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Last updated on March 6th, 2018 at 12:29 am
If only the war had been fought in Ethiopia. If only, instead of oil, Iraq held vast reserves of Fruitopia! Then Maureen Dowd’s year would have been perfect …
Dowd, April ‘04: “ … the 9/11 commission’s staff, which faults the [CIA] for management miasma and Al Qaeda myopia … “
Dowd, May ‘04: “When a beaming Mr. Wolfowitz stopped at my table to greet an admiring Republican, I wanted to snap, ‘Get back to your desk, Mr. Myopia from Utopia!’”
Dowd, August ‘04: “I would sum it up by saying that the neocons wanted a utopia in Iraq. But because of their myopia, we’ve ended up with a dystopia in the Middle East.”
Dowd, September ‘04: “Faced with their dystopia, the utopians are scaling back their grand visions for Iraq’s glorious future.”
Dowd, December ‘04: “His disgraceful admission that his condolence letters to the families of soldiers killed in Iraq were signed by machine … is redolent of the myopia that has led to the dystopia.”
I bet a machine is writing Dowd’s columns. No human would persist with this myopia/dystopia/utopia line.
- Who said Modo is human?Posted by Andrea Harris on 12/27 at 02:59 AM • permalink
- So what other obsessive-compulsive behaviours does MoDo exhibit? Probably things I don’t want to know…Posted by Spiny Norman on 12/27 at 04:13 AM • permalink
- It can’t be a machine, because a machine would have noticed the problem.
I think the main reason Dowd is successful is that she’s quite pretty, and for years has had a terrific head shot atop her columns. Lots of people see that and figure, “hey, a beautiful opinionated person! let’s have a read!”
If Dowd looked like Helen Thomas (come to think of it, they’re both redheads…hmm), she wouldn’t be writing for the newspaper of record.
Posted by littlebeartoe on 12/27 at 04:14 AM • permalink
- Some amusing comments here, but…seriously folks. Bush said “It’s hard work” eleven times in the first Bush-Kerry debate. That’s within 90 minutes, not over six months. And you’re calling Dowd a machine?Posted by Strange Doctrines on 12/27 at 08:15 AM • permalink
- Yes, “It’s hard work” is every bit as cutesy as “Myopia from Utopia.” Good point.Posted by Jim Treacher on 12/27 at 12:47 PM • permalink
- Not at all as cutesy, but much more machine-like.Posted by Strange Doctrines on 12/27 at 01:02 PM • permalink
- Extry, Extry, Read All about It: Maureen Dowd Fails Turing Test. Revealed to be cyborg planted by Karl Rove and Rupert Murdoch.Posted by Protagonist on 12/27 at 01:05 PM • permalink
- How is “it’s hard work” more machine-like than “myopia, utopia”? Or would you like Bush better if he dropped into rap?Posted by Andrea Harris on 12/27 at 01:32 PM • permalink
- Yep, definitely an AI, and an buggy one at that. Nonsense phrases like “myopia dystopia” and “plastic turkey” are persistent glitches in all of the first-generation AI’s created by the Republicans. And the portable prototype requires so much extra hardware that it can barely move on it’s own power.
- Andrea: “It’s hard work” 11 times in an hour.Posted by Strange Doctrines on 12/27 at 02:00 PM • permalink
- Strange Doctrines seems to think so, anyway.Posted by Andrea Harris on 12/27 at 02:58 PM • permalink
- but seriously, folks, I just flew in from Vegas, and boy are my arms tired!
Not an admission I’d advise making in public. We all know Vegas is a wankers’ city but there’s no need to rub our faces in your predilection.
Posted by walterplinge on 12/27 at 05:33 PM • permalink
- “Some amusing comments here, but…seriously folks. Bush said “It’s hard work” eleven times in the first Bush-Kerry debate. That’s within 90 minutes, not over six months. And you’re calling Dowd a machine?”
Wow. A common phrase used in context 11 times in an hour and a half. That’s like some kind of Tourette’s or something.
I noticed he also overused the words “nation”, “at”, and “the”, as well as the letter B.
- “difference between writing and speaking extemporanously”
“A common phrase used in context 11 times”
I admit I’m at some disadvantage in this argument, since Bush (1) doesn’t write and (2) doesn’t use uncommon phrases. (Hell, I’m not even sure he really extemporizes; the word certainly doesn’t apply to what he did in the first debate.)
At all events, those who want to pretend that there’s something truly striking about repeating a “cute” play on the word ‘myopia’ in print five times over eight months, well, you go boys and girls.
Posted by Strange Doctrines on 12/28 at 03:26 AM • permalink
- OK, strange, you have outlived your interest on this little obsession of yours. Oh look—I used “you”, “yours” and “your” all in the same sentence! Sinister!
Side issue: “since Bush (1) doesn’t write”—and you* would know this how? I’m pretty sure the man can write a sentence, since it is pretty hard to graduate Yale with an MBA without being able to do so.
*There it is again! Crank up the Conspiratron™!
Posted by Andrea Harris on 12/28 at 03:50 AM • permalink
I’m not sure I can copia nymore. I’m gonna go popopia beer.