Status Updates From The Year of Voting Dangerou...

A portent of what was to come

But, again, the scrutiny on Clinton regarding her husband’s infidelities is nothing we’ve seen before, and whether her reactions or choices are deemed feminist or regrettable or calculated, they’re still her decisions, and they are still decisions that, to date, have never been required of her male counterparts.

Other fair criticism includes how Clinton spoke of Monica Lewinsky publicly, and her “it wasn’t my job” approach to Benghazi. It wasn’t her fault, no, but it was her job.

This is in contrast to her coverage of Trump, whom she rightly treats as a dim-witted 7th grader, but with the fondness of a great-aunt. Silly Donald, she says. Look what he’s doing now.
To be fair, I’m speaking of her 2015 coverage, when Clinton was already a formidable front-runner for the election and Trump’s candidacy was a joke - at least, by myself, Dowd, and others who had no idea what was to come.

Some criticisms are fair: especially her vote for the Iraq War. But blaming her for “playing the victim” when opponents try to take her down is backseat driving at best, and a sexist trope at worst. Dowd’s befuddlement over “who *is* she?” plays right into the hands of the misogynist architects who keep telling us that women must be consistent or they aren’t authentic, but never ask the same of a man.

Here’s the thing: I don’t usually write anything about a book until I’ve finished it.
Dowd is an extremely talented writer, and her sometimes eye-roll inducing wordplay is always placed so precisely and intentionally that you can tell she was rolling her own eyes while writing it - one of my favorite types of humor.
But her coverage of Hillary Clinton in 2015, as I’m reading it, is blatantly sexist.