Maureen Dowd, "Serving Up Schlock": No, She's Not Referring to Jay Carney

Television? I'll let you in on a deep, dark secret: I like "Game of Thrones," but that's the extent of my vice. I also liked "The Sopranos" and "The Wire," but in both of of these instances, I think I can now safely plead the statute of limitations.

In her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Serving Up Schlock" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/22/opinion/dowd-serving-up-schlock.html), Maureen Dowd ridicules network television fare:

"It turns out that Washington isn’t the only place where ideas come to die.

TV honchos cling to outmoded programming traditions even as many younger Americans, gorging on a movable feast of platforms, are losing the habit of turning on the TV, and even as top talent peels off to enjoy the freedom of cable and imaginative hubs like Amazon, Hulu, YouTube and Netflix . . ."

Dowd is right! Who needs network programming, when it will be so much more entertaining to watch Lois Lerner plead the Fifth concerning her involvement in the IRS scandal. (She still hasn't been fired?) Recall that the editorial board of The New York Times has gone on record as stating that the IRS "acted inappropriately because employees couldn’t understand inadequate guidelines" (http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2013/05/new-york-times-editorial-scandal.html). Just one big misunderstanding, yet here we have Lerner about to take the Fifth?

More comedy? Listen to Jay Carney try to avoid answering and then explain away why White House chief lawyer Kathryn Ruemmler purportedly chose not to inform the president that the IRS was targeting conservatives ("Let's not tell Daddy"?).

The prior day, Carney had said (http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/05/20/press-briefing-press-secretary-jay-carney-5202013):

"In these situations the counsel made the decision that this is not the kind of thing that you notify the president of, of an investigation that’s not complete, because it wouldn’t be appropriate to do so."

But as Dan Balz of The Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/with-more-clarity-white-house-adds-to-confusion-on-irs/2013/05/21/a40c54f2-c24d-11e2-8c3b-0b5e9247e8ca_story.html?hpid=z2) asks today:

"Why would it be inappropriate for the president to know what his chief of staff, his counsel and others on his senior staff knew and were talking about with others in the government? Would telling him require him to do something inappropriate? Would he be open to criticism if he knew and stood idly by? Perhaps, but if his top advisers knew weren’t inclined to act inappropriately, why would the president?"

But that's just half of it. Do you honestly believe that Kathryn Ruemmler, all of 42 years old, took it entirely upon herself not to inform the president? What's that? You believe it? Okay, there's a bridge in Brooklyn that I would like to sell you.

And then there was also the scintillating repartee between former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs and Maureen Dowd herself. On "Morning Joe," Gibbs let loose a broadside at Dowd, who has plainly fallen out of love with Obama.

As reported by Politico (http://www.politico.com/story/2013/05/robert-gibbs-maureen-dowd-91608.html), Dowd was quick to fire back:

"'I don’t normally listen to Robert,' she wrote in an e-mail to POLITICO. 'I don’t largely because it’s sort of largely the same tired defense of President Obama for the last, like, six years.'"

You go, girl!

Heck, with this abundance of alternative entertainment, you might need medical marijuana to treat depression, but there is certainly no need for network sitcoms.