Is it unkind to suggest that were she to hand her columns, unsigned, to the editor of a minor magazine at any of the nation's lesser provincial universities they would be deemed unpublishable? One need make no great claims for oneself to suggest that the pages of the New York Times could be filled with better stuff than this.

I mean, all newspapers print loopy nonsense a lot of the time. There's too much space to fill for this not to be true. But there is loopyness that, however barkingly, is trying to make a point and there's loopyness that rambles on without ever threatening to hit upon an argument, let alone blunder into anything so recherche as an insight.

Putting Dowd behind a subscription wall remains both ... a demonstration of a complete lack of business acumen and an extraordinary act of charity.