Timesgate Hits Maureen Dowd

Newsmax.com ^ | 5-28-03 | Carl Limbacher

[Rummyfan]

Imus and Bernard seem to treat anything on the Times Op Ed page as holy writ. G*d knows why?!

[Bonaparte]

Dowd's Sloppy Use Of Polls

Dowd, Krugman and Moore Make Inflammatory Accusations

Dowd's Ad Hoc Psychologizing

And there is this from a 2001 article by Ben Fritz (scroll to bottom) --

Another example came from New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, who utilized the patriotism line of attack recently in a column attacking the Bush administration for not taking the threats our nation faces seriously enough. In it, she wrote that the government should "[b]e critical of corporations for cutting back on jobs in order to boost profits and report earnings and have stocks go up, when the patriotic thing at this point is not to cut back on jobs but to employ as many people as possible."

Backhandedly calling businesses that lay people off unpatriotic is unfair. Dowd simply brushes over the fact that the United States is almost certainly in a recession, and businesses that don't cut back on costs face consequences ranging from severe losses to the prospect of bankruptcy. Patriotism cannot overrule the basic rules of a capitalist economy--and Dowd should be ashamed of accusing businesses that follow them of dismissing their duty to the country.

[husky ed]

Time for the Clinton defense:

They all do it! That's in the past! I don't remember!

[latrans]

"whether the celebrated columnist had deliberately misreported a Bush quote. "

Come on! Of course she deliberately misquoted him. Her
article had no merit without the altered quote!

[Publius6961]

Kewl. Let's hope her column goes down in flames.

For using a tried and true pinko-liberal-socialist-progressive quoting out of context tool?
I don't think so.

Every journalism schools sees it as a perfectly honest and valid tool!

[GSWarrior]

Journalistically speaking, there is noting wrong with Dowd's comments.

"'Al Qaeda is on the run,' President Bush said last week. 'That group of terrorists who attacked our country is slowly but surely being decimated ... they're not a problem anymore.'"

An ellipsis signifies that something has been left out, that the quote is not in its entirety. But how many people who read the Times actually know this, however.

Had she left out the ellipsis, you could definitely call it a misquote.

On another level however, it is disingenous, sleazy and designed to mislead.

[Richard Kimball]

Had she left out the ellipsis, you could definitely call it a misquote.

I've been thinking there should be a term for using the ... to change the meaning of what someone says when writing an article. How about a "Dowdy"? I think it could become as popular as a "Jayson" for making things up out of whole cloth, but I doubt it will ever reach "Clymer" status.

[Howlin]

She left out the qualifying phrase.

[GSWarrior]

I...like it.

[Bonaparte]

"They all do it! That's in the past! I don't remember!"

And "it's all about sex" -- since every one of these people got here in the first place through sexual reproduction, right? It's undeniable, that if it weren't for that, we wouldn't even be having this discussion.

[Bonaparte]

Great idea, RK!

He jaysoned his way through the term paper requirement.

Unable to speak on his own behalf, he was dowdlerized in the press.

[PBRSTREETGANG]

Maureen is liberal white woman. She can do no wrong.

Yes, she can...

but ONLY to a liberal black woman.

[Starboard]

An ellipsis signifies that something has been left out, that the quote is not in its entirety

Actually, its more than that. When an ellipsis is used, words can be omitted only if they are not necessary to understanding the intent of the comment or passage. In this case, Bush's use of the word 'either', in two cases, was essential to understanding his remark. But of course, the Times is only concered with advancing its political agenda so their editorial reviews don't provide much of an oversight mechanism to stop such disengenuous and misleading practices by their cadre of liberal "journalists".

[blackbart1]

She is such a role model that I skim right over any article she might write. Never read her!

[ewing]

I think Imus reads Dowd in the way that we do, disbelieving how over the top they are since she started 'hooking up' with Aaron Sorkin..

[don-o]

Nice to see some liberal blood in the water, and sharks catching the scent.

Shoe on the other foot and whatnot -

Works for me

[don-o]

Does anyone know why Imus likes Dowd's columns.

Can't say that I do. But Imus just goes with his gut. In fact, I thought I heard him blasting her this morning.

[xm177e2]

Not only was it deliberate - I believe Howell Raines edited it ... or else he agreed to her "editing" the President's statement to try to show Bush in a bad light; which is the only goal Howell has in life.

I doubt Howell interferes with Dowd's columns; she does that stuff without being asked. It's the real reporters who have their stories mangled by editors.

[L.N. Smithee]

But while Bush was clearly referring to the "top al-Qaeda operatives" who were "either jailed or dead" when he said they were no longer "a problem anymore," Dowd's truncated version made it sound as if Bush was boasting that he'd wiped out al-Qaeda entirely.

Bad as it is, what Dowd did to Bush is NOTHING compared to what Michael Moore did to Charlton Heston.

Moore took recorded parts of two separate speeches by Heston -- given a year apart -- and constructed them out-of-sequence into an easily bashable series of sentences in a context Heston never intended.

[GSWarrior]

Thanks. I was wondering what exactly are the rules governing the use of an ellipsis.