BTW Talks to Maureen Dowd, Author of Bushworld

Now that the presidential and vice-presidential debates are behind us and election day is less than two weeks away, all that's left to do is scrutinize and re-scrutinize the various shifting polls, bite your nails, rail to sympathetic ears or at unsympathetic ones, and read. Reading about the candidates, as the high number of political bestsellers shows, is how many are responding to a seemingly interminable wait until November 2. Many voters are reading about the guy they wish would lose rather than the guy for whom they plan to vote, as evidenced by the bounty of irate nonfiction on the lists.

Maureen Dowd

Adding to Bookselling This Week's continuing coverage of things political -- which has included Bush and Kerry bibliographies and the Autumn 2004 Book Sense Top Ten Political Picks -- this week, BTW talks with Pulitzer-Prize-winning New York Times Op-Ed columnist Maureen Dowd, author of the Book Sense Bestseller Bushworld: Enter at Your Own Risk, a collection of her funny, and pointed, Times columns. The book's all-new introduction makes especially interesting reading in these last weeks before the election, and courtesy of Dowd's publisher, G.P. Putnam's Sons, BTW is pleased to make it available in PDF format: Click here to download.

Dowd, who was born in Washington, D.C., started her reporting career in 1974 at the Washington Star. She began working for the Times in 1986 as a correspondent in the paper's Washington bureau and became a columnist for the Op-Ed page in '95. She won the Pulitzer Prize in 1999 for her coverage of the Clinton impeachment fracas.

BTW recently spoke with Dowd via telephone, while she was in Connecticut on tour promoting Bushworld.

BTW: It seems every election, and especially in this one, we hear, "This election is the most important election of our lifetime." What's your take on the current presidential race?

Maureen Dowd: Well, I never make formulations like that because we, journalists, are all so ahistorical. [Journalists] are always saying this is the meanest race ever. They used to say that with Bush and Clinton in '92 when Bush called Gore a bozo. And then you look back at some of the races of Lincoln and Jefferson, and they were so vicious. And so I tend to think that we do have a lot of ahistorical outlooks on things. Personally, I can say it's one of the most interesting races I've ever covered. They're all interesting in their own ways, but I just think there's so much at stake with the country and the world.

BTW: Your dedication reads, "To my mom who thinks all the Bushes are swell." Can you talk politics with your family, and how do they react to your writing?

MD: You know it's funny, my family never asks my opinion on politics. They never have, and they don't now. My sister is a passionate Bush supporter, and my mom already filled in her absentee ballot for Bush. My brothers are very strong Bush supporters. It's so funny because my brothers haven't mentioned the book at all. It's as though the book doesn't exist. But then every once in a while I'll come home and there will be written requests from them to sign books for their friends.

I had my book party at my house and C-SPAN2 Book TV came to tape an hour of it, not so much for publicity, I just so much loved the idea of being the P. Diddy of the C-SPAN2 Book TV. My family is so hilarious, my brothers and my sister were the first ones there and the last to leave and they dominated the C-SPAN production. My brothers actually made T-shirts for the book, but they've never talked to me about the book. But I can sense that they're so proud of me because they know better than anyone how shy I am and they're proud I'm able to conquer my fear of public speaking, which I've had ever since I was little.

BTW: Prior to writing this book, you were a more private person, who chose to speak through your columns. Now, since publication of the book you are in the spotlight, doing interviews, you appeared at BookExpo America, and you're making other public appearances at bookstores and colleges. How has this affected your writing?

MD: I have to say there are a couple of ways. This isn't about the column, but I think it's been really good and healthy for me to have to defend my position, though I hate doing it.... When you have to get out there and sink or swim and defend your position, you get to be a little more articulate.

As far as the column, it helps to [be out in public]. I was such a hermit in my office for 10 years. I get to talk to a lot of the smartest people in journalism and that's really great and helpful, but it's nice to be out and talk to readers for two reasons. I'm usually surrounded by my family, and they're always so negative. So if I meet young women who actually like the column, it's so exciting. But I also can see what people are thinking about and talking about. So when we were in Philadelphia, for instance, some guy came up and said, "You've got to write about the Catholic bishop."

Though I read eight newspapers a day and [numerous] magazines, often times I'm not quite focused on what everyone thinks I could be or should be. So when he said that, I went back and started reading about it and I ended up writing about it that night.... It does help to be out and hear what people are interested in and what their thoughts are because then you just have more smart people suggesting things. It's aerated my view; it's brought in more smart people with smart ideas.

BTW: In Bushworld, you talk about how President Bush would rather consult with a "Higher Father" than George H.W. On the stump, we've seen Senator Kerry speak more openly about his religion. What do you think the candidates have to gain by publicizing their faith?

MD: It's just weird for me because I grew up in this house where a huge picture of J.F.K. was in my father's den. When J.F.K. was running, when I was little, there was this fear among Catholics that he would lose because he was a Catholic.... So you just kept hoping that religion wouldn't come into the race. So my youngest memories of politics was just hoping that religion would stay out of the race. It's interesting for me to see how President Bush has brought up religion and also it's ironic given the situation in Iraq. The Bush administration is so desperately hoping that church and state stays separate in Iraq even as they're blending it here.

And on the one hand, it's good for Kerry to talk about it more to compete with Bush, but on the other hand it's another instance where Kerry seems to be following Bush's lead.

BTW: In the chapter "Adventures in Reality," you list some of the key "realities" of Bushworld: That Kerry is labeled a chicken hawk though "he's the one who won medals in combat"; "In Bushworld they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq, even as they increasingly merge the two in America"; and that "In Bushworld, you can claim to be the environmental president on Earth Day while being the industry president every other day."

MD: Even the phrase "The Clear Skies Act" and "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth," ... I mean the language has gotten to the point where Orwellian is a cliche, you can't even use it anymore.

BTW: All of [the above] information is reported in mainstream media, but President Bush's popularity doesn't seem terribly diminished. Why do you think that is?

MD: I don't know. Every time before I go out to any book event I try to call all the smartest political reporters at the Times and ask them that question. I asked Kerry that question a few months ago.... I said, "I don't understand why you can't get any traction." [Kerry's campaign manager] Mary Beth Cahill was there, and she interrupted and said, "Oh, we are getting traction. The polls say ... So I never really got a good answer, but I think that, unfortunately, [in order for Bush to be affected in the polls], Kerry needs to make the case that Bush is in this alternative reality that is very damaging to the country and to the world, and I don't think he's quite made that case. He started to. He mentioned [Bush] being divorced from reality in the first debate, but other than that, he and Edwards have treated Bush and Cheney as if they're very reasonable people. And I think given how many things [the Bush administration] says that are the exactly the opposite of the truth -- on the environment, on stem cells, on Iraq and what is really happening there, I just think Kerry could have made a much, much stronger case that Bush not only didn't tell the American people the truth before the war, but isn't telling them the truth now and is spinning our safety, which is very dangerous. If Bush is always telling us the opposite of what's true, I think it puts us in a very perilous situation.

BTW: Given that you view the current administration as perilous, is it difficult to find humor in your subject?

MD: I studied Shakespeare in college and I think that, for instance, in [King] Lear the fool has all the most serious lines ... so I've always thought that humor was a really great way of being serious. --Interviewed by Karen Schechner

For more on this season's political titles, go to:

The Book Sense National Politics & Presidents Bestseller List

Autumn 2004 Book Sense Top Ten Political Picks

President George W. Bush Bibliography

A John Kerry Bibliography