After a blogger at TPM Cafe pointed out that Maureen Dowd's latest column has a paragraph that is identical, except for 2 words, to a paragraph in a post by Josh Marshall, Dowd admitted that yes, it "was lifted" from Marshall.
But, um, insists Maureen, she never read Josh's Marshall's post. Rather a friend of Maureen's read Josh's post and then said friend told Maureen about Marshall's point but forgot to credit Marshall. Moreover, Maureen's friend conveyed Marshall's point in Marshall's exact words and so Maureen used those very same words.
In other words, Maureen didn't know she was lifting a paragraph from Josh Marshall. Maureen thought she was lifting a paragraph from her friend. And how many of Maureen Dowd's columns are written by friends? Maybe Dowd got this infamous line from one of her friends?:
"Al Gore is so feminized and diversified and ecologically correct that he's practically lactating."
Mistakes happen and I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, but when has Maureen Dowd ever done that? Certainly not for Al Gore, Hillary Clinton or any other Democratic presidential candidate. So when is the New York Times going to replace Dowd with a liberal columnist? Paul Krugman is lonely.
Dowd confesses, sort of:
i was talking to a friend of mine Friday about what I was writing who suggested I make this point, expressing it in a cogent -- and I assumed spontaneous -- way and I wanted to weave the idea into my column.
but, clearly, my friend must have read josh marshall without mentioning that to me. we're fixing it on the web, to give josh credit, and will include a note, as well as a formal correction tomorrow.
Maureen Dowd's New York Times column:
"More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when the Bush crowd was looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq."
Josh Marshall on Thursday:
"More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when we were looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq."
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