with civilians. Instead of playing soccer with kids, now the marines have to worry that the kids are the enemy, spotting targets or wielding guns.”
Means: Okay, I meant Sunnis – they all look alike to me. And check it – I used his FULL name. Got the spelling off Memri, baby. Or my intern did. Whatever. God, I’m good.
“Paul Wolfowitz assumed that the Shiites, tormented by Saddam over their religion, would be grateful, not hateful. Wrong. It isn't a cakewalk; it's chaos.”
Means: This was on NPR, okay? I heard them say this.
“Every single thing the administration calculated would happen in Iraq has turned out the opposite. The W.M.D. that supposedly threatened us did not exist. The dangerous dictator was deluded and writing romance novels.”
Means: Kurds Schmurds. Hell, he only killed a few thousand. Or, hundred thousand. Whatever. I have a Pulitzer.
“Rummy also thought he could show off his transformation of the military, using a leaner force. Now even some Republicans say he is putting our troops at risk by stubbornly refusing to admit he was wrong.”
Means: For other people to admit mistakes is always good; for Rummy to do it would give me several weeks of columns. But it would be wrong for a DNC newsletter columnist to do such things.
“The hawks thought they could establish a democracy that would produce a domino effect in the Arab world. Wrong. The dominoes are falling in a scarier direction.”
Means: Yes, I'm excluding the Taliban, Saddam, Libya, Arafat, etc.
“The president thought he could improve on the ending to his father's gulf war. Wrong again.”
Means: Yes, I mean after Saddam’s capture in a hole.
And MoDo from April 8th:
“Young Americans are bravely fighting and dying in Iraq, trying to fulfill the audacious vision of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney to remold Iraq in the image of America.
But while we try to turn them into us, who have we become?”
Means: It’s important to sounds lamenting when discussing America in broad strokes – keeps up my liberal bona fides and gives an illusion of tragic, well-meaning patriotism.
“From Abigail Adams to Tom Sawyer to Bugs Bunny to Jimmy Stewart's Jefferson Smith to Indiana Jones, the best American character is plucky, nimble, clever, inventive.”
Means: Like me! Like me!
“So it's disturbing to see our government reacting to crises with a jaded shrug and lumbering gait, especially since we are up against such a creative, chameleonlike enemy."
Means: Damn you Didion! I had to jump through hoops to get around “slouching”, grrr.
“Consider the pathetic performance of NASA, which inverted its motto to "Failure is an option" by shrugging off warnings about the safety of the seven Columbia astronauts who burned up coming back to earth, and not trying to send up a rescue shuttle.”
Means: Huh, I was trying for one paragraph that didn’t attack a Bush Admin official, (some new rule, I don’t know). Ended up with a personal (and erroneous) slam on an organization that saw their seven good friends burn to death. Kinda weird, oh well. Next.
“And what would Eliot Ness say about an F.B.I. that is less computer savvy than American preschoolers and Islamic terrorists? The F.B.I. is only halfway through modernizing its computers, which could not, before 9/11, do two searches at once, such as "Al Qaeda" and "flight schools." Can't we draft Bill Gates for duty?”
Means: Conceal facts of longstanding liberal fear/campaign against an embolded FBI? Check.
“This ominous passivity was threaded through the testimony of Ms. Rice, a brainy and accomplished woman who should represent the best of America. She blamed "systemic" and "structural" impediments that prevented the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. from sharing. She complained that other people hadn't recommended what she should do; even the terrorists were faulted for not giving specifics.
Means: (giggle) Quite proud of this graf – lots accomplished here. First, passivity in women is ALWAYS ominous, if not nefarious! My duty to point that out. Second sentence: note how placing normal everyday words in quotations lends them asuspect nature? An aire of triviality? Or je ne sais quoi? Brilliant! The sentence is meaningless otherwise, but the quotes give that wink of cahoots to the reader, saying “you know?” with the eyes, when all the while I haven’t a clue! Then third: While I realize it was the intelligence that was faulted, (I’m not stupid!) I spin it with a casual humor that Condi blames the terrorists. Ah, how lovely that all came together. It’s why I make the big bucks.
“The screeching chatter in the spring and summer of 2001 — ‘There will be attacks in the near future’ — did not yank Mr. Bush and his team from their Iraq fixation. ‘But they don't tell us when,’ Ms. Rice protested. ‘They don't tell us where, they don't tell us who, and they don't tell us how.’ Paging Nancy Drew.”
Means: Chatter screeches. What? It does. Really! And Nancy Drew books are nostalgic for me and mentioning them helps me keep my lesbian audience.
“What should have made Condi hysterical, she deemed ‘historical.’”
Means: Bill, did you SEE my word play? Heh heh. Thought of it allbymyself.
“On Iraq, they ran roughshod over the system. On Al Qaeda, Condi blamed the system, saying she couldn't act on Richard Clarke's plan until there was a strategy, a policy, "tasking," meetings, etc.”
Means: Meetings? A strategy? Bush, of course, needs these things for Iraq but we don’t need a strategy for everything, I mean that takes time! Look at Kerry! He doesn’t have a strategy for anything! Er, I mean…… anyway…..One must always run ‘roughshod,’ you know. That’s how I got my Pulitzer. My sex appeal had nothing to do with it. Ask Naomi Wolf – she’ll tell you.
"Dick Clarke has struck a chord because his passionate efforts reflected those great American virtues of ingenuity and brashness."
Means: Like me! Like me!
Even if he was a bit of a cowboy, loading up his .357 sidearm to return to the West Wing the night after 9/11, at least he was not dozing through High Noon.
[We have removed the words “like President Clinton” from the end of the piece. Though accurate, we feel a sin of omission is not out of place in this instance, and will strengthen the overall piece. - DNC eds.]
Comments: ozymandias_1@hotmail.com
Taking a page from the felicitious Wonkette, who skillfully dissects the often immutable Tina Brown every Friday (do check it out), I have decided to provide the same service for fans, and anti-fans, of the, yes, still babelicious, Maureen Dowd.
MoDo, this Marxist maven of the deft left, serves as the twice-week (Sunday-Thursday) absurdly partisan commentator at the former paper of record, now DNC newsletter, known as The New York Times. This entry will deal with her last two pieces and from then on I will suffice to settle her hash in schedule.
From April 11th:
“It would come in handy for Karen Hughes's Bush-nannying book tour and Condoleezza Rice's Clarke-riposting 9/11 commission testimony.”
Means: Yes, I am pissed about the book’s sales and Rice’s slam-dunk.
“And I was desperately wishing for it yesterday, when Donald Rumsfeld held forth at a Pentagon briefing.”
Means: I don’t “hold forth.” Only other people, Republicans, “hold forth.”
Even though the assumptions the Bush administration used to go to war have now proved to be astonishingly arrogant, naïve and ideological, Mr. Rumsfeld is as testy and Delphic as ever about the fragility of Iraq.
Means: One adjective is never enough, even when they contradict each other. It’s cadence, okay? Whatever. I have a Pulitzer.
“Our troops in Iraq don't know who they're fighting and who they're saving. They don't know when they're coming home or when they're being forcibly re-upped by Rummy. Our diplomats in Baghdad don't know who they're handing the country over to next month. And Bush officials don't know where to go for help, since the military's tapped out, the allies have cold feet, the Arab world's angry and the rest of the globe is thinking, ‘You got what you deserved.’”
Means: Hey, I watch the BBC. I know what’s going on.
“The marines had to fire rockets at a mosque in Falluja used by the Shiite followers of the radical cleric Moktada al-Sadr, and the hospitals are filled with civilians. Instead of playing soccer with kids, now the marines have to worry that the kids are the enemy, spotting targets or wielding guns.”
Means: Okay, I meant Sunnis – they all look alike to me. And check it – I used his FULL name. Got the spelling off Memri, baby. Or my intern did. Whatever. God, I’m good.
“Paul Wolfowitz assumed that the Shiites, tormented by Saddam over their religion, would be grateful, not hateful. Wrong. It isn't a cakewalk; it's chaos.”
Means: This was on NPR, okay? I heard them say this.
“Every single thing the administration calculated would happen in Iraq has turned out the opposite. The W.M.D. that supposedly threatened us did not exist. The dangerous dictator was deluded and writing romance novels.”
Means: Kurds Schmurds. Hell, he only killed a few thousand. Or, hundred thousand. Whatever. I have a Pulitzer.
“Rummy also thought he could show off his transformation of the military, using a leaner force. Now even some Republicans say he is putting our troops at risk by stubbornly refusing to admit he was wrong.”
Means: For other people to admit mistakes is always good; for Rummy to do it would give me several weeks of columns. But it would be wrong for a DNC newsletter columnist to do such things.
“The hawks thought they could establish a democracy that would produce a domino effect in the Arab world. Wrong. The dominoes are falling in a scarier direction.”
Means: Yes, I'm excluding the Taliban, Saddam, Libya, Arafat, etc.
“The president thought he could improve on the ending to his father's gulf war. Wrong again.”
Means: Yes, I mean after Saddam’s capture in a hole.
And MoDo from April 8th:
“Young Americans are bravely fighting and dying in Iraq, trying to fulfill the audacious vision of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney to remold Iraq in the image of America.
But while we try to turn them into us, who have we become?”
Means: It’s important to sounds lamenting when discussing America in broad strokes – keeps up my liberal bona fides and gives an illusion of tragic, well-meaning patriotism.
“From Abigail Adams to Tom Sawyer to Bugs Bunny to Jimmy Stewart's Jefferson Smith to Indiana Jones, the best American character is plucky, nimble, clever, inventive.”
Means: Like me! Like me!
“So it's disturbing to see our government reacting to crises with a jaded shrug and lumbering gait, especially since we are up against such a creative, chameleonlike enemy."
Means: Damn you Didion! I had to jump through hoops to get around “slouching”, grrr.
“Consider the pathetic performance of NASA, which inverted its motto to "Failure is an option" by shrugging off warnings about the safety of the seven Columbia astronauts who burned up coming back to earth, and not trying to send up a rescue shuttle.”
Means: Huh, I was trying for one paragraph that didn’t attack a Bush Admin official, (some new rule, I don’t know). Ended up with a personal (and erroneous) slam on an organization that saw their seven good friends burn to death. Kinda weird, oh well. Next.
“And what would Eliot Ness say about an F.B.I. that is less computer savvy than American preschoolers and Islamic terrorists? The F.B.I. is only halfway through modernizing its computers, which could not, before 9/11, do two searches at once, such as "Al Qaeda" and "flight schools." Can't we draft Bill Gates for duty?”
Means: Conceal facts of longstanding liberal fear/campaign against an embolded FBI? Check.
“This ominous passivity was threaded through the testimony of Ms. Rice, a brainy and accomplished woman who should represent the best of America. She blamed "systemic" and "structural" impediments that prevented the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. from sharing. She complained that other people hadn't recommended what she should do; even the terrorists were faulted for not giving specifics.
Means: (giggle) Quite proud of this graf – lots accomplished here. First, passivity in women is ALWAYS ominous, if not nefarious! My duty to point that out. Second sentence: note how placing normal everyday words in quotations lends them asuspect nature? An aire of triviality? Or je ne sais quoi? Brilliant! The sentence is meaningless otherwise, but the quotes give that wink of cahoots to the reader, saying “you know?” with the eyes, when all the while I haven’t a clue! Then third: While I realize it was the intelligence that was faulted, (I’m not stupid!) I spin it with a casual humor that Condi blames the terrorists. Ah, how lovely that all came together. It’s why I make the big bucks.
“The screeching chatter in the spring and summer of 2001 — ‘There will be attacks in the near future’ — did not yank Mr. Bush and his team from their Iraq fixation. ‘But they don't tell us when,’ Ms. Rice protested. ‘They don't tell us where, they don't tell us who, and they don't tell us how.’ Paging Nancy Drew.”
Means: Chatter screeches. What? It does. Really! And Nancy Drew books are nostalgic for me and mentioning them helps me keep my lesbian audience.
“What should have made Condi hysterical, she deemed ‘historical.’”
Means: Bill, did you SEE my word play? Heh heh. Thought of it allbymyself.
“On Iraq, they ran roughshod over the system. On Al Qaeda, Condi blamed the system, saying she couldn't act on Richard Clarke's plan until there was a strategy, a policy, "tasking," meetings, etc.”
Means: Meetings? A strategy? Bush, of course, needs these things for Iraq but we don’t need a strategy for everything, I mean that takes time! Look at Kerry! He doesn’t have a strategy for anything! Er, I mean…… anyway…..One must always run ‘roughshod,’ you know. That’s how I got my Pulitzer. My sex appeal had nothing to do with it. Ask Naomi Wolf – she’ll tell you.
"Dick Clarke has struck a chord because his passionate efforts reflected those great American virtues of ingenuity and brashness."
Means: Like me! Like me!
Even if he was a bit of a cowboy, loading up his .357 sidearm to return to the West Wing the night after 9/11, at least he was not dozing through High Noon.
[We have removed the words “like President Clinton” from the end of the piece. Though accurate, we feel a sin of omission is not out of place in this instance, and will strengthen the overall piece. - DNC eds.]
Comments: ozymandias_1@hotmail.com
