Maureen Dowd gets off a good line

I have occasionally expressed bewilderment at Maureen Dowd, who holds the Anna Quindlen Pseudo-Catholic Chair at New York Times University. Her columns are shoddily written, too-clever-by-four-fifths screeds; indeed, I once asked, "is Maureen Dowd the dumbest prominent columnist in America, or the most prominent dumb columnist in America?"

Honesty requires me, though, to point out when she says something that is truly clever, and spirited to boot. The New York Post's gossip column says:

SEN. Zell Miller (D-Ga.) laced into New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd yesterday on the "Imus in the Morning" radio show, saying, "The more Maureen Loud [sic] gets on 'Meet the Press' and writes those columns, the redder these states get. I mean, they don't want some highbrow hussy from New York City explaining to them that they're idiots and telling them that they're stupid." Miller also suggested "that red-headed woman at the New York Times" should not mock anyone's religion: "You can see horns just sprouting up through that Technicolor hair." Dowd responds: "I'm not a highbrow hussy from New York. I'm a highbrow hussy from Washington. Senator, pistols or swords?"