Remember those old Pantene shampoo ads with ’80s modeling sensation Kelly LeBrock? “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.”
Apparently women like Maureen Dowd and Liz Trotta didn’t get the memo. (Perhaps Keith Olbermann fits into this category as well.) They’re still hounding Sarah Palin — Dowd with her recycled “Caribou Barbie” shtick that passes for humor in the sourly elite pages of the New York Times, and Trotta’s contention that Palin is “inarticulate and undereducated,” hadn’t accomplished anything, “brought the attacks on herself,” is “wacky and nutty,” and only got ahead because of her looks. Oh, and Trotta thinks Dowd is funny and witty. So do I — when compared to having a root canal. Actually, I think the root canal is preferable (yes, I have had one).
What Trotta finds amusing is Dowd’s latest snark against Palin, which is chock full of her usual tired repartee: we are treated to phrases like “girlish bubbling” and “Sarah’s country music melodramas,” which is code for white trash. And we all know how liberals feel about white trash, a.k.a. average Americans who don’t read the New York Times — they’re beneath contempt until it’s time to ask them for either their votes or their money. Or both, depending on who’s doing the asking.
Meanwhile, the woman who criticized Palin’s “girlish bubbling” did some bubbling of her own back in 2005 when she was pushing her book Are Men Necessary? (Answer: yes, they are, except for those who can’t seem to get one of their own.) Myrna Blyth wrote about Dowd’s behavior during the publicity blitz at the time:
We know from that adoring cover story in New York magazine a few weeks back that Maureen favors green cowboy boots, a pink Burberry — and lots of lame. That story also confided that Maureen is just such a “fox,” an assertion that was somewhat belied by the photos, both old and current, accompanying the feature. The truth is that she is now a woman in her 50s who looks like an attractive woman in her 50s. Except for her forehead, which is age 27 and so smooth (I wonder, how come?) that it seems she wouldn’t be able to frown even if Gloria Steinem hit her over the head with a frying pan.
But it isn’t only that this 53-year-old mutton is shopping in the wrong boutiques; what’s really striking is that Maureen acts so lamb-like in these interviews, gamboling and simpering, giggling and flirting and telling everyone she is “such a ditz.” To the New York magazine reporter, she admitted that she is always losing cell phones and laptops — just the kind of behavior a mother would find intolerable in any child older than 16.
Wow, Dowd is a ditz? Who knew?
It’s funny how Dowd always seems to be ragging on Palin’s looks. Dowd is an attractive woman in her own right who likes to dress herself well. So why the constant harping on things like Palin’s Naughty Monkey high heels? I guess it’s okay to dress to the nines for a social butterfly in Manhattan, but not okay for a conservative hick like Palin who seems to be at home in a pair of jeans, a work shirt, and a shotgun over her shoulder. The only gun I can imagine Dowd with is one of those teeny little derringers that fit into a beaded clutch handbag next to the Bobbi Brown lipstick — if, of course, she could bring herself to touch it.
Anyone who has worked with all women can tell you that the atmosphere can become quite toxic as petty jealousies and imagined slights are blown all out of proportion. While men will bring problems out into the open and then forget about them once they’ve been resolved, women will continue to bitch and moan, backstabbing while they smile to each other’s faces. Sorry ladies, but you know it’s true. I must admit that given the choice, I’d rather work with all men than all women. There’s a lot less day-to-day angst. Men may not notice when you get a new hairstyle, but they’re also less likely to pick up on your bad hair day and snicker about it with coworkers in the break room. Which is worse? (For more insight on an all-woman work environment, read this enlightening article about one woman’s dream of an all-woman company that went down in flames.)
Andrew Breitbart got it right when he described Dowd and her feminist compatriots in his latest Washington Times column:
Misses Dowd, Couric, and Fey — Obama’s Angels (featuring Joy Behar in the role of “Bosley”) — used a potent mix of mockery, snobbery, and vitriol to undermine Mrs. Palin’s feminist bona fides.
They are what my wife calls “pad throwers,” an allusion to the shower room scene in the Stephen King film Carrie, in which the popular girls throw sanitary napkins and tampons at the film’s namesake.
Simply put, they are bullies. And female bullies — Mean Girls as Miss Fey’s film calls them — are the cruelest kind.
Bottom line: Palin didn’t play by their rules, and for that she must pay. And pay. And pay again. It’s like the IRS with a manicure.
I’m not going to speculate as to what made Palin decide to step down. If she wanted me to know the details, she would have called me — however, for some reason, I’m not on her speed dial. Yet her speech made it fairly clear that we’ll hear from her again in one capacity or another in the near future — which must infuriate those who have made it their mission to cut her down to size. What makes it worse is that she hasn’t learned her lesson! She’s like Jason in the Friday the 13th movie series. No matter how many times they plunge their knives in, she comes back stronger than ever.
Palin has more “street cred” in mainstream America than Dowd, Trotta, and their crowd could ever wish. She wasn’t vetted by the self-anointed elite, yet she became a household name in less time than it takes to drag one’s eyes over one of Dowd’s tortuously trite columns.
Isn’t that what it’s really all about?
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