Maureen Dowd writes on Zenyatta????

[JustRalph]

Dowd gets it all wrong in her column again.......... but uses Zenyatta to illustrate her point.......What the hell is next ? Delta Downs picks from Chris Mathews?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/op...ef=maureendowd

OP-ED COLUMNIST
Sirens, Egyptian and Equine
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: November 13, 2010

[Jasonm921]

Dowd...give it up.

[tucker6]

Originally Posted by Jasonm921

Dowd...give it up.

no. no. NO. Please, let her write these stories. I was overseas, and her political column was in a socialist rag. After reading it, I don't want her to write about serious subjects ever again. Horses may be more in balance with her critical thinking abilities.

[rastajenk]

[QUOTE=JustRalph..... but uses Zenyatta to illustrate her point.......[/QUOTE]What exactly was her point? I'm just a rube from FlyOver America, I guess I need things explained to me; but her opening sentence couldn't be more wrong, so I was lost from the start.

[FenceBored]

Hey, she's stealing my schtick. I did the Zenyatta/Cleopatra connection first. And better, if I may be so bold.

Cleopatra, Zenyatta fan, a real Queen of Denial

[Grits]

Fence, who knew she read PACE A? LOLOLLLLLLLLLLLL

One never knows who is reading, huh!

[mountainman]

Say what you want, but conservative pundits don't include trip-notes in their columns. Dowd gets points for that. I wonder if she does track bias too?

[Learned Hand35]

1. Maybe Dowd does read PA. (It is not like writers from the NY Times are above ripping off other's material.) Actually, not a rip-off, but certainly derivative which wouldn't be surprising, as it seems to me everything Dowd writes is derivative.

2. Zenyatta won me over in the 2009 BC. Prior, I had bet against her every time and she burned me every time. (If you can't beat her, join her...) My fandom was solidified after seeing her in the flesh at OP as I witnessed first hand her power and intelligence.

However, one thing that has always annoyed me is the contingent of Z fans that turned her career into some sort of mechanism to take shots in the realm of gender politics. Little girls with their "girl power" signs and tee shirts are one thing, but grown women using Zenyatta to further some sort of angry feminist agenda is quite another. The anthropomorphising of this mare was taken to a ridiculous level. A certain post on a mainstream news website still sticks in my mind, and though I read many similar, the venom toward and unabashed hatred of men oozing from every typed word was simply astonishing. I was truly sadden and shed a tear when Blame held her off in the stretch. I will admit however, deep down there was a small flicker of satisfaction that those like Dowd, and other angry gender pundits and their followers, lost a large part of the ability to misuse this wonderful racing story and wonderful mare as the basis to spew more of thier crap. Unfortunately, some like Dowd will continue to try.

[JustRalph]

Originally Posted by rastajenk

What exactly was her point? I'm just a rube from FlyOver America, I guess I need things explained to me; but her opening sentence couldn't be more wrong, so I was lost from the start.

You got it right. The opening sentence was her theme. She is dead wrong. Then she uses Zenyatta to try and illustrate the point. She was saying "this was a bad year for girls"

She was wrong. What she meant to say was............

" This was a bad year for Democratic Women" or " This was a bad year for women I support"

I guess she chose to ignore the rise of Conservative Women in the last election. Not all won. But five years ago, they would not have been much more than a footnote. Palin has paved the way. No matter what you think of her, and Dowd hates her with every cell in her body, she has performed a magical uplifting of a whole new type of female candidate.

For God's sake, Dowd ignores the fact that Nikki Haley a women of Indian descent was just elected Governor of South Carolina. If you don't think that is an over the top change in the landscape, you have never spent any time in South Carolina. There are places in South Carolina that are still in the 60's....and may never change. The fact that this lady is now the Governor is equal to turning back the tide of the ocean.

Dowd has a brother who is a conservative. She handed over her column to him a week or so ago. He gloats.......

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/10/op...ef=maureendowd

Originally Posted by Learned Hand35

The anthropomorphising of this mare was taken to a ridiculous level. A certain post on a mainstream news website still sticks in my mind, and though I read many similar, the venom toward and unabashed hatred of men oozing from every typed word was simply astonishing.

Hand, you said something I have been wanting to say all week, but have held off. I didn't think it would do anything but heighten the shrillness of the debate. But I am glad somebody said it.

When someone posted that Zenyatta "looked sad" when she didn't get to go the winners circle I about came out of my skin

[mountainman]

Hey. Hold everything. Is Dowd saying that Cleo didn't look like Liz Taylor?

[JustRalph]

Originally Posted by mountainman

Hey. Hold everything. Is Dowd saying that Cleo didn't look like Liz Taylor?

I get it,,,,,,,,,that's funny

[keithw84]

I didn't really follow what Dowd was about.

I was reminded, however, of when Hillary Clinton was campaigning in Kentucky in 2008 right before the Derby. She ended her talk with urging everyone to "put some money on the filly!" - apparently comparing herself to Eight Belles.

Of course, the filly came in second and had to be euthanized... not sure if Hillary liked how that analogy turned out. Also, I suppose Big Brown is Barack Obama in this analogy.

[andicap]

1. This is dangerously close to belonging in the Off Topic column with all the politics in here.

In that spirit,

2. It makes perfect sense that Dowd should champion females who are either long-dead or non-human. She writes only in the "anti" sense -- she writes only to punish. And Cleopatra? A horrible self-centered witch who put many innocent people to death. Yep, a real role model.

I am a (moderate, pragmatic) liberal, but despise Maureen Dowd as well. She has no real principles. She is totally in love with herself. She is self-aggrandizing, only out to promote herself. I will never forgive her for perhaps costing Al Gore the 2000 election as she whipped him at every term. Then she turned vehemently against Bush. Well, what the hell did she expect? She wanted to have it both ways -- hate Gore, then hate Bush. She is an ardent feminist, but uses her femininity to gain access and media attention. A real hypocrite.

[toetoe]

Originally Posted by JustRalph

Delta Downs picks from Chris Mathews?

This is Chris Matthews broadcasting from Tingle Downs, and, as is my own stuff, Maureen Dowd's "journalism" [ ] ... is ... un ... buh ... lievable !!!

[Valuist]

Bad year for women in politics? I saw a decent number of women who won their elections 2 weeks ago. Oh yeah, since they weren't apart of the left wing agenda, they don't count, at least in her world.

Then it gets worse as she delves into commenting on horse racing and Zenyatta. No Maureen, if the Classic was 2 jumps farther, Zenyatta would NOT have won. At the 1/8th pole, she was clearly moving best, but she had dead aim on Blame and he didn't see her. It looked like she'd go by but when he finally saw her, Blame didn't give an inch. Maybe Maureen could've given her liberal readers a lesson in basic pace handicapping; but then again, why enlighten them? Lets let them keep handicapping in the dark.