Clark Hoyt, the New York Times public editor and a national treasure, calls out the retrograde sexism of Maureen Dowd:

Dowd’s columns about Clinton’s campaign were so loaded with language painting her as a 50-foot woman with a suffocating embrace, a conniving film noir dame and a victim dependent on her husband that they could easily have been listed in that Times article on sexism, right along with the comments of Chris Matthews, Mike Barnicle, Tucker Carlson or, for that matter, Kristol, who made the Hall of Shame for a comment on Fox News, not for his Times work.

…[T]he relentless nature of her gender-laden assault on Clinton — in 28 of 44 columns since Jan. 1 — left many readers with the strong feeling that an impermissible line had been crossed, even though, as Dowd noted, she is a columnist who is paid not to be objective.

…Politically correct is never a term one would apply to Dowd’s commentary. Her columns this year said Clinton’s “message is unapologetically emasculating,” and that she “needed to prove her masculinity” but in the end “had to fend off calamity by playing the female victim.” In one column Dowd wrote, “She may want to take a cue from the Miss America contest: make a graceful, magnanimous exit and wait in the wings.”

…Even she, I think, by assailing Clinton in gender-heavy terms in column after column, went over the top this election season.

As Bob Somerby points out, Dowd’s response is utterly disingenuous:

“I’ve been twisting gender stereotypes around for 24 years,” Dowd responded. She said nobody had objected to her use of similar images about men over seven presidential campaigns. She often refers to Barack Obama as “Obambi” and has said he has a “feminine” management style.

…“From the time I began writing about politics,” Dowd said, “I have always played with gender stereotypes and mined them and twisted them to force the reader to be conscious of how differently we view the sexes.” Now, she said, “you are asking me to treat Hillary differently than I’ve treated the male candidates all these years, with kid gloves.”

Somerby’s response is exactly right:

Who knew? Readers, had it even crossed your mind that Dowd was trying to make this point? That Dowd has been trying to “force [us] to be conscious of how differently we view the sexes?” We’ll confess—we’ve read Dowd closely for more than a decade, and it never so much as entered our head that this was her lofty intention!

…[L]et’s get clear on one basic point: No, she hasn’t done this sort of thing to Democrats and Republicans alike. Let’s quote Digby on this point: “Her ‘twisting of gender stereotypes’ has turned every Democrat into a mincing ponce or a blubbering mama’s boy and every Republican into a macho, scotch drinking throwback or an arrogant jock.” Once in a while during Campaign 2000, Dowd did picture Candidate Bush blubbering for his “beloved feather pillow.” But she has constantly turned Dem Males into girls—and she constantly switched the scam with her trashing of man-woman Clinton.