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Maureen Dowd makes me lose faith in journalism. Apparently, I work in a field in which writing pseudo-intellectual gender- and machismo-based nonsense that isn’t particularly funny, witty, or amusing, and which includes no actual reporting, doesn’t get you fired. It gets you eight more years in the most hallowed space the industry offers.

Maureen Dowd helped sink Al Gore’s presidential chances in 1999 by writing crap like this:

Al Gore is so feminized and diversified and ecologically correct

that he’s practically lactating.

And how she’s writing crap like this:

The debate dominatrix knows how to rattle Obambi.

Mistress Hillary started disciplining her fellow senator last winter, after he began exploring a presidential bid. When he winked at her, took her elbow and tried to say hello on the Senate floor, she did not melt, as many women do. She brushed him off… She has continued to flick the whip in debates. She usually ignores Obama and John Edwards backstage, preferring to chat with the so-called second-tier candidates. And she often looks so unapproachable while they’re setting up on stage that Obama seems hesitant to be the first to say hi.

I’m still going. I can’t help myself. There’s so much here that makes me cringe. Now Dowd introduces the “real man” character. As Al Gore was busy lactating in the 2000 race, George W. Bush was the hot shot with two mini-kegs swinging between his legs. And guess who wins the Down body language tests that Obama fails?

Other guys, like Rudy, wouldn’t even be looking for a chance to greet Hillary, as Obama always does. Other guys, like Rudy, wouldn’t care if she iced them.

After selectively citing a bunch potshots that Rudy has taken at Hillary, which, in truth, mirror the ones that supposedly weak-kneed Obama and Edwards have taken, Dowd ends with this:

Hillary has her work cut out for her. Rudy will not be so easy to spank.

And… vom.

PS — I know this isn’t the worst Maureen Dowd article of the last eight years. Or even the last year. Or month. But it is part of one of the worst op-ed days in NYT history. Tom Friedman is suggesting an Obama-Cheney ticket for chrissakes.