By Hunter Baker on 8.19.04 @ 12:06AM
It's Maureen in America.
During a recent television appearance, New York Times
pundette Maureen Dowd said something that should have effectively
ended her career. In an on-air discussion with HBO's Bill Maher,
Dowd said that those who oppose the expansion of funding for
stem-cell research come from "what Lee Atwater used to call the
extra-chromosome conservatives."
If anyone fails to take in the full meaning of Dowd's statement,
she was referring to the condition that causes Down Syndrome. In
other words, if you oppose stem-cell research, you must be as
stupid, unsophisticated, and laughable as someone who suffers from
Down Syndrome. Wow, that's funny stuff right there.
Here's the exchange:
Dowd: ...She's [Teresa Heinz Kerry] been sort
of eclipsed this week by Laura Bush, I think.
Maher: Yeah, who, ah, said she came out against
the stem cell research. Why is she an expert on something so
technical?
Dowd: Because Karl Rove thinks that if the Bush
White House gets four million more evangelical votes than they did
last time it ensures Bush's re-election, which means he's not his
dad. And so they've dragged poor Laura Bush out to go for this,
what Lee Atwater used to call the extra-chromosome
conservatives.
This is what is known as stepping in it. It was much worse than
Trent Lott appearing to be nostalgic for the good old days of Strom
Thurmond's youth. This is Jimmy the Greek explaining black athletic
superiority by getting into the details of slaveholders' strategies
for better breeding of field hands.
In fact, Dowd's characterization of pro-lifers as
"extra-chromosome conservatives" is worse than either of the
preceding examples. She played birth defects for laughs to score a
few cheap political points.
Was it a one-time slip? Was this the first time Dowd invoked
Down Syndrome to explain the failings of conservatives? No. On at
least two occasions in her regular NYT column, Dowd used the same
one-liner. She has alternately attributed it to Lee Atwater and
Bush the Elder. My own guess from a Lexis-Nexis search is that the
term arises from what someone told Kitty Kelley when she was
writing her book on Nancy Reagan. Dowd finds the slur so amusing
that she keeps recycling it.
Dowd's thoughtless reference to "extra-chromosome conservatives"
as a way of describing pro-lifers carries a further heartless edge.
Down Syndrome children are increasingly the target of abortion by
parents who refuse to countenance the addition of such a child to
their families. Sometimes, pro-lifers are the only advocates these
vulnerable children have.
This time around, Dowd tied the slur to the four million
evangelical voters Karl Rove believes stayed home in 2000. In
effect, she slandered an entire religious community in the United
States. This type of mindless repetition of an obviously untrue
stereotype is a sign of professional laxity and ill will. We all
know how many academics, physicians, professionals, and other
hard-working, decent people exist in the evangelical world to put
the lie to her idiotic parroting of the old saw first rolled out by
the Washington Post so long ago (poor and easy to command,
remember?). A similar characterization of any other religious group
in America would meet with severe censure, and rightly so.
POSTSCRIPT: Maureen Dowd may have spoken more correctly than she
knew when she identified pro-lifers as "extra-chromosome
conservatives." Jerome Lejeune discovered the extra chromosome that
causes Down Syndrome and devoted his career to treating the
children who suffer from it. He also happens to have been a
powerful advocate for the unborn. Maybe she could call him an
"extra-chromosome conservative" as well.
topics:
Television, Abortion
