Maureen Dowd: “The Mentalist”
Maureen Dowd | New York Times
Maureen Dowd, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The New York Times, was accused of plagiarism yesterday in her Sunday column.
Dowd, who wrote the book “Are Men Necessary? When Sexes Collide” (Putnam, 2005), is accused of lifting, almost verbatim, a paragraph from Joshua Micah Marshall’s blog at Talking Points Memo.
The paragraph from Dowd’s s 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.”
Marshall’s paragraph:
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.
The Post-Dispatch oped carries the Wednesday Dowd column on Thursdays. We did not run the column in question.
Dowd’s explanation for the snafu is a bit difficult to digest. From Huffington Post:
Dowd claims that she never read his blog last week but was told the line by a friend of hers. In a follow-up email, she forwarded her desire to apologize to Marshall, writing that had she known, she would have gladly credited Marshall.
The Christian Science Monitor absolutely nailed the situation here.
“The Atlantic” gets it right, too, in its hysterically accurately headlined piece “Maureen Dowd’s Astonishing Feats of Verbal Memory.” It says, “Language Log is extremely skeptical that Maureen Dowd accidentally remembered a verbatim quote from Josh Marshall … If she did, she’s wasted as a columnist; she ought to have her own mentalist act.”
What’s strangest about this alleged plagiarism is that the question put forth in the paragraph in question has been raised by many people in many areas. It’s a question Dowd should raised on her own. Perhaps that is what she was mulling in her “conversation” with her “friend.” Dowd’s professionalism should prohibit this sort of inattentive exegesis.
Jamie Riley is the P-D letters editor and gatekeeper of the letters blog. Before joining the editorial page in May 2005, she was a reporter and page designer. Jamie lives in University City with her husband, Charles, daughter, Elise, and the world's best Jack Russell terrier, Logan, better known as Stinky. 
Credit should always be given where credit is due. That said it is a very good question.
The Huffington Post is a joke. So is Dowd, So is the New York Times. The moronic triplicate hall of fame!
What’s truly sad is that a supposedly mainstream newspaper (most would question that), but at least a local community newspaper would use the Huffinton Post as it’s source. They report nothing but vile, hate filled, anti-republican lies and rumor. Why don’t you start using the National Enquirer, eh Post Dispatch?
Dowd is a bomb throwing hateful LIAR.
First paragraph of this says why not to take this feminazi seriously.
Title of its book.
Please don’t make out like Dowd is some kind of scrambling plagiarist.
She has more words at her disposal than 10 other columnists put together.
I accept her explanation. She is waaay too good to use somebody’s verbatum words on purpose.
Hey it qualifies her to be Vice President.
She lifted words, verbatim, from someone else. It’s pure laziness and it shouldn’t be tolerated because her views align with yours. It’s disgusting and makes one wonder how often she’s done it when it was a little less obvious.
When I was in school, we did an experiment. The teacher gave a 7 word sentence to a student, they read the sentence and then verbally passed the sentence to the next student. By the 3rd student the sentence had changed and by the last it had changed drastically.
For anyone to believe that Dowd “heard” someone say those words and she was gifted enough to remember to write them verbatim shows what kind of fools we have living in this country.
Underground_Mensa and Bill:
When you attack a source instead of the facts, you do not contributue to the discussion.
Bill: People should look at a variety of news sources. What difference does it make that the story was on HuffPo? Would it be truer if it were on Fox News? If so, here you go: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,520467,00.html.
I bet you would have something to contribute to the discussion if you focused on the discussion rather than spouting vitriolic, hyperbolic rants about a blog.
For an example, see the comments by tictac, bluntintstrument and amazedbythe lunacy.
Jamie:
Underground_Mensa and Bill make valid points that are relevant to your post. Why the need on your part to belittle them?
If you want a high-level debate in this forum you’re really going to have to elevate YOUR game.
Here’s what I think is a relevant and interesting question:
What would Greg Freeman have to say about about Maureen’s faux pas ??
Don’t know Dowd…but I do know that some people are {photographic gifted) in some areas…I have a relative who has total recall, if she hears it. Not so, if she reads it…Not putting Dowd up or down…but there are those with that gift….