[img]1|left|||no_popup[/img]The most famous spinster in journalistic America went fishing again over the weekend. She reeled in — or rather told — actually did not tell, which was the problem — a whopper.
For the second time in 16 months, the most famous lady on the most famous newspaper in America has lied to her readers. And for the second time she is skidding away with the lie tucked neatly into her favorite purse from Woolsworth’s discount rack..
At the outset of the Presidential primary campaign a year ago last winter in New Hampshire, the dowdy little Maureen Dowd of The New York Times filed a column whose dateline made it appear she was writing from the cauldron of the campaign, a city in New Hampshire.
Trouble was, the dowdy Ms. Dowd was even farther away from New Hampshire than Culver City is. Of all places, Ms. Dowd, was in Israel.
Historically, datelines have been critically important to newspapers. As a marketing weapon, if datelines such as Tehran, Jerusalem, London, Boston, Chicago, Miami Beach, Sacramento show up in the newspaper on a regular basis, readers may assume they are receiving blue-ribbon coverage of worldwide events.
Never mind that the Los Angeles Times, running a race with Ms. Dowd’s Times to see which can lose money faster, is likely to win because it has been taken over by a gang of not only non-newspaper guys. A few months ago, a radio guy straddled the journalistic version of Mt. Sinai downtown. He declared the L.A. Times never again would use a dateline. It was too yesterday. He ruled that bylines hereafter would read:
“Mortimer Snerd
“Reporting from Chicago,” a style copied from radio.
I digress.
I Hope No One Is Looking
This past Sunday, Ms. Dowd of the more prestigious Times plunged into the plagiarism business.
Showing questionable class, she did not steal from the best known blogger in America, but the fellow does have a reputation.
Do you suppose that when one left-winger steals from another lefty — the old girl was not even subtle — that, by liberal standards, this does not constitute wrongdoing?
If the dowdy Ms. Dowd is not lying, then Howdy Doody, not O.J., murdered Nicole and Ron.
A liberal thinker named Joshua Marshall writes the Talking Points Memo blog, which his fans abbreviate to TPM.
Last Thursday, Mr. Marshall composed the following 43 words about the torture debate:
“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.”
By the darnedest coincidence, the spinster, who suffers from the ethical version of Parkinson’s disease, used the same words to pull off the hefty heist in her Sunday 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.”
My golly, Murgatroyd.
Not coincidentally, the wool-spinning spinster reached her crooked right arm into the middle of the thought she stole from Mr. Marshall. Clumsily, she altered one phrase, changing “when we were looking” to make it read “when the Bush crowd was looking.” The spinster, you may know, despises the former President.
Bring up the Violins, Please
Unsurprisingly, the little lady is chronically depressed and angry. Compounded by the fact she has been spurned by men for years, the dowdy Ms. Dowd is a psychological train wreck. At the weekend, Ms. Sneaks was caught before her Sunday column could even blush.
According to the Huffington Post, Ms. Dowd confessed in an email to that left-wing blogsite that the paragraph indeed was lifted quite intact from Mr. Marshall’s piece of last Thursday. The Huff Po, as the whizzes call it, say Ms. Dowd insisted she never read Mr. Marshall’s blog.
Isn’t that what all plagiarists claim? The theft came to them in a dream.
Daringly, Ms. Dowd assured the Huff Po that she “was told the (exact 43 words of Mr. Marshall) by a friend of hers.”
The trapped spinster, who believed in Santa Claus until last Friday, said she sent an apology to Mr. Marshall.
Replied the witty Mr. Marshall:
“All Dowd did (with my copy) was change ‘we were’ to ‘the Bush crowd was.’”
“Now, I'm all for cutting & pasting. As a blogger I do it all the time. But I always give credit.
“So, if this isn't outright plagiarism by a top NY Times Editorialist, then I'm a happily married, straight man with 4 kids, 2 dogs, a lovely 2nd wife of 15 years with a girl half my age on the side.
“Which I assure you all, I am not.”
As she stumbles toward dodderinghood, Ms. Dowd was quoted yesterday as having said with a straight, but wrinkled, face:
“Josh is right. I didn't read his blog last week, and didn't have any idea he had made that point until you informed me just now. 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.”
If my previous wives had been as stupid as Ms. Dowd assumes you and I are, I would not have had to go through those practice marriages to get to the right one.
On the other hand, look where plagiarism got Joe Biden. He lied about a speech he gave in the 1980s.The Democratic media forgave him by burying the news, and just a few months ago, around Groundhog Day, the aging laughingstock emerged as Mr. Obama’s Vice President.
