You give Dowd way too much credit for her e-mea sorta culpa.

You seem to be confusing damage control for plagiarism in the past with today's world damage control with online plagiarism. It's a faster world with savvier readers and groups that will turn against you quickly. Give Dowd credit for recognizing how vocal her readership would have been if she'd attempted to try the stonewall dance of her predecessors (And only a hack snark princess like Dowd would have known how to respond how the online community would have responded because it's exactly what she would have abused an online plagiarist).

Her admission of "guilt" came out of a need for self-preservation, not any desire for literary honesty.

But, who cares? I'm still wondering who exactly at the New York Times one has to have a weekly casting couch trip with in order to write a poorly written, information-free faux-blog column.

I have no opinion on the plagarism stuff (should I be suprised?), but your description of her collumn is perfect!

"I'm still wondering who exactly at the New York Times one has to have a weekly casting couch trip with in order to write a poorly written, information-free faux-blog column."

Mmmm. As I cast my mind over more recent column-writing hires — Bill Kristol, Ross Douthat — I wonder who would want to do that for the audition? Bleah.

You plagizarized my "casting-couch" idea from several posts back ("Maureen Dowd- Sad Little Pathetic Woman".)

Oh the irony...

I theorize that Dowd is approaching complete burnout. In other words, she hardly cares anymore. Her column blows on a weekly basis now, as opposed to every 3rd week. Now that the Democrats have complete power, who can she make snide remarks about, Obama? Right....