Required Reading (1).

I'm going to make an effort to promote posts on other blogs that I think are particularly well written, give our mainly British and mainly Labour readership a perspective they may not be regularly exposed to, or are generally worth a read and unlikely to be spotted by my readership (for various reasons). Sometimes this series shall drift away from blog posts onto articles in other sources, and maybe even the odd book review.

Today, however, the inaugral post shall be in keeping with the rules laid out above. The reading suggestion comes from Tom Watson's blog. No, not the MP! The other one, the one who happens to reside on the other side of the Antlatic, and who has been a jounralist there for over 20 years. Hell, the guy even has a taste for Warren Zevon, so he clearly gets the kewl vote. His post is on the American critic Maureen Dowd and a particularly lame effort she has recently produced. And it fulfills every one of the three criteria stipulated by me for this series. Suggestions for future additions to the series are most welcome.

Rather than copy the whole thing into my post, I urge you to click the linnk and read on. But here are some select literary excerpts to whet your appetite for this laudable post by an esteemed journo*.

"Leaving aside the clueless racism in today's column - her apparent understanding of black American "perplexity" is less nuanced than a comic book - Dowd's continued attacks on Hillary Clinton deserve further commentary"

"Dowd conveniently ignores that fact that once declared, Hillary Clinton wore those pumps out working every back-road and strip mall in New York State - that she didn't do the fainting couch routine against the younger, handsome Republican Rick Lazio, but outworked his Long Island machine ass in every facet of that campaign. Watching her roll up John Spencer this year like a piece of used chewing gum, while spending lavish sums and her own time to help fellow Democrats, I never sensed that she was struggling with her sexual planets."


* I sincerely hope that TW doesn't mind me posting excerpts (Ive not checked) and that I haven't breached copyright or anything (again, I havent checked). In my defence, may I just say that I hope this posts leads to my readership peeping his page, thus it falls under the banner of a charitable donation, and you can't sue me for that, surely! Not at Christmas! ;-)