The XX Factor: What women really think.

Keep It Simple, MoDo

Like Slate's Jack Shafer, I'm curious to see whether Maureen Dowd uses her next Times column to address the mini-plagiarism scandal surrounding her last one (Dowd admitted to unintentionally lifting a paragraph from Talking Points Memo blogger Josh Marshall, blaming the confusion on a conversation with a friend who quoted the passage to her without attribution.) But I can't agree with Shafer that Dowd's explanation sounds "plausible—if a tad incomplete." Her account of how Marshall's observation found its way into her column is patently absurd. Unless the friends in question are... (To read the rest of this post, visit our new website DoubleX.com!)