Althouse: "If I read all the vile stuff about me on the Internet, I’d never come to work."

August 26, 2009

"If I read all the vile stuff about me on the Internet, I’d never come to work."

"I’d scamper off and live my dream of being a cocktail waitress in a militia bar in Wyoming."

... a cocktail waitress in a militia bar in Wyoming... a cocktail waitress in a militia bar in Wyoming... a cocktail waitress in a militia bar in Wyoming....

Why a cocktail waitress in a militia bar in Wyoming....?

Of all the images Maureen Dowd could conjure up for her alternate self — the self who cares what nasty strangers say — why a cocktail waitress in a militia bar in Wyoming? It's got something to do with right-wing extremists, but I can't put my finger on what.

(I've quoted the first 2 sentences of what is a column about that model who sued the blogger who called her a skank. Dowd has nothing interesting to say on the subject of pseudonymity on the internet.)

71 comments:

The Dude said...: She is too stupid to know that militias are in Idaho and Montana.

But it's all flyover country to Modo.; 8/26/09, 6:45 AM
Jake said...: If not for all the vile stuff she writes about other people, I'd read her column.; 8/26/09, 6:47 AM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: There are militia bars?

Maybe I should go to one and talk AR-15s and government overreach over a PBR.; 8/26/09, 6:48 AM
bearbee said...: Why all his beating up on the Internet and blog commenters?

Gearing up for something?

I read her only on incidental occasions but I'm sure she has said a vile thing or two,; 8/26/09, 6:52 AM
bearbee said...: Why all this...; 8/26/09, 6:54 AM
AllenS said...: Obviously, she thinks that militia-type people, are so dumb, that they'd be the only ones who would want to screw her.; 8/26/09, 6:56 AM
KCFleming said...: All the vile stuff about her?

Didn't she write a whole book called "Are Men Necessary?"?

Didn't she write this about Hillary?
"The joke goes: “Obama is just creaming Hillary. You know, all these primaries, you know. And Hillary says it’s not fair, because they’re being held in February, and February is Black History Month. And unfortunately for Hillary, there’s no White Bitch Month.”"

Didn't she plagiarize blogger Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo?

Phthphhhth.; 8/26/09, 7:01 AM
Ron said...: Hey, maybe the stripper pole is just too much like work!; 8/26/09, 7:03 AM
Shanna said...: There are militia bars?

That was my question. I guess that's all she thinks there is out beyond new york. Militia bars. Maybe she's confusing hunters with Militia?; 8/26/09, 7:07 AM
Anonymous said...: Dowd has already risen to her level of incompetence as a NYT columnist, and she thinks she can handle the work of a cocktail waitress?

VW: She might just want to meet thealki who'll hit on her at closing time.; 8/26/09, 7:11 AM
KCFleming said...: A militia bar sounds like a real plan, actually.; 8/26/09, 7:12 AM
Anonymous said...: Or, it just might be a variant of the old bumper-sticker joke: "Please don't tell my parents I write for the NYT. They think I'm a piano player in a whorehouse."; 8/26/09, 7:12 AM
Anonymous said...: Because the militia bars in Montana and North Dakota have already filled their quota of redheads.; 8/26/09, 7:21 AM
traditionalguy said...: The concept of a Militia Bar is a cobbled together attempt by Modo to distain angry participants in the townhall meetings that don't show any respect for their betters in Manhatten. She is feeling a little out of the loop these days since Obama could care less what any woman thinks, and the revolt against Obama Socialism doesn't need her either. Her time is over unless she can join one side or the other. Sad.; 8/26/09, 7:22 AM
KCFleming said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 8/26/09, 7:23 AM
KCFleming said...: "If I read all the vile stuff about me on the Internet, I’d never come to work."

Can the commenters here devise any way to get Dowd to actually read all the vile stuff about her on the Internet?

The promise that she would, as a result "never come to work", is very tempting.; 8/26/09, 7:24 AM
The Drill SGT said...: NKVD beat me to it.

I bet the only town in Wyoming that Mo has even been driven through (and you have to go through it from the airport out to the "Lodge") is Jackson Hole.

Jackson Hole is a yuppie town with a cowboy wrapper that has more art galleries than biker bars.

PS: Now on the subject of Militia bars, I've been in a couple of VFW's that might qualify, but only if the revolution was the Whiskey Rebellion.; 8/26/09, 7:31 AM
rhhardin said...: The NYT society weighs heavily on her.; 8/26/09, 7:39 AM
knox said...: Dowd has nothing interesting to say on the subject of pseudonymity on the internet.

It's all about show, and impressing the right people, not content.; 8/26/09, 7:47 AM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: A militia bar could be fun. Make it like the fake biker bars catering to the old people who buy Harleys. Not like a real biker bar.; 8/26/09, 7:47 AM
Michael Haz said...: Dowd has nothing interesting to say on the subject of pseudonymity on the internet

Then why frontpage her?

Plus, I can tell her, militia bars don't have "cocktail waitresses" because we...uh...militia members don't usually order cocktails. Militia bars have bartenders who serve beer and keep Merle Haggard playing on the jukebox.; 8/26/09, 7:49 AM
Wince said...: I’d scamper off and live my dream of being a cocktail waitress in a militia bar in Wyoming.

Sounds like Dowd comes real close to revealing her vicarious Palin fantasy/obsession.

Is it any wonder that Dowd might think of herself vis-a-vis her own thinly-veiled charicature of Palin in the context her story about the contretemps between these two fashionable women?

The surprise is that, while stated obliquely, it sounds like envy on Dowd's part, not derision. Interestingly, here the identity hidden in Dowd's piece is not herself, but the other woman, Palin.

“The velocity and volume on the Web are so great that nothing is forgotten and nothing is remembered,” says Leon Wieseltier, the literary editor of The New Republic. “The Internet is like closing time at a blue-collar bar in Boston. Everyone’s drunk and ugly and they’re going to pass out in a few minutes.”

Those are my people, I protested, but I knew what he meant.

Wha? Is this a poorly timed Ted Kennedy joke?; 8/26/09, 7:57 AM
kent said...: "I’d scamper off and live my dream of being a cocktail waitress in a militia bar in Wyoming."

Might as well, given that the earlier dream of being an actual, honest-to-god journalist doesn't seem to be working out.; 8/26/09, 8:11 AM
Darcy said...: Uhh...this would seem like an ill-advised fantasy for her.

Sharp as a tack, that one.; 8/26/09, 8:24 AM
Jennifer said...: I'm not sure what a militia bar is, but I spent a summer working on a dude ranch in Wyoming. The county I was in had 9 adult males to every adult female. The other girls from the ranch and I would walk into a bar in the nearest town (about an hour away, population: 1,400) and the band would stop playing to say hello.

Toward the end of the summer, I asked a cowboy how it could be that there were all these bars full of men and no bar fights. He said We're all packing. No one's going to start a fight unless they want to take it all the way. Huh.

I'd say she's fantasizing about a place where men are so desperate they have to get over that mighty intimidation factor she says she puts out.; 8/26/09, 8:36 AM
I'm Full of Soup said...: The NYT customers have always made vile complaints and comments about Modo and her columns.

Thanks to the internet, Modo can now enjoy the comments too.

[Is the MSM the only business that continues to ignore or scoff at its paying customer's beefs?]; 8/26/09, 8:50 AM
Anonymous said...: "If I......I, I, I, I, I, I, I, me, me, I, me, be a cocktail waitress, I, me, me, I, me, I, me, me, I, I, I, me, me, me, sitting on Obama's lap, me, I, me, I, I, me."

(The New York Times' pithy observer of life in America is having trouble seeing past her own corneas.); 8/26/09, 8:58 AM
Paddy O said...: She just ruined my own dream. I had the image of a columnist as someone who could stay at home, spend a few hours a week writing up bombastic opinions and then get paid a lot of money.

She has to go into work? Say it ain't so, MoDo!

Even still, I'm thinking that being a columnist, especially a successful and wealthy one, isn't particularly demanding on the schedule. I'll betcha Ms. Dowd could be a columnist and a militia bar cocktail waitress--maybe writing her column when all the militiafolk are doing marching drills or packing town hall meetings.

Live the dream, MoDo! You can do it all. Yes you can!; 8/26/09, 8:59 AM
X said...: She'd probably be happier. Even Gloria Steinem became a bicycle riding fish.; 8/26/09, 9:01 AM
Rialby said...: It's so college essay - "hmmm.. how can I write something relevant AND subversive? Well, I know we're talking about militias again because they're soooo scary and being a cocktail waitress is a perfectly miserable job that is way beneath me but it's kind of sexy (which I surely must still be), so how about cocktail waitress in a "militia bar"? ooooo, I love it."; 8/26/09, 9:12 AM
Anonymous said...: It seems obvious to me that she wants to be "hit-on" by REAL MEN, not the emasculated Alan Alda types she meets in Manhattan.; 8/26/09, 9:17 AM
Anonymous said...: It's a self-revealing comment by Dowd. Unintentionally self-revealing comments by Dowd aren't very interesting these days. She does seem to embody the mindset that prompted that famous New Yorker cartoon.; 8/26/09, 9:24 AM
I'm Full of Soup said...: It would be cool if the NYT decided a few of its premier columnists had to re-locate and live in flyover country.

Cause there is no real reason they have to be in NY or go into the office. [I assume they have direct deposit].; 8/26/09, 9:27 AM
bagoh20 said...: Her fantasy consists of her mistaken belief that she would finally be the smartest person in the room in such a place. Of course in Montana, she would know nothing of value. She wouldn't even be able to get the boots off.; 8/26/09, 9:30 AM
Mo MoDo said...: When she said "Shredding somebody’s character before the entire world and not being held accountable seems like the perfect sting." I thought she was talking about me personally. I rather enjoy it.; 8/26/09, 9:32 AM
Shanna said...: Militia bars have bartenders who serve beer and keep Merle Haggard playing on the jukebox.

Can you refer me to a Militia bar here in Arkansas? Because that sounds awesome.; 8/26/09, 9:36 AM
KCFleming said...: Mo Do?
No no.
Les Do, fo' sho'.; 8/26/09, 9:40 AM
MadisonMan said...: Dowd has nothing interesting to say on the subject of pseudonymity on the internet.

The phrase on the subject of pseudonymity on the internet is redundant. Says the pseudonymous commenter. ;); 8/26/09, 9:43 AM
SteveR said...: Not to be overly technical but the term "Cocktail Waitress" inconjuction with a "militia bar" in Wyoming doesn't make any damn sense. Maybe in Jackson Hole, but then you'd not have any militia bars. They don't serve many gimlets in Rock Springs.; 8/26/09, 9:52 AM
Bissage said...: I’d scamper off and live my dream of being a cocktail waitress in a militia bar in Wyoming.

I don’t want to criticize Ms. Dowd, but that’s not much of a dream.

My dream is to be immortal and invulnerable, and to look like Daniel Craig with enormous genitals except I’d be better looking and I could turn invisible just by thinking about it and I’d exist in 16 dimensions at once and I’d get to have really great sex with all the women I ever wanted to, and I’d give them all multiple orgasms, and God, Himself, would give me giant bird wings simply because I think they’re kind of nifty and He would adopt me as his son and He would disinherit Jesus (who’s pretty much a wet blanket anymore these days) and I’d get to drink human blood and do horrible things to people I don’t like and then afterwards I’d wish them out into the cornfield and I’d be a major league baseball player (short stop, maybe) and I’d be able to fly anywhere I wanted to go, even in outer space, (did I mention that already?) and I could travel forward and backward in time and I’d visit all the evil dictators ever in the history of the world and I’d ejaculate all over their bed sheets and I’d possess tremendous physical strength so much so that I could lift a pregnant bulldozer right over my head and I’d be able to do a backward somersault and I’d be really good on the pommel horse and I’d be really smart and I could read like a thousand books in an evening except I wouldn’t ever have to do that because I’d already know everything there is to know and I’d be able to communicate with all the animals and fish in the world but I probably wouldn’t have much to say to the insects so maybe that’s not part of my dream but all the rest of the stuff I just got done mentioning would be part of my dream, but then again, only a teeny, tiny part of my dream because there is lots, lots, lots more to my dream, so I still think the thing I thought, before, which was that being a cocktail waitress in a militia bar in Wyoming isn’t really all that much of a dream when get right down to it.

wv = rosmarr. And my dream would be to give her a baby and she would ask "What have you done to its eyes?!" and this creepy guy would say "He has his father's eyes" and Rosmarr would be all freaked out but after a while she'd sort of get used to the idea and she would love her baby and that would make everything even creepier.; 8/26/09, 9:55 AM
Michael Haz said...: @Shanna - You might check with the author of this book regarding the location of militia bars in Arkansas.; 8/26/09, 10:05 AM
I'm Full of Soup said...: All is right with the world cause Bissage is still wonderful.; 8/26/09, 10:09 AM
Anonymous said...: You were working as a waitress in a cocktail bar
When I met you
I picked you out, I signed you up, and gave you a gun
Taught you how to hate the Jews
Now five years later on you've joined the killer elite
Militia's has been so easy for you
But don't forget its me who put you where you are now
And I can put you back down too

Don't, don't you want me?
You know I can't believe it when I hear that you won't see me
Don't, don't you want me?
You know I don't believe you when you say that you don't need me
Its much too late to find
You think you've changed your mind
You'd better change it back or we will both be sorry

Don't you want me baby? don't you want me, Mo, oh oh oh?
Don't you want me baby? don't you want me, Mo, oh oh oh?; 8/26/09, 10:16 AM
tim maguire said...: Why a cocktail waitress in a militia bar in Wyoming....?

Because no woman has ever fantasized about being ravaged by a hippie.; 8/26/09, 10:16 AM
Anonymous said...: Dowd is elite and cowardly, isn't she? The NYT isolates her from the people, and she likes it that way.; 8/26/09, 10:52 AM
exhelodrvr1 said...: There are probably big gun euphemisms running through her brain.; 8/26/09, 10:59 AM
Dusty Fog said...: Hey is that the same bar where that Pollitt broad is dancing.

Because I don't think I want to go there anytime soon.; 8/26/09, 11:08 AM
William said...: Bissage: If I had your fantasy life, I wouldn't even get out of bed....My fantasy--and it's more a parlor trick than a superpower--is to have the ability to cause a person to lose control of their bladder and bowels simply by giving them the look. Such fun at the UN. Also any woman that I looked upon with lust would feel reciprocal lust, except squared and sometimes cubed depending on my mood.....Maureen Dowd gets sent by her employer to expose the extravagance and hypocrisy of luxury spas. Such a life causes one's fantasy life to wither and perish.; 8/26/09, 12:01 PM
Opus One Media said...: oh wonderful. all the idiotsticks on here who can't write a lick of sense let alone a complete sentence attack MD and her pulitzer and her spot on the best editorial page on the planet.

you guys sound like those fat ugly whiners in 3rd grade, hating and loathing, spittle and foam and then being hell bent to like the frozen flag pole cause your betters 'double dog dared you".; 8/26/09, 12:40 PM
Synova said...: LOL!

I was going to say something but Prism chased it right out of my head.

And you, an adult!; 8/26/09, 12:50 PM
Synova said...: Okay, no, I'm still laughing.

Geez Louise... Ms. Dowd is the one who said her dream was to be a cocktail waitress in a militia bar in Wyoming.

Oh, I suppose it was the *worst* she could possibly think of to illustrate just how *terrible* it would be to read the stuff on the internet, sort of rhetorically like "I'd rather go to the dentist" or be rolled on razors and dropped in lemon juice, the absolute bottom of the barrel and not a *real* dream, but it still had to come from somewhere and it *is* interesting that she chose it.

And since Jennifer has apparently *been* to that bar and has reported back to us on the fabulous male/female ratio and the heat-packing "militia"... you know... it really IS interesting that MoDo in a skanky "cocktail waitress" dress (which is the difference between a cocktail waitress and the sort of waitress that wears jeans and serves beer) serving uncivilized and violent men every night... was the worst thing she could think of.; 8/26/09, 1:00 PM
Dusty Fog said...: Is that qoute from her famous work "The Nobody Wants My Vagina Monologues."; 8/26/09, 1:04 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Prism:

I was not fat and ugly in the 3rd grade. That happened much much later.; 8/26/09, 1:05 PM
Automatic_Wing said...: Paul Z - That was excellent! Now I can't get that damn Human League tune out of my head...; 8/26/09, 1:15 PM
daubiere said...: "oh wonderful. all the idiotsticks on here who can't write a lick of sense let alone a complete sentence attack MD and her pulitzer and her spot on the best editorial page on the planet.

you guys sound like those fat ugly whiners in 3rd grade, hating and loathing, spittle and foam and then being hell bent to like the frozen flag pole cause your betters 'double dog dared you"."

Maureen, please, learn to punctuate and capitalize. It's so embarrassing to read you without your editor.; 8/26/09, 1:25 PM
Steven said...: "They don't serve many gimlets in Rock Springs."

Why the gimlet hate? "Half gin and half Rose's lime juice and nothing else" is not some appletini abomination.; 8/26/09, 1:32 PM
Michael Haz said...: Wait a minute. Cain't fool me none with that talk about wanting to be a cocktail waitress.

She wants the free drinks. The waitress part is just the means; the free cocktails are the end. It's all about the gin for Maureen. Again. I figgered it out.

And me, a hillbilly.; 8/26/09, 1:34 PM
MamaM said...: I think "Spittle and Foam" would make a great name for a militia bar

"Lick of Sense" might work too; 8/26/09, 3:15 PM
Jan Koenig said...: I would pay good money to see Maureen Dowd as a cocktail waitress in a militia bar.

Mr. Jan's Education Blog; 8/26/09, 3:18 PM
bearbee said...: Buns 'N Guns

wv - plugh: chaw o' tabacki; 8/26/09, 3:52 PM
MamaM said...: Found some more great entries (over on the Kennedy post) for the "Name the Militia Bar in Wyoming" contest

"Completely Without Class" and
"The Low Brow"

join the two previous entries.

It's not my place to promise prizes, but I'm thinking a couple of cocktails and a bowl of idiotsticks at the militia bar of your choice would be enough.; 8/26/09, 4:03 PM
MamaM said...: Along with "Bun's and Gun's"

add "Plugh's"

and "O'Tabakies"

"Pussy Galore" is another possibility. Maureen was 12 when Goldfinger was released in 1964.; 8/26/09, 4:33 PM
The Dude said...: Scampers! For the Brokeback mountain crowd.

As far as Dowd's assertion that she would scamper off, first, she is years beyond scampering, and b, don't make promises you aren't going to keep, bitch.

WV - lablos - sewn together, for your protection.; 8/26/09, 5:06 PM
MamaM said...: another entry...the Kennedy comments are a gold mine today.

"Twisted F*cks"

...as in "Why shouldn't a senator rip to shreds a twisted fuck like that..." courtesy of Loafing Oaf, (which might work too--but I'd change it to

"Loafing Oaves" or maybe

"Oafing Loaves"; 8/26/09, 6:13 PM
Dusty Fog said...: Can we name the bar after Maureen instead and call it 'The Miserable Cunt."; 8/26/09, 6:42 PM
MamaM said...: "Shooters"?; 8/26/09, 6:47 PM
MamaM said...: "Tards"

Earthy sounding, covering insults from the right and left, from retard to libtard.

WV wants in with the suggestion of "Gents" but I'm nixing that as too dated and exclusive.; 8/26/09, 7:04 PM
Simon Kenton said...: There already is an establishment in Bailey, CO, named "Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms."; 8/26/09, 7:33 PM
kentuckyliz said...: I MUST visit the ATF in Colorado. That's a roadtrip-worthy name for a place.

Isn't O's daughter named Malisha? That's just a misspelling of militia.

I tried to order a Manhattan at a biker bar once. Stooopid me.

"Ma'am, we don't have no mare-a-sheen-O cherries!"

The place busted out laughing.; 8/26/09, 9:00 PM
rcocean said...: When is she going to fulfill here *real* dream - to be funny?; 8/26/09, 10:01 PM
Kurt said...: I'm still laughing about Dusty Fog's comment. I also think tim maguire is onto something.

When I try to imagine what goes on underneath Maureen Dowd's tinfoil hat, though, I think she fantasizes about being a bold feminist influence who would destabilize the assumptions of the folks in the militia bar. It's a version of the fantasy of people who teach women's studies classes at universities--the fantasy that what they do is relevant to anyone OTHER than just the effete types who place so much faith in the supposed wisdom of the op-ed writers at the New York Times.

And without missing a beat, I have to say that I'm stunned to see my word verification this evening is "vanity." Is it just me, or does Blogger also have opinions about Maureen Dowd?; 8/26/09, 11:41 PM