Maureen Dowd’s new interview with Donald Trump published over the weekend was mostly tedious. One bit was striking, however:
Given his draconian comment, sending women back to back alleys*, I had to ask: When he was a swinging bachelor in Manhattan, was he ever involved with anyone who had an abortion?
"Such an interesting question," he said. "So what’s your next question?"
It is an interesting question, I think. One would hope that Dowd, a member of a church that teaches that abortion is an intrinsic moral evil, would agree and want to know the answer. Did she press him? No. Instead—sound the banality of evil klaxon!—she asked him a question about his favorite subject, i.e., his poll numbers.
I have argued before that there is at the very least a case for pro-life voters to support Trump if he is the Republican nominee. I’m feeling less sure about this. He should decide what he really thinks about abortion and tell the voters.
That’s probably not going to happen if Dowd is the one asking the questions. This is the third time she has interviewed him in as many months. She won’t press him on abortion for the same reason she won’t press him on race ("I’m with the people"), misogyny ("I attack men far more than I attack women"), his numerous feuds ("I don’t have to make up with everyone"), or the violence and vulgarity at his rallies ("The rallies are the safest places a child could be"); the same reason she uses her valuable access (at this point virtually unique in print journalism) to the man to ask him about his looks ("Phenomenal"), his hair, ("just fine"), his "brand" (he doesn’t seem to have answered), Rosie O’Donnell ("I won’t comment on Rosie"), and the quality of the wine bearing his name, which he has never tasted ("My wine has gone through the roof"). The reason is that she isn’t a serious journalist. When someone agrees to talk to her, she is sycophantic; when access is denied, she makes lame jokes.
Dowd’s anti-poor-babies colleague Nick Kristof put it best in his column the week before last:
Those of us in the news media have sometimes blamed Donald Trump’s rise on the Republican Party’s toxic manipulation of racial resentments over the years. But we should also acknowledge another force that empowered Trump: Us.
I wonder whether Dowd read it.
*Dowd’s syntax here is hazy to me. What, exactly, is doing the "sending" in this clause: the "draconian comment"? If Phil Corbett could advise, I would appreciate it.