The Gray Lady’s Stray Lady

The Gray Lady’s Stray Lady

The same can be said, we think, about John Stewart, the diminutive host of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” a program that has recently morphed from a current events spoof to a daily infomercial for the Democratic Party. To be sure, Mr. Stewart knows about as much about politics as the average water ski. But, we hasten to add, he’s funny.

As far as we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” are concerned, humor is the savings grace of many of our left-wing friends.

And this led us to wonder: Is Maureen Dowd, surely the most puzzling member of The New York Times op-ed page, a humorist? Is she attempting to be funny, or do her columns simply read as if she has, like the Islamic Jihad, dropped some horrid bombs?

We know what you are thinking, dear reader: The crack young staff is oh-so-subtly criticizing Ms. Dowd, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner. To which we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” respond: Not so, not so.

We just collectively don’t get it. Her columns are so jejune that they compel us to conclude that she is a struggling (and failing) humorist. After all, how feeble a columnist do you have to be in order to suggest that the current president of the United States is the “Manichaean candidate”? Is Ms. Dowd attempting to be tongue-in-cheek? Or just foot-in-rectum?

Alas, dear reader, Ms. Dowd’s articles are chock-a-block with such quasi-humorous rants. In a recent piece, she refers to Vice President Dick Cheney as the “king of hooey.” Um, Ms. Dowd, you write for the so-called Paper of Record: You’re going to have to do better than that. How about “his majesty of misinformation”? It may not be funny, but at least it has some alliteration going for it.

In fact, Ms. Dowd’s feeble calumniating has inspired us to undertake an Official “Hatemonger’s Quarterly” Call for Gags for Maureen Dowd’s Columns. We hope that you, dear reader, will send us a few choice yuks, and then we can send them on to Ms. Dowd, so that she can spruce up her misguided rants with a couple of knee-slappers. That way, readers horrified by Ms. Dowd’s insinuation that the insidious neo-conservative cabal has taken our country to hell can at least delight in some clever jokes.

It’s all part of our “No Times Columnist Left Behind” effort. Tune in to our humble “weblog” for a future post devoted to an Official “Hatemonger’s Quarterly” Fundraiser for Medication for Paul Krugman to Keep Him from Coming Unhinged.