You be the judge. How many times has this happened at the NY Times? Can’t they keep their writers in line?
Dowd’s excuse? A friend told her the line but didn’t mention that it wasn’t original:

i was talking to a friend of mine Friday about what I was writing 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.

Um…line? More like a paragraph. Not very believable that someone could remember the quote in that level of detail (unless they were from the ancient Near East 🙂