Salon.com has FINALLY gotten tired of Maureen Doooouuuuuwd. A current opinion writer for the New York Slimes, who got promoted for the witty, biting comments about politics and politicians. Unfortunately, (or fortunately) her rise to political pundit for the Slimes has been filled with many, well documented, and shall we say, intentional misquotes, of many people, to strengthen/justify her, twisted political view.
As others have already done, let’s put this Dowd error in context: It is not the first time she’s screwed up a quote in her column, and all of her screw-ups conveniently end up turning unremarkable statements into more outrageous ones.
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Dowd has plagiarized. She has filed columns with inaccurate datelines. Both of those incidents involved Dowd passing off the writing and reporting of others — friends and assistants — as her own, uncredited. There was also the time — still, as far as I know, never explained — when an insulting and effeminizing description of Barack Obama was mysteriously scrubbed from the online version of the column.
Any single one of those errors might’ve gotten a cub reporter fired from the Times. But no non-superstar would’ve been allowed to get away with all of those mistakes* — especially the ones that seem very much like the intentional sexing up of material. Maureen Dowd has gotten away with it because she is influential and decorated. She’s a Pulitzer winner! But her influence and fame should cause her to be held to a higher standard, not a more lax one. Mistakes — and outright dishonesty — coming from someone as prominent as Dowd are worse. If a back-of-the-Metro Section news story misquotes someone, it’s bad, but the damage is limited to the people who read the story. If Maureen Dowd manufactures a quote, it can live forever. It travels. It becomes part of “the narrative.” People are still making “who among us doesn’t like NASCAR” jokes in 2013. That will live forever, because it was so much funnier than the actual boring truth. This Quinn misquote has already become an election issue — it could play some small part in deciding who the next mayor of New York City is, if the margins are close enough.
How convenient.
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