Maureen Dowd begins the next volume in her series of novels, A Dance to the Music of My Ego and Id

Maureen Dowd’s quick to take advantage of an opportunity to get back to work writing fiction about the Clintons.

In Dowd’s novel the reason Caroline Kennedy isn’t going to be New York’s next senator isn’t that Kennedy made a laughingstock out of herself with her startled rabbit performances every time she faced the public.  No, the reason is that the nefarious Clintons done her in:

Paterson’s five weeks of dithering let the jealous vindictiveness of the Clintons and friends — still fuming over Caroline’s endorsement of Obama and Teddy’s blocking Hillary from a leading health care role in the Senate — poison the air. With his usual sense of entitlement and aggrievement, Bill Clinton of Arkansas did not want Caroline Kennedy of New York to have the seat that Hillary Clinton of Illinois held.

Save it for the screenplay, Maureen.

Some more fiction passing as reporting:

The 42-year-old Gillibrand, who has been in the House for only two years, is known as opportunistic and sharp- elbowed. Tracy Flick is her nickname among colleagues in the New York delegation, many of whom were M.I.A. at her Albany announcement.

Who calls her Tracy Flick?  Who didn’t show?  Dowd doesn’t say.  My parents’ Congressman, Paul Tonko, who represents the district next door to Gillibrand’s, in other words a fellow upstater, was there.  John Hall, another upstater, who represents a district just below, and he’s expressed his enthusiasm for Gillibrand.

Why did some of the no shows not show?  Other things to do, some of them.  They’re members of the United States Congress.  They’re very busy people.  I suppose some of them who didn’t show might not have had anything better to do, but sounds to me as though the ones Dowd means were downstate politicians who wanted the job and didn't get it and decided to stay home and sulk.  I don’t know that’s the case, but I can write fiction too if I want to.

And before we call any more smart, hardworking, ambitious female politicians Tracy Flicks, can we all go watch the Election again?  In the movie, Tracy Flick is vain, self-centered, and driven to succeed to an almost Nixonian degree, but she is also the hardest working student in the school, and the most involved, her school spirit is genuine, and her plans for student government are well thought out.  She has a very unattractive sense of entitlement, but she has a point.  If the choice is between her and the slackers around her, she is entitled to certain things because she has worked to earn them and worked well and they haven’t.  She’s also honest, at least as a campaigner.  And most important she is not the villain.  Matthew Broderick’s character, teacher Jim McCallister, is.  Tracy Flick isn’t nice.  Jim McCallister is.  But niceness is not the same as virtuousness.   McCallister is driven to self-destruction by vanity, jealousy, and self-loathing.  He makes the mistake of seeing Tracy Flick as a reflection of himself.  He looks at her and sees a beautiful and vivacious young woman on her way to bigger and better things but he also sees in the mirror she represents a schlubby and dull no longer young man who is going nowhere fast and he hates it and sets out to shatter the mirror.

Anyone tempted to try to diminish and dismiss a successful younger woman whose best days may lay ahead of her by calling her a Tracy Flick has to be careful that the comparison doesn’t boomerang, because the point of a Tracy Flick is that she doesn’t exist except as a temptation to self-loathing for a jealous and spiteful middler whose best days are well behind her.

Hat-tip to Jude.

Related:

Julia thinks Gillibrand will be a stronger candidate in 2010 than I worried yesterday she’d be.  She’s also provided some helpful maps for downstaters and out of staters who’ve argued that New York is too blue a blue state to be represented by someone as conservative as Gillibrand.  She also wants to thank everyone for playing Pick My Senator.

Jane Hamsher reminds those who are disappointed that Caroline Kennedy won't be ascending to her martyred uncle's old Senate seat to worship not false idols.

Comments

[Sunny Jim]

Maureen Dowd continues to enjoy a celebrity-pundit status way beyond what she deserves.

One thing I'll never forget: her biting, 'so-effeminate-he's- practically-lactating' jibes at Al Gore eight years ago were part of the reason we got stuck with an inept executive branch that fiddled as the looters made off with everything that wasn't nailed down.

[Linkmeister]

Julia's analysis is quite informative. I tend to forget she's on my blogroll because she mostly posts at FDL these days (I think), so I'm glad to be reminded.

[Apostate]

Thanks, Lance. This was good.

Dowd needs to be fired yesterday - but she's everyone's favorite token woman. Toes the beltway pundit party line, doesn't rock the boat, and performs the useful and necessary function of tearing other women and liberals down (while still claiming to be a liberal herself).

I like the sound of Gillibrand. Too conservative for me, but then, so are all politicians. As Democrats go, she's pretty middle of the road; the fact that she's a smart and ambitious young woman who is going places makes me want to give her a chance. Who knows - maybe she will run for president.

Good for Paterson for picking a woman. We're sorely underrepresented as it is.

[Mo MoDo]

The Tracy Flick nickname was reported on both Politico and Huffington Post before Dowd wrote her column. I have links to both articles on my blog. That post also has a movie mash-up of Gillibrand as Tracy Flick and Paterson as Matthew Broderick.

[chachabowl]

Speaking of Dowd, there's a book review in the San Francisco Chronicle of "Snark," by David Denby that contains this quote:

"New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd comes in for some of his (Denby's) heaviest criticism - with a chapter all her own. He calls her malevolent, naive and "essentially sour and without hope," and says she "writes as if personality, appearance, and attitude were the only things that mattered."

"Why isn't his attack on Dowd snark? First, it isn't anonymous. Second, it isn't ridicule but criticism. Third, he's trying to make points, not score them. Still, there's a catty sting to his remarks."

the full column is at
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/25/RVKE150J7U.DTL&hw=snark&sn=001&sc=1000

I laughed out loud.

[sfmike]

That was unusually mean for you, Mr. Mannion, and all the better for it. And chachabowl: Maureen Dowd and David Denby are both hacks with different styles (one snarky and one earnest), but the world would be a better place with less of both of them in public.

[Jude]

Wow, that last sentence of your really packs a punch, Lance. A deserved one, I believe. This was cynical - even for MoDo. She all too gladly included someone's view (who on earth knows who?) that Gillibrand, who seems to have stolen what Dowd thinks was rightfully Kennedy's, will be "a pain." The sexist overtones are quite clear. An assertive woman is "a pain." Rush Limbaugh said Elizabeth Edwards wouldn't "shut up." We know the code all too well. Her usual temptation to drum up a juicy Clinton-controversy is predictable. It's like a drug she (and some other pundits) can't stay away from wanting. Choosing to remain a tabby in a decidedly new era of hope is simply boring.

[Arun]

About the no-shows at Gillebrand's introduction, I read that someone asked Andrew Cuomo if he'd be attending. He reportedly replied, "I can't- I have to rearrange my sock drawer." (Not a joke, he actually said that.)

[RobW]

"She’s also honest, at least as a campaigner."

No, she isn't. There's a key moment when she tears down all the other candidate's posters in a fit of frustration at her inability to keep one of her own poster up. Then she hides the evidence in a dumpster and lies about what happened. Certain that she'll be caught and her future ruined, she's completely flummoxed when the other girl takes the blame, but then has no problem denouncing her. She's all about a sense of entitlement to recognition for her accomplishments; fair enough, but it is made ugly by her refusal to accept responsibility for poor behavior. She wants (needs) credit, but runs from blame.

Without that incident, which resulted in the slacker girl's disqualification (remember, her "who gives a damn about this election" speech was by far the most popular), Tracy might not have won her narrow victory of 2 votes. Because a high school class presidency is indeed nothing more than a popularity contest, all her accomplishments really don't amount to much no matter how badly she wanted it for her future resume. She knew deep down that, despite her hard work and achievement, she just could never be as popular as the rebellious slacker or the sweet but dumb football player, so she lashed out and then covered it up.