The immutable preferences of Maureen Dowd
Maureen Dowd has discovered the blogosphere, and now believes it to be passé: The most telling sign that the Internet is no longer the cool American frontier? Blogs, which sprang up to sass the establishment, have been overrun by the establishment. In a lame attempt to be hip, pols are posting soggy, foggy, bloggy musings ...
Maureen Dowd has discovered the blogosphere, and now believes it to be passé:
Maureen Dowd has discovered the blogosphere, and now believes it to be passé:
The most telling sign that the Internet is no longer the cool American frontier? Blogs, which sprang up to sass the establishment, have been overrun by the establishment. In a lame attempt to be hip, pols are posting soggy, foggy, bloggy musings on the Internet. Inspired by Howard Dean’s success in fund-raising and mobilizing on the Web, candidates are crowding into the blogosphere — spewing out canned meanderings in a genre invented by unstructured exhibitionists.
For reactions, see Glenn Reynolds, Matthew Yglesias, Roger Simon, Chris Andersen, and Maria Farrell. My take:
1) Dowd is completely right about the overall quality of politician/candidate blogs. And, as Josh Chafetz pointed out in his first Immutable Law on Maureen Dowd, this is precisely the sort of skewering that Dowd does best. 2) Implying that this means the Internet is “over” is like saying because of infomercials, TV is “over”, or that because of campaign books, the autobiography genre is “over”. 3) What’s most significant about this essay is Dowd’s revealed preferences about the world. What matters to her is not whether a phenomenon is important, but whether it’s trendy. In the world of pop culture, this sort of distinction makes a kind of sense. In the world of politics or international relations, it doesn’t.
Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner
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