Posted on 06/16/2003 11:42:34 AM PDT by jmstein7
JUN. 15, 2003: FABULISTS
Maureen Blair
Maureen Dowd seems to have learned nothing from the Jayson Blair fiasco. No, that’s not quite right. She does seem to have learned one thing from the paper of record’s plagiarist of record. Fresh from the scandal of being caught abusing ellipses to twist President Bush’s words, she is now using other people’s work to pad out a column when the deadline clock is tolling.
Yesterday, Dowd wrote one of her trademark gaseous columns about popular culture turning its back on the accomplishments of feminism, etc., etc.
As the column trudged wearily to its end, there unexpectedly appeared an unusual thought, vividly phrased: “There's even a retro trend among women toward deserting the fast track for a pleasant life of sitting around Starbucks gabbing with their girlfriends, baby strollers beside them ...."
Now compare Dowd’s words to these, broadcast on National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition” two weeks ago:
“You see them at Starbucks at two o’clock on a weekday afternoon, pushing a stroller and balancing a latte, with a slight look of bewilderment on their faces, as if to say, ‘How did I end up here?’ … Yet forty years after the launch of the women’s movement, this is exactly what many former career women find themselves doing.”
The broadcaster in question happened to be my wife, Danielle Crittenden, and the "trend" to which Dowd refers (in the late 1990s, the percentage of mothers of young children who worked dropped for the first time in a quarter century) provides the theme for Danielle's new novel.
Asked for comment about how she feels about playing Macarena Hernandez to Dowd’s Jayson Blair, Danielle said only, “Be nice: Maybe she sent a stringer to the Starbucks to look around for her.”
French Sophistication
Valery Giscard D’Estaing, the former French president who now chairs the European Union’s constitutional convention, claims to be fascinated with Anglo-American legal history. The obvious precedent for his work, he explained last week to Elaine Sciolino of the New York Times, is the Philadelphia Convention of 1787. And his own role, he coyly acknowledges, is analogous to that of Thomas Jefferson, the framer of the U.S. Constitution:
“ ‘I tried to play a little bit the role that Jefferson played, which was to instill leading ideas into the system,’ [Giscard] said of his 16-month adventure in producing the first draft of a constitution for Europe. ‘Jefferson was a man who wrote and produced elements that consolidated the Constitution.’”
One problem. Jefferson had nothing whatsoever to do with the drafting of the U.S. Constitution. At the time of the Convention, Jefferson was America’s ambassador to France. And not only did Jefferson not “write and produce” the Constitution, but when he at last did read it three months after it was finished, he was to say the least, dubious.
In his most famous writing on the subject – the November 13, 1787, letter that called for periodically watering the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants – Jefferson observed of the new Constitution, “There are very good articles in it, and very bad. I do not know which preponderate.” He was partly, but only partly, mollified by the addition of a Bill of Rights in 1789. . . .
[MORE IN ARTICLE]
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
She should be in Hollwood, writing episodes for the insipid Sex and The City, or other such "women's" drivel.
Now compare Dowd’s words to these, broadcast on National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition” two weeks ago:
“You see them at Starbucks at two o’clock on a weekday afternoon, pushing a stroller and balancing a latte, with a slight look of bewilderment on their faces, as if to say, ‘How did I end up here?’ … Yet forty years after the launch of the women’s movement, this is exactly what many former career women find themselves doing.”
Not close enough. Although I utterly despise Dowd, this is nothing close to plagiarism. Does Danielle now 'own' the concept of a woman at Starbucks with a baby-stroller?
I agree. I've heard and read others comment on the Starbucks mommy scene. At worst Dowd is guilty of jumping on the bandwagon.
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