Maureen Dowd has decided, for reasons unknown, to anoint herself the National Dominatrix In Charge Of Emasculating President Obama. Dowd’s smug condescension is normally humorous in the same way that you’d be mildly amused at a monkey trying to play the piano, but her column today was so annoying as to push me over the edge into actually writing a letter to the editor.

Some samples from her latest triumphant manifesto:

Let’s face it: The only bracing symbol of American strength right now is the image of Michelle Obama’s sculpted biceps. Her husband urges bold action, but it is Michelle who looks as though she could easily wind up and punch out Rush Limbaugh, Bernie Madoff and all the corporate creeps who ripped off America.

In the taxi, when I asked David Brooks about her amazing arms, he indicated it was time for her to cover up. “She’s made her point,” he said. “Now she should put away Thunder and Lightning.”

I’d seen the plaint echoed elsewhere. “Someone should tell Michelle to mix up her wardrobe and cover up from time to time,” Sandra McElwaine wrote last week on The Daily Beast.

….

David was not smitten by the V-neck, sleeveless eggplant dress Michelle wore at her husband’s address to Congress — the one that caused one Republican congressman to whisper to another, “Babe.”

He said the policy crowd here would consider the dress ostentatious. “Washington is sensually avoidant. The wonks here like brains. She should not be known for her physical presence, for one body part.” David brought up the Obamas’ obsession with their workouts. “Sometimes I think half the reason Obama ran for president is so Michelle would have a platform to show off her biceps.”

And it just kinda goes on and on from there, uselessly taking up space like some kind of a cancerous hairy melanoma on the Opinion page of the NYT. I wrote this to the editor in response:

Given Dowd’s usually vapid writing (and today’s entry being a particularly fine example of it), I thought it was pretty funny that she started her editorial with the phrase “Journalists are never supposed to start a piece…” as though she was, in fact, a journalist instead of snarky NYT columnist with about as much accuracy and insight on our national zeitgeist as Kristol in his NYT heyday (that is to say, not much).

So, Dowd’s not much at all of a journalist. But would it be too much to ask for at least a little perspective if you’re writing for a paper as prestigious as the NYT?

For one thing, who gives a flying rat fart about what David Brooks and the rest of the DC eunuchs think about Michelle Obama’s wardrobe? Why take up half a column name-dropping Brooks and his kind of half-assed insider D.C.-celebrity gossip? Isn’t the newspaper business in enough trouble without taking up inches with stuff that gossip blogs can do better, and more humorously, than Dowd?

For another, what’s with Dowd’s ongoing emasculation crusade with President Obama? “Her husband urges bold action, but it is Michelle who looks as though she could easily wind up and punch out Rush Limbaugh…”? That’s what passes for keen political insight these days? Never mind that the White House has been using the GOP for a football since they took office. Dowd’s been caustically catty about his manliness ever since he hit his stride in the campaign last year and I’m starting to worry about her a bit. It’s like she can’t stand to have a powerful, confident young (black?) guy running the White House and completely ignoring her (and everyone’s) irrelevant jabs, and it’s driving her a bit round the bend.

Look, Dowd – you and Brooks didn’t have to muscle your way for two long years through Hillary Clinton and the other Democratic contenders, the entire GOP, Jeremiah Wright, Fox News and the rest of the cable media lineup, the South and hundreds of years of racial prejudice, hundreds of intense and tiring nights away from your family, and Lord knows what else, to convince millions of Americans to vote for you and take the Presidency in a crisis of ridiculously bad proportions (thanks to _your_ media’s complete lack of oversight on Bush in the first place).

Maybe if you did all that successfully, you might have a legitimate chance to take up valuable column space in the NYT to spread your oh-so-valuable catty-meow meanderings. In the meantime, in the same spirit of Jon Stewart’s pleas on Crossfire, for the sake of your readers and the health of America in general… Please have some decency and STFU already.

Luvs n kisses,

Paul Moment
NYT Reader
Seattle, WA

I’m sure my letter won’t get any farther than some bored, sleepy intern, but I felt it was the least I could do to help uplift my nation today.

UPDATE: I always respect BooMan’s take on things political. It’s gratifying to know he and his commenters also equally stunned by Teh Stupid.

LATE UPDATE (for Maria): IMO, a few afterthought kudos at the end can’t cover the horrifying vacuousness of Dowd’s post, and writing in general. I agree with Erica Barnett at Slog – here and here.