Loudy Dowdy

Maureen Dowd continues to lead the New York Times columnists in letting loose on Judith Miller. She appeared on Don Imus' radio show yesterday. Some choice quotes: Dowd: "I don't need anyone to tell me what to write. In fact, ... I never talked to Arthur or Gail Collins before I did the column. ... And I have to say Arthur is taking a lot of heat this week but he is fantastic -- and Gail Collins also -- about letting us all feel that we have the independence to write what we want and there won't be any repercussions. And he's a great publisher that way. And all the suggestions that there was a conspiracy of silence among the columnists -- the reason I hadn't written about was because just like everyone else in the country and at the Times, I was just really confused about where Fitzgerald was going and Judy's role. And even when you read her own account it was confusing. So it wasn't that there was any pressure by the paper." "Judy does have a history of dating powerful men. For three decades, it goes back. ... I love the New York Post ... but I just hate that when the right wants to attack -- when you do columns of substance -- ... they attack your love life. Rush Limbaugh does that to me. I just think it's something as a woman you have to go through that David Brooks doesn't go through. ... I think it diminishes the problem with Judy and Scooter to say they were involved. ... It's just because Judy has a history with powerful men that people say that about her. I think it's pretty sexist. I'm going to defend her." more after the jump (thanks to the Hotline for providing this) Don Imus: "You're worse than I am. ... Just because she has a reputation of being a slut doesn't mean she was in this case." Dowd: "I didn't use that word." Imus: "I did. ... No, but that's what you're saying." Dowd: "No, what I'm saying people who whisper there may have been some involvement, I just don't think that's accurate and Judy has a right to be angry." Asked about the time Miller demanded the NYT's seat at a WH briefing, Dowd: "Here's my point about that. ... I didn't care. I thought it was funny. ... It was funny that someone would be so inappropriate in the middle of a White House briefing. ... I just liked the novelistic qualities. ... The reason I told that was to show that Judy -- in large ways and small ways -- has always had boundary problems. ... She cannot be stopped -- that's her talent and her flaw. And she has a lot of these, you know, inappropriate boundary issues and I think that's what got her in trouble with these scams." Dowd, on why she wrote about Miller: "I've been writing about the fake WMDs rush to war. ... These are issues I've always written about. And the phantom player in a lot of these columns was Judy. ... And I just felt like I owed it to my readers -- once Judy wrote her piece -- to provide the missing link."

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Loudy Dowdy

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