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Maureen Dowd

By Maureen Dowd

Opinion Columnist, reporting from Washington

Maureen Dowd has a cold.

Hmmm.

Not quite the same ring as “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold,” Gay Talese’s legendary 1966 Esquire profile of the crooner.

Nonetheless, I did catch a cold in arctic Des Moines. So on caucus night, I stayed in my hotel room watching TV and munching on Cheez-Its, flipping between wins and losses in Hollywood and Iowa.

There wasn’t any custom Louis Vuitton on display in the frozen tundra of Iowa, but there were some parallels — beyond the abysmal turnout for both shows.

The Emmys did a tribute to “The Sopranos” and James Gandolfini. Donald Trump, who loves to style himself as a tough mob don, facing down a RICO charge, recently bragged about a character reference he’d gotten from Sammy (the Bull) Gravano, once a hit man for John Gotti.

“Succession,” which collected a bouquet of Emmys, is a scorching dynasty drama — the kind we have seen in both the Trump and the Biden clans. Accepting his awards, the show’s creator, Jesse Armstrong, referred to its inspiration, Rupert Murdoch, the cynical Aussie who created the rainforest of disinformation in which Trump has flourished.

“This is a show about family,” Armstrong said, “but it’s also about when partisan news coverage gets intertwined with divisive right-wing politics.”

Flipping........

© The New York Times