Monday, June 06, 2011

THE DOWD-IZATION OF ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING

I haven't read the story that accompanies it, but this Newsweek cover is ridiculous (and I say this not because I feel in any way charitable toward Romney):


What Tina Brown is delivering here is vacuous Maureen Dowd-ism at its worst: take a couple oif things that are happening simultaneously and declare them a trend -- even if there's no evidence whatsoever that they are a trend, or are connected in any meaningful way.

The tagline of the cover story is:

They've conquered Broadway, talk radio, the U.S. Senate -- and they may win the White House. Why Mitt Romney and 6 million Mormons have the secret to success.

Well, the musical in question is a mockery of Mormons, written by non-Mormons. And who the hell besides New Yorkers, tourists to New York, and maybe the occasional Gleek gives a crap what's happening on Broadway? (The Photoshopped cover is a parody of the poster for the show.)

Our Mormon Senate majority leader barely won reelection. The best-known Mormon radio talker just lost his TV gig. One Mormon presidential candidate can't manage to top "Don't Know/Other" in the polls, while the better-known one is despised by the leaders of his party's dominant activist groups, and is mistrusted by people in the religious tradition that's most important to the party. And of course, Harry Reid, Mitt Romney, Glenn Beck, and Trey Parker and Matt Stone have nothing good to say about one another. (Beck does admire Jon Huntsman's father, but the son, not so much.)

It's connect-the-dots phony trend-spotting disguised as journalism. Compared to Brown, Arianna Huffington is Edward R. freakin' Murrow.

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