Maureen Dowd Admits Part of Op-Ed Is Eeerily Similar to TPM

Well, fancy that: A TPM Cafe blogger noticed how a passage in Maureen Dowd's Sunday op-ed column was very similar to a Talking Points Memo column, posted on Thursday, by TPM editor Josh Marshall. Dowd's passage read, "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 was exactly the same, except he used "we were" instead of "the Bush crowd was." Dowd later admitted to the Huffington Post that it was a mistake—she was discussing the column with a friend "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." Gawker calls it BS and Politico's Michael Calderone has emailed Dowd, asking "if it's common practice to take an entire passage from a friend and weave it into her column." In the meantime, Dowd's column is updated, acknowledging Marshall.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jen Chung in News on May 18, 2009 8:12 AM

Comments [rss]

Trilby16

Dowd is nothing more than a jester. I lost all respect for her because of her unwarranted trashing of Al Gore. Anything for a laugh! Including 8 years of Bush...

Sommelier

So, from simply making stories up (Al Gore & the image consultant, Hillary Clinton & the gift registry) she's graduated to plagarism. Too bad that the Times only fires men for lying in their work.

fauxsella

Even though I'm 'younger', I'd do Maureen Dowd. Think about it, she's smart, funny, she won a Pulitzer as she's still a hottie. Absolute C-I-L-F.

Mr Mel

Maureen Dowd is ok. She's on the right side of most issues and I think she's funny as well. She also apologized, which is more than most of us do.

Radtard

And the reason to read her column is because only she has that special bat-shit crazy quality.

I'm not hating, you keep on being whacked out loon Ms. Dowd and I'll keep reading.