But I'm not. Who could envy someone like her? Dowd's column this week is so pitifully hateful, so nihilistically venomous that the only possible reaction for Dowd is, well, pity. She writes about the successful women of the conservative resurgence as "mean girls":
We are in the era of Republican Mean Girls, grown-up versions of those teenage tormentors who would steal your boyfriend, spray-paint your locker and, just for good measure, spread rumors that you were pregnant.
The women she's referring to? "Jan [Brewer], Meg [Whitman], Carly [Fiorina], Sharron [Angle], Linda [McMahon], Michele [Bachmann], Queen Bee Sarah [Palin] and sweet wannabe Christine [O'Donnell]."
Now, the cheap and easy crack comes with observing the irony of Maureen Dowd referring to someone else -- heck, anyone else -- as a "mean girl." For years, she's been the sultana of snark, the queen of the petty put-down.
And that brings me back to my original point. After all these years with a great opportunity to write something that matters, persuades or moves, it's impossible to remember anything really meaningful coming from the pen of Maureen Dowd -- just the cutesy nicknames, snippy asides and snarky derision that's characterized her writing all these years.
What a waste of a writing talent. What a waste of newspaper space. What a waste of a career. I fear that her "mean girl" slurs -- attempting to denigrate and diminish women who are trying to use their talents for a real and lasting purpose -- is nothing more than an exercise in projection.
Poor thing.