Maureen Dowd Predictably Questions Barack Obama’s “Manhood”

Al Gore is too effeminate for Maureen Dowd. John Kerry is too effeminate for Maureen Dowd. John Edwards is too effeminate for Maureen Dowd.

Big surprise, Barack Obama is too effeminate for Maureen Dowd, and it’s all his wife’s fault. And, see also (“If Hillary is in touch with her masculine side, Barry is in touch with his feminine side.”)

And of course, she thinks Hillary Clinton is too masculine. Incredibly enough, in one 2005 column she wrote these words:

While a man writing a column taking on the powerful may be seen as authoritative, a woman doing the same thing may be seen as castrating. If a man writes a scathing piece about men in power, it’s seen as his job; a woman can be cast as an emasculating man-hater.

If she objects to being characterized as castrating or emasculating, why does she persist in pejoratively feminizing men?

–Ann Bartow

Update: While there are certainly plenty of reasons to criticize Maureen Dowd, calling her a drunken harpy who is bitter because she couldn’t find a decent man to father her children isn’t exactly claiming the moral high ground.