I'm glad it's you and not me who has to read Ms. Dowd's output. I decided a while back that life is too short to waste time reading drivel. She's great at turning clever phrases, but her basic principle is cynicism. What is she trying to persuade us other than that we can't trust anybody.
Nice foundation for a democracy.

Once upon a time, Dowd's column was the principle reason I bought the New York Times, but something happened to her after 9/11. Her columns stopped making sense. She would write eloquently about the evil of terrorism, but seemed confused when it came to doing something about it. It's as if she's determined to keep living in a pre-Sept 11 world, when it was so easy to lampoon the President as a goofy dumb rich kid. But the world is different now, and the goofy dumb rich kid proved to be more than adequate when it came to dealing with terrorists. Dowd just can't accept that, and it's affecting her judgment - and her writing - terribly. I wish she would get over it, because she really is a delight to read when she's in good form.

Thanks Syd, I think you're right about when she went badly astray - odd how things affect people.

AST, I actually rarely read her anymore, I saw just the headline about blogging and assumed she was going to screw that one up, and was surprised when she didn't. Then I read today's and saw all the usual sins. But the blogging column gives some hope...

Eric - I fully agree with you on the MoDowd glackout column. But I disagree with you on her blog cloumn. I think Mo was making fun of blogs in general. Her take wasn't that just the Demo candidates blogs were lame, but that the idea of the unenlightened doing blogs was lame.