Really, I'd love to know. She was never my favorite columnist in the Times--her humor was always a bit too mean. Unlike Gail Collins who can skewer a politician while still leaving him some dignity, and her readers their dignity as well. I'm not sure about the rest of you, but when someone is shamed too much, and I laugh, I start to dislike myself. Dowd did that to me; Collins never has.
But in the last few years, Dowd's columns are boring, very often non-political, as in today's column, and never, ever funny. So what happened, and whatever it was, why is the Times still publishing her columns? Surely there's someone younger and sharper who can take her place.
Rumour has it that Dowd is the secret lover of the "Obituaries" editor at the Times, or rather has been, intermittently and at times at the Times. What she is doing is she's shooting for a good spot for herself on the Parnassus, (writer's hall of fame, Greek style), while disemboweling her own style as a gratis pre-work for the literary embalmers after her Earthly vessel shall have given her soul up to the North Korean Religious Left.
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