Maureen Dowd Looks At Blogging

It's been a while since Maureen Dowd nailed it in a column. There was a time in Bush's first term when she was so on her game that the columns transcended traditional media and became a way to maintain your sanity. Sort of like the best of the blogs. Before anyone else got it about the weirdness inherent in the Bush drama on a family level, she was there with Bush World. So what happened? Frankly, George Bush's reign has now gotten so ugly that Maureen's humorous, whimsical "Bush World" tone no longer works. It's like she was personally overwhelmed by the sheer horror this administration has wrought.
So it was kind of nice revisiting her humorous style again in her latest column. It's set in Las Vegas, where she ventured into a gathering from the blogosphere. Here are some lines: "I, Old Media, came here to attend a New Media convention of progressive political bloggers aiming for a technological revolution that would dispatch mainstream media to the tumbrels. It was the journalistic equivalent of mingling with your own pod replicant in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers."" She meets Markos Moulitsas, from "The Daily Kos" who tells her, "I don't plan on doing any original reporting — screw that. I need people like you." Markos feels the bloggers react to Old Media so the relationship is "symbiotic."
Maureen notes the many bloggers who have used the New Media to get into Old Media, and she writes melodramatically, "I'll be at the Cleopatra slot machine pondering a career in blogging, which will set me up to get back into mainstream media someday."
Okay, it's not exactly "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", but Maureen seems back on her game here - finally. I hate paying for the service when the columns are lame. Still, no matter what happens, she'll always be at the top of my list of columnists. Who else uses words like "tumbrels"? What other columnist gets called out by name by Donald Rumsfeld? It's simple, really: Maureen's writing helped get me through the first years of the Bush administration - the way the blogs are helping me now. Hell, I wish she'd get her own blog. I've emailed her a few times - I'd love to write in on the Maureen Dowd blog. I've got it! The Dowd Report! Not just every few days, but every few hours. How her life's going - the whole bit. As for the most exciting part of the New Media world, the quote a little earlier in her column says it all. It's from Markos Moulitsas, the Daily Kos guy who came out of nowhere to get over 600,000 hits a day. He told Maureen, "Traditionally it was hard to get your job. Now regular people can score your job."