Dowd Still Not Sorry For Making Al Gore Grow a Beard

Yesterday's Maureen Dowd column (oh, thank heavens for the end of TimesSelect!) was a wacky inside joke in which Dowd wrote ostensibly from the perspective of Justice Clarence Thomas, railing against Al Gore and disguising it as Anita Hill. Thomas refuses to apologize for denying Gore the presidency because he is a bore. It has been a while since we actually read MoDo regularly, so maybe our grasp of her grasp of irony is a bit rusty, but the whole thing is kinda funny considering how Dowd herself is nearly as responsible for Al's political destruction as one vilified member of the court that sold him out!

It wasn't until we were 9 paragraphs in that we even realized it was a hilarious Anita Hill joke andnotjust a belated admission of guilt on Dowd's actual behalf.

I knew I was misusing my position, but I enjoyed having that kind of raw power over A. and saying the things I said. It made me tingle all over. I'm not going to deny that.

The liberals have turned A. into an icon. Give me a break. We are talking about a world-class know-it-all -- someone prissy, uptight and no fun.

Not the sort of person I'd like to tailgate with, listen to Marvin Gaye with, share Ripple or a Scotch and Drambuie or a blackberry brandy with -- if I were still drinking.

Ha ha get it? It's uptight Thomas complaining about Gore by using the exact same mischaracterizations Dowd pioneered in the late 90s! From exaggerating and magnifying Gore's (sadly true!) Love Story and Internet-inventing statements to babbling about earth tones and Alpha Males Dowd helped turn the first Presidential candidate since Adlai Stevenson with a genuine sense of irony (dude's on30 Rockthis year!) into a modern-day Adlai Stevenson -- humorless egghead loser.

But yeah -- we are baffled as to whether yesterday's column is a Dowd admitting responsibility or another boring "write from the perspective of someone famous but still in the inimitable, obnoxious voice of Maureen Dowd" gag. Or both? Har har who cares Al is boring! Global warming internet blah blah blah!

 I Did Do It [NYT]

 Dowd and the Kneecapping of Gore [Lawyers, Guns & Money]