What Maureen Dowd is Trying to Tell Us

Poor Maureen Dowd is in a little bit of trouble. I don't know if you've already heard the news 'round the blogosphere, but she plagiarized her latest column from the work of Talking Points Memo's Josh Marshall. Dowd claims this was an accident, and that she got the idea for the material in question while chatting with a friend. Yes, it's odd that her "friend" recalled Marshall's article verbatim, but that's Dowd's story and she's sticking to it. No one ever accused the gal of lacking moxie.

And no one can blame Dowd for being drawn to Marshall's idea. He's one smart guy, and winner of the prestigious Polk Award for excellence in journalism. Talking Points Memo has been hailed for "(leading) the news media in coverage of the politically motivated dismissals of United States attorneys across the country." While Dowd missed the attorneys-firing thing, she did come up with clever puns for Sarah Palin (emphasis mine):

I don't agree with those muttering darkly that the picture of Gov. Sarah Palin with a perky smile and shapely gams posing with a pleased Henry Kissinger, famous for calling power the ultimate aphrodisiac, is a sign of the apocalypse.

It isn't even a sign of the apocalipstick.

How did you ingrates expect her to maintain this level of excellence all these years without occasionally plagiarizing from a "parasitic blogger"? And yet I see this latest scandal as a cry for help from Dowd. She's trying to tell us, and her bosses at The New York Times, something very important.

Maureen Dowd wants to retire her column to Josh Marshall. Think about it! He's a smart, insightful journalist, who runs one of the most respected blogs on the internet, and has published other works in other respected forums such as (see, this is how you credit other sources, Maureen): The American Prospect, The Atlantic Monthly, The Boston Globe, The Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, The Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, The New Yorker, The New York Post, Salon, Slate, and even The New York Times. And just to soothe the nerves of any snobs out there, yes, Josh Marshall went to Princeton, so he already knows how to speak the language of the privileged.

Such a silly, blatant violation of basic journalistic values is beneath Dowd, winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary. Sure, she won for essentially gossiping about a blow job during Lewinskygate, but those fellatio euphemisms weren't going to write themselves, damnit! Now, Dowd is telling us, her loyal readers, that she wants to step aside and let a new voice take her place. She syphoned Marshall's excellent idea because she has no excellent ideas of her own. Dowd is an empty vessel, filled with nothing except gossip and bad puns.

The old girl is asking to be put down. When she's not plagiarizing, she's writing about Star Trek or trying to figure out how Twitter works. I mean, how long are we going to watch her suffer? Well, I for one, am going to try and put a stop to this. I have already written the editors at The New York Times with the following request:

Dearest editors-

First time writer; long-time reader here. At first, I was quite distressed to learn about Maureen Dowd's plagiarism of Talking Points Memo's Josh Marshall's excellent article. But then, I realize Maureen was trying to tell us all something.

Maureen Dowd...wants to retire! I think this is great news, and I propose that Mr. Marshall take her place at the Times. He's more than qualified as a Polk Award winner, and he's already been published in numerous, nationally distributed newspapers. Oh! And he went to Princeton. I know it's not Harvard or Yale, but seriously guys, loosen up.

You already know Marshall has good ideas because Maureen stole one from him, so we're halfway there!

Requesting Josh Marshall replace Maureen Dowd,
Allison Kilkenny

I suggest you do the same. Email a letter to [e-mail].

Cross-posted from Allison Kilkenny's blog. Also available on Facebook and Twitter.

Comments

[JudyMillerDubyaAgent]

Why is no one asking the obvious question? Did Maureen Dowd's reporting assistant provide that Josh Marshall content for that column? Is it possible that Maureen didn't really write the column in question and that's the real reason why she's being evasive about her "friend" is because she doesn't want to admit that her reporting assistant wrote the piece?

It's an open secret that the NYTimes columnists have reporting assistants. In fact, a Maureen Dowd column filed last year about Hillary Clinton's victory party in New Hampshire raised eyebrows for its large amount of on-the-scene color and quotes since Maureen Dowd was not in attendance. It turns out her reporting assistant was the one who did the on-the-scene reporting and interviewing of folks at the party. In fact, irony of ironies, it was Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo who pointed this out last year:
http://bit.ly/OOzHQ

[longislandlol]

She has less to find wrong with our almost perfect president- she needs a break till the repugs get in-- but by that time- she'll be past the mandatory retirement age---

[panativeson]

"THE ONLY THING WE HAVE TO FEAR, IS FEAR ITSELF." MAUREEN DOWD

[BadDayInProgress]

I was told some columnists have ghost writers and they just do editing. Is it possible that that's the case here? I just can't believe MoDo would lift something from a source that would be very traceble. TPM is well known among journalists and bloggers. Maybe the assistant/ghost writer "forgot" to paraphrase it?

Maybe MoDo had to decide which case was worse -- being a gifted writer who, unfortunately, tragically, also relies on somebody else to write her great column, or getting busted for copying somebody else's work.

[SharpDressedMan]

Maureen Dowd's contempt for the Clintons and Al Gore is schadenfreude on steroids. Bill Clinton and Al Gore are private citizens and hardly a target for her venomous column. If she tries to resurrect her disdain she will be heavily criticized for recycling old feelings again. She already recycled her column too many times.

Most journalists thrive on news oriented events. She thrives on gossipy events and the well ran dry. There are no scandalous politicians of significant fame she can place in her crosshairs.

[rabiddog6708]

There once was a scribe named Dowd
who fancied a quote her friend spoke aloud
She mingled the quote with those that she wrote
and told all she forgot how.

[Bruupo]

Very nice Limerick.

But some guy named Lionel Beehner says you totally plagiarized the form.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lionel-beehner/sorry-we-are-all-plagiari_b_205125.html

[BitterlyBooks]

You do know that "apocalipstick" isn't even an original pun, right? It's the title of a book by Sue Margolis that was published in 2003.

[Anonani]

I agree that she stole the words verbatim. I also agree that whatever normally happens to those confirmed as having stolen the words of others should happen to her. That fits into a very small set of outcomes: disgraced and dismissed. The most disappointing part of this is that she will not take personal responsibility for it and persists in telling us this completely implausible and unbelievable story about how it happened!

[VictoriaP]

maureen dowd's recollection of events is a crock w/a familiar stench to it, hmmmm, still trying to place the odor...

very few of us who read/peruse dozens of blogs/articles each day can recall an entire paragraph of text from any one article in particular. combine that with the odds that, as the friend recalled, verbatum, the paragraph, dowd was able to also write it down verbatum. sure, she could have had her tape recorder on but that would be strange. one would also assumes that the paragraph didn't likely need to be repeated by the friend, to aid dowd in her note taking effort.

laughable...dowd is so pompous and has contempt for bloggers, how fitting an end...

[DWSouthern]

Dowd needs to plagiarize someone with substance. Of late her columns have had no substance and her snarky meanness has become irritating.

[keerod76]

All the more reason to turn to Gail Collins, who is the clever, comedic NYT columnist that Dowd used to be.

http://balmer.typepad.com/jester/
The Dark Clown of Comedy

[SharpDressedMan]

Interesting article by Allison but I have another theory. Maureen Dowd is telling the NY Times she wants to scale back from 2 columns a week to 1 per week or one every 2 weeks. Dowd sucked the Clinton/Lewinski affair years after it was over and last year she couldn't wait to bring it up again while commenting on Hillary's run for the presidency. Bill Clinton and Al Gore are in private life. Hillary is a stateswoman. What is a poison pen columnist to do?

Bill Clinton's scandal was a once in a lifetime event. Now Dowd doesn't have a scandalous politician of that caliber to prey upon. Routine events are not her forte. She can help the NYT's budget by relinquishing her inflated salary.

[slo moe]

We can now eagerly anticipate the tough questions that will be put to a tearful Ms. Dowd by the king of take no prisoners journalism, Larry King. I suspect that an additional button left unfastened on her blouse will quickly change the line of questioning to her candid and oh so hip cynical take on the new Star Trek movie.

[hippiechick257]

I didn't realize that anyone cared so much about this kind of thing.

Since we do, could we do something about this post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/yvonne-r-davis/ken-blackwell-if-barack-o_b_154404.html which contains a rather unique definition which the blogger seems to present as her own. Perhaps we could write to...well.­..someone.

The uncredited excerpt appears without quotation marks or offsetting of any sort in the third paragraph.

[jambellee]

Most excellent piece! Maureen Dowd and her kvetchy prose are so Bush-era (and well, Clinton-era too). Please lay her off in favor of someone who really goes deep into the issues, you know, EXAMINES THEM, and doesn't just fire away with surface-y snipe-y jokes. Sometimes she gets it right, and it's a beautiful thing, but frankly, that's only about half the time. The rest of the time, it's pallid zingers.

[janetellenbratter]

Here is the letter I just popped off to the NYT.

To the Editor:
The ridiculous remarks from Allison Kilkenny about Maureen Dowd that I just read on the Huffington Post site are indicative of how the so-called blogosphere behaves like a school of hungry piranas ready to devour the MSM whole. I will venture to guess that Kilkenny is also representative of the kind of woman who enjoys drawing attention to herself at the expense of other women who are more accomplished than she.

Of course I could be completely misreading Kilkenny. Her assumption that MOJO has been engaging in self-sabotage as a round-about means of seeking early retirement may be her attempt at humor or even satire. She may in fact be attempting to strike a match to a wet pile of unread newspaper and have fire emerge. If that was Kilkenny's intention she struck out with that match. No fire, no smoke, not even a satiric chuckle.

Too many little twitters are navel gazing. Others are morphing into the hungry piranas. Still others are taking a page from the Hitchcock classic, "the Birds". Look out MODO. Thousands of black-birds are circling, eager to peck out your eyes and pilfer your paycheck.

Of course if you really are eager to retire I hope you will invite me to your retirement party at that spa on Miami Beach that your paper sent you to.

janetellen­bratter@gm­ail.com
"have guitar/will travel"

[Bruupo]

Right, any chance you might mention how you rationalize Dowd's excuse?

She copies the passage verbatim except for one word, and not a short passage, and it was something "a friend told her"?

When she ripped into Biden for plagiarism, it was also for a single passage (in a speech) and the recitation was far less verbatim- it was more of a concept. And Biden had previously given credit for the source in previous deliveries of that speech. AND it was swiping from a British politician before American audiences.

At the very least, Dowd was letting someone else write this column, and that person forgot to sufficiently change the things they were cutting and pasting. But if she wrote it herself, than she is the one who performed a digital copy and paste and forget to change more than a single term, as though she had gotten it from some unread blog no one has ever heard of.

And now we get to wonder how many times she may have done that, as well.