New York Times snarkmistress Maureen Dowd wrote an op-ed  bemoaning the fact that no women have been on a Democratic ticket since 1984, when everyone was so sexist and mean to Geraldine Ferraro. Will everyone be so sexist again, now that Joe Biden is trapped into choosing a woman, whether there are any qualified or not?

Ann Althouse was among the early online pundits to point out Dowd’s gaffe–I would say obvious gaffe, but it apparently wasn’t obvious to her editor, or anyone else who saw the piece before it was published.  Uh, Maureen, does the name “Hillary Clinton” ring a bell? How quickly they forget! The Times eventually rushed out a correction, and the online version of the op-ed now says, “It’s hard to fathom, but it took another 36 years for a man to choose to put a woman on the Democratic ticket with him.”

There’s a lot more wrong than that…

• Dowd might have mentioned that Ferraro was a terrible choice for VP. Like whomever Biden picks, she was selected because she was a woman, and that it. There were dozens of men who had more relevant experience and were better qualified to be on the ticket, and that’s who a Presidential candidate is obligated to choose, someone who is qualified, not someone who checks a box. Critics were critical of Ferraro because she wasn’t a responsible choice.

Of course, Mondale was a weak Presidential candidate too. Not as weak as diminished Joe will be, though.

• Go ahead, Maureen, make your case: who are all those qualified women who should have been chosen by Democratic POTUS nominees to be a heartbeat from the Presidency?

I’ve checked. The list of female governors of the Democratic persuasion is notable for its mediocrity.  Only one was a national figure, and that was Texas governor Ann Richards. The only way she could have been on a ticket was if Clinton dumped Al Gore in 1996, and by that time, Richards had lost her bid for re-election. The list of Senators who could have been chosen since 1984 is even weaker. Carol Mosely Braun was supposed to be a rising star, but she was a crook. Maryland’s Barbara Mikulski was a force in the Senate, but she was also a short, stocky lesbian who looked like a bulldog. The one female Senator since 1984 who might have helped a ticket was…Hillary Clinton, and she had her eye on bigger things.

• Dowd says,

We don’t know whom Biden will choose but we do know the sort of hell she will endure at the hands of Team Trump. Even after the #MeToo revolution, even with women deciding this election, have the undercurrents of sexism in America changed so much? …Kimberly Guilfoyle, Kellyanne Conway, Kayleigh McEnany, Lara Trump and Jeanine Pirro — the Fox Force Five of retrograde Trumpworld — will have the knives out. Conservatives will undermine the veep candidate with stereotypes. She’s bitchy. She’s a nag. She’s aggressive. She’s ambitious. Who’s wearing the pants here, anyhow?

Those evil, sexist conservatives! Clinton isn’t the only woman on a national ticket that Dowd forgot about. Does the name “Sarah Palin”? sound familiar, Maureen? You know, that woman on a national ticket that the news media and progressive pundits…including you…mocked mercilessly, including arguments that her duties as a mother would interfere with her ability to be a Vice President or President, while the Democratic nominee for President had less executive experience, and the male Democratic VP candidate made a career of sticking his  foot in his mouth?  Palin was the one Saturday Night Live roasted, while Joe Biden was left alone.

Dowd’s hypocrisy and historical revisionism are nauseating,

• Now  a Democratic Presidential candidate again is going to select a female running mate whose only “qualification” is her gender, and embarrassingly, race. All of the potential choices have baggage and well-established weaknesses, and all criticism of whoever it is will be attributed to sexism and racism by those bigoted conservatives.

Just like 1984!

• What a bitter and nasty individual Hillary is…but we knew that. Here is her response to Dowd’s mistake:

She could have, and should have, been gracious. It’s not as if Clinton hasn’t made her share of jaw-dropping mistakes. She could have shown a sense of humor, or said something constructive. After all, Dowd was a vocal supporter in 2016.

• Back to editing: the Times is supposed to be the gold standard of print journalism. If their editors could miss a glaring historical error like that, what does it say about the paper’s standards, professionalism, competence and trustworthiness? This is recent history.

It reminds me of the old Bob and Ray routine where Ray Goulding played a proud longshoreman who had written a massive history of the United States. “But, sir your book is riddled with errors!” says an interviewer, played by  Bob Elliot. “Like here on page 543, it says that Abraham Lincoln was born in Bailey;s Mistake, Maine!”