Mystery Of The Missing Dowd Snark -- Solved!
February 7, 2008 -- 7:03 PM EST // //
Updated below.
For a couple of days now some reporters and bloggers have been debating the Mystery of the Missing Dowd Snark. And I've solved the mystery -- sort of.
The whole thing started with Dowd's column yesterday about the Hillary-Obama battle. In the dead tree version, she wrote this cutting line about Obama:
Just like Hollywood starlets, he works out religiously and he can make a three-course meal out of a Nicorette.This line ticked a lot of people off, and rightly so, because it brought back some bad memories of Dowd and her cohorts feminizing other male Dem presidential candidates (see Edwards, "Breck Girl" John).
But then, mysteriously, the offending line disappeared from the online version of Dowd's column. This prompted some sharp questions here and here as to why this happened. As Digby asked: "Did her editors finally step in and say she'd gone too far? Can we hope for more?"
This question has been debated a bit in some journalistic circles today. And I thought it was an interesting one, not least because as unlikely as it sounded, it's seductive to imagine that someone did gently suggest that it's time to stop with this sort of nonsense. So I checked in with a Times spokesperson, who emailed over this response from Times editorial page editor Andy Rosenthal:
"Maureen revised her column between editions to update it with new information on an election night. Because new material went in, some older material had to come out."Judging by this answer, no editors did any intervention; this was about space; there was no recognition that this went too far and that it's time to bag this kind of stuff. Oh, well. Still, one has to ask -- was this really cut for space? Is there a space issue on the Internets? Hmmm.
Update: In retrospect, I think I was wrong to raise the question of whether there is a space issue on the Internets. As a number of readers have suggested, Rosenthal did clearly say that she revised it "between editions," meaning print editions. I plead fatigue last night.
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