So says her pal on the NYT Op-ed page, Gail Collins. No really. Plus this: “She [MoDo] works really, really, really hard, and she mines the territory that she's writing about with great skill and great effort.”

Like when the often painful-to-read MoDo wanted to take the temperature of race relations in the nation's capitol following Obama's election and she tried to engage her “cute black mailman” in small talk? Was that what Collins had in mind when she claimed her friend “works really, really, really hard”?

Or when she invented a John Kerry quote during the 2004 campaign? Was that why Collins announced MoDo was a “stupendous reporter"?

If Collins wants to defend Dowd from the common accusation that her column is a joke and a long-running embarrassment to the Times, than sure, that's what good friends do. But trying to suggest that the often fact-free, and certainly policy-free, Dowd is some sort of hard-working super sleuth, well that just spreads the embarrassment around.