Maureen Dowd's "Blowin’ in the Idiot Wind": The Pot Calls the Kettle Black

[An abridged version of this blog entry was posted as New York Times reader's comment no. 7 to Dowd's op-ed, "Blowin' in the Idiot Wind". So as not to run afoul of their so-called "moderators", who have proven themselves anything but moderate and who have a penchant for rejecting my submissions, I did not include in my NYT reader's comment the penultimate paragraph below concerning Dowd's op-eds from Saudi Arabia.]

In a New York Times op-ed entitled "Blowin’ in the Idiot Wind" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/10/opinion/10dowd.html), Maureen Dowd reproaches Bob Dylan, soon to be 70, for not singing protest songs in China in accordance with the wishes of his Communist hosts. Dowd writes:

"The idea that the raspy troubadour of ’60s freedom anthems would go to a dictatorship and not sing those anthems is a whole new kind of sellout".

Sorry, Maureen, but don't you think your disappointment at Dylan's failure to sing protest songs should have been directed at President Obama, who, when visiting China and better positioned to denounce human rights abuses directly to the party bosses, never said a word?

And let's not forget how, in order to further appease the Chinese, Obama saw the Dalai Lama in the Map Room and not the Oval Office. There was no official welcome, the meeting was closed to the press, only a single White House photo was released, and the Dalai Lama was sent out of the White House via a back door, where a pile of trash was unceremoniously waiting for him.

Better yet, let's not forget Maureen Dowd's visit to Saudi Arabia in 2010. Writing a series of op-eds from the desert kingdom, she never once mentioned the practice of "honor killings" in Saudi Arabia. She never described how women who are gang raped are sentenced to prison and lashings. She never mentioned the problem of "child brides".

Truly an instance of the pot calling the kettle black.