Readers have been curious to see if Times columnist Marueen Dowd would address the controversy that blossomed after she lifted a paragraph from Talking Points Memo and ran it in her column. She claimed the act was inadvertent and that a friend had emailed her the passage without telling her it was from TPM.

Readers are still wondering if Dowd will address the issue because her column hasn't run in the newspaper since May 20. Blogger Dan Kennedy wondered if there was a connection there and emailed the Times' spokeswoman for a response, which came back as this:

Maureen is on vacation. Since she didn't do anything wrong, there would be no reason for a suspension.

She didn't do anything wrong? As Kennedy notes, that's not the conclusion that the Times' own public editor came to when he looked into the facts. Clark Hoyt wrote:

Andrew Rosenthal, the editorial page editor, said journalists collaborate and take feeds from each other all the time. That is true with news articles, but readers have a right to expect that even if an opinion columnist like Dowd tosses around ideas with a friend, her column will be her own words. If the words are not hers, she must give credit.