I disagree

Ezra Klein:

To blame Maureen Dowd for this [haircut] controversy is like watching a drunk slam into a divider and blaming the divider. The divider is always there, folks just have to avoid it.

Ezra's larger point is that, since perceptions matter and weaknesses will be exploited, a shrewd politician ought not toss their enemies the ball for an easy lay-up. And I have some sympathy for that. But at some point everybody--even politicians--should be able to do morally neutral things without fearing that elite opinion makers like Maureen Dowd will chew up fraudulent interpretations--spoon fed to her by that politician's enemies--of those morally neutral things and spit them out on to the New York Times op-ed page.

Bloggers like Ezra can do more to block the harm Dowd causes than to point out that somebody like Edwards shouldn't have walked into the trap. I know that if it wasn't Maureen Dowd, it would have been somebody else. But I also know that if it hadn't been the haircut, a different non-issue would have, with the help of commenters like Dowd, mushroomed into a different fake controversy. Some things (and I'd say haircuts count here) have to be safe. Ezra's analogy fails in the parallel assumptions that a). Edwards' haircut--like drunk driving--is not just foolish, but also wrong, and b). That Maureen Dowd and her associates have no agency and no accountability.

So let's go for another one, shall we? Since Maureen Dowd has proven to be a spikestrip on the road to a healthy political discussion, honest pundits ought to point out the danger every time they see it. That way they might prevent her from causing anymore blowouts. Has a poetic beauty to it, no?

Comments

[JimPortlandOR]

Well, she's behind the NYT subscription firewall, so not much direct harm done by her rantings.

She does extend the license for others to attack citing the 'authority' of the NYT, so it does some harm.

As I mentioned in my comment at Ezra's place, the greater danger is how the haircut plays into the meme of Dems as weak, girly pols. THAT should be Edward's responsibility to counter-attack, and I don't mean gentlely.

[Brian]

I wavered on this for a couple days, but now I think I'm with you. I'd like to see Edwards come out swinging against the people who criticize the way looks.