I don’t normally read Maureen Dowd any more. Everything she writes feels forced and old. It’s like she doesn’t realize she was a hot commodity once because back then the zeitgeist rewarded mood and atmospherics and all around trivial thinking and now that the culture has moved on she tries too hard to get a reaction by performing the same old schtick twice as hard (it kind of reminds me of Bill Murray in Groundhog’s Day when he tries to force the spontaneity of the snowball fight the third or fourth time).

Anyway, I had no idea she wrote a column today until Andrew Sullivan linked to it. Sullivan’s rightly appalled. I doubt the Times will ever be able to come to grips with the fact that Dowd’s column gives off the same vibe as watching your parents trying to dance or listening to Al Gore try to speak jive.