This is an unbelievably good op-ed, from the opening anecdote (almost too good to be true -- but it has names! (I hope the 83-year-old doesn't get angry)) to the final intonation.
Paraphrasing Tony Shalhoub as Monk, Dowd has "a gift -- a a curse" that she seems to be capable of producing outstanding op-eds when, and only when, she's in the process of burying one Clinton or the other (or both), for example describing their own marriage as "a series of unappetizing compromises, arrangements and dependencies."
Has it really be 16 years (no: actually 15.5) since the first time I tried to explain to a college freshman classmate the point embedded in this MoDo quote?
"Hillary is not the best test case for women. We’ll never know how much of the backlash is because she’s a woman or because she’s this woman."
(emphasis in original, but changed here from italic to bold)
Abstracting away from the politics (if that's even possible), I think one key to the greatness of this piece is that she avoids gratuitous cutesy pop culture allegories. (Gratuitous cutesy pop culture allegories are to her what gratuitous typecasting (with even more gratuitous neologism) is to David Brooks; those are arguably different flavors of the same embarrassing writing tic/crutch.)
Posted by Matt Bruce at February 13, 2008 06:47 PMI don't read MoDo all that much and don't know what a typical piece looks like. This one was fine, and if that makes it all that much better than her usual fare, all the better.
One thing I didn't catch -- maybe I missed it -- if Sen. Clinton doesn't end up winning this election, and presuming she doesn't run again, who's going to be this hypothetical Madame President?
Say what you will about Sen. Clinton (and believe me, I will too), but I can't think of another female American with any chance of being president in the near future. I can't even think of one who's expressed the desire to be president.
Except...maybe Oprah on both counts?
Posted by: ZD at February 15, 2008 12:46 AM