Maureen Dowd Hates Bloggers

Oh, good. Times op-ed mean girl Maureen Dowd wrote a column about people writing mean things on the internet. And she quotes Leon Wieseltier!

See, a model named Liskula Cohen googled herself and found out that some anonymous and completely unread blogger called her a “skank” and so she sued to find out the identity of the blogger who called her a skank and it turned out that it was this girl she knew, of course, because who the hell else would bother to blog about how some random model is a skank?

Dowd aligns herself with Cohen, the wronged party, which is odd, because Dowd’s entire career has been built on calling people names. But Dowd has also been a victim, herself, of people saying mean things about her, on the internet! (People like us!)

If I read all the vile stuff about me on the Internet, I’d never come to work. I’d scamper off and live my dream of being a cocktail waitress in a militia bar in Wyoming.

Yes, well, we can both dream, can’t we?

The argument is always framed as “I have no problem with being criticised, it’s being criticised by anonymous cowards that is wrong and must be stopped!” Our position has always been, bullshit is bullshit, bylined or no. And this is bullshit:

Yet in this infinite realm of truth-telling, many want to hide. Who are these people prepared to tell you what they think, but not who they are? What is the mentality that lets them get in our face while wearing a mask? Shredding somebody’s character before the entire world and not being held accountable seems like the perfect sting.

But our very own MoDo has proved that you don’t actually need anonymity to shred somebody’s character before the entire world and not be held accountable.